We stopped at the health food store, Aldi and Dillon’s today. Here’s what we bought:
Health Food Store Shopping Trip:
4 bags of chips marked down to $0.99 each
2 bags of Edamame marked down to $0.99 each
1 bag of Rudi’s hot dog buns marked down to $0.99
1.81 lbs. Pears — $0.99/lb.
3.89 lbs. of Pink Lady Apples — $0.99/lb.
6.7 lbs. of Blue-taped marked down organic bananas — $0.39 per pound
1 Brown Cow yogurt — marked down to $1.99
Total: $18.37
Aldi Shopping Trip:
Corn Chips — $0.99
Tomatoes — $0.99 per bag
Cantaloupe — $1.49
Tortillas — $0.99
Carrots — $0.99
Cheese — $1.99
Freezer Bags — $1.89
Onions — $0.69
Corn — $0.99
Total: $12.88
Dillon’s Shopping Trip:
Watermelon — $3.99
2 heads of lettuce — $1.89 each
3 (1+ pound) packages of ground beef — $3.69/lb.
Total: $23.26
And other than a trip to Target to pick up some of the deals, I think we’re set for the week. In case you missed it, our weekly menu plan is here.
Ground Beef – What I’ve done is purchase a brisket (usually $1.89 – $2.29) & have the butcher grind it into HB. It does have more fat than the extra lean HB. But it’s good for chili (I only add a little olive oil to skillet to get it going), taco meat, and meat patties for meat balls & spaghetti, as well as other HB dishes. I can get 10-12 pkgs of HB out of on brisket – package it into freezer bags as soon as I get home & quick freeze immediately. Even made some HB patties, wrapped them in plastic wrap & froze on cookie sheet, then packed them into freezer bags.
Have been quite satisfied w/this process. No “brown” looking HB in middle of HB pkgs purchased at store. Your butcher may trim off some of the excess fat if you ask him.
Just an idea – it works for me.
I’m jealous of the deals from the health food store! We don’t have anything that great around here…Health food stores are so expensive here & having to live gluten free, soy free and dairy free is soooo expensive sometimes. Azure Standard doesn’t have a drop off here, either 🙁
The organic lettuce at my local Whole Foods was $3.99 A HEAD!! Your ground beef is a little higher than ours. It is generally $3.50 or so a pound but prefer to buy it a lot less at Sams’s Club.
wow! thats amazing.. Unfortunately I could never ever get items for those low prices here in Connecticut. Even at Aldi lol
I just found this small little spanish grocery..they have Boar Head meats and fantastic prices.
I bought ground beef at $1.89/lb!!! I was sooo happy.
Don’t discount those little stores or produce stores..sometimes they have a butcher and the prices are really good, especially when it is on sale.
It is a big inital payout, but here in Western Kansas, we buy a half side of beef at once and then freeze it in our large deep freeze. It will last my family of 5 almost one year, so the $500 – $800 payout (depending on weight) is definintely worth it – so long you really like eating red meat. Another plus is you can have it processed anyway you like, including steaks and roasts that can get VERY expensive at the grocery store.
I’ve just noticed that a lot of times the items you purchase are extremely ripe or nearing expiration date. What do you do with it all so that it doesn’t go bad?
Anyone know a great place to purchase half a cow in the Louisville, KY area? We are newer to this area and I am having a hard time finding an affordable option.
Many thanks,
Rachel
Rachel–I just moved to Louisville and have been wondering the same thing! We have found some great farmer’s markets (where we found a great farmer to purchase 1/2 of a cow from in the city we moved from). There are several local markets on Bardstown Rd. in the highlands on Saturdays–I bet you could find a farm at one of them.
You had a great shopping day. I would love to see the meal plan for these items. Does it include breakfast, lunch and snacks? I admire women like you. I’m the money manager in our home and the job is quite easy for me. My greatest weakness is meal plans and shopping. I don’t like any kind of shopping but trying to plan a budget meal that is pleasing to eat is sooo hard for me. Other areas of shopping with a shoe string budget even when I don’t need to are easy and actually fun. I can out fit myself regularly or even a whole cast for a play from the Goodwill and look awesome. I do the same for decorating my home but the whole food area is a challenge:( Right now I use http://www.e-mealz.com. She plans my menus and gives me a shopping list for $5 a month. The total cost is usually around $80 for the week for a family of 4 but what you’re doing looks even better! You’re amazing.
The meal plan is linked at the bottom of the post. I plan based upon what I already have on hand and we buy ahead, so not everything needed for the meal plan is included in the photo because we already had many things on hand.
You have made an excellent choice for you! Because the food area is such a challenge for you, you could easily spend twice what you do now if you tried to do it yourself. $5.00 a month is a very reasonable price to pay for support in this area and $80.00 a week for groceries isn’t bad at all!! You have sought what works for you to best provide for your family and I’d say you are successful 😀
Any tips on finding a similar type health food store in different area? I can’t seem to find any that sell groceries like that. I live just outside Atlanta, so I imagine they are here somewhere!
If there are local farms around, try them for fruit and veges. I can get a case of 2nds (not bad at all, just not the perfect shape) of apples, peaches, etc for $6. When grapes are in season, we can cut those for 50c a pound. I share your sentiments about Aldi and Amelias, and it seems like you can’t get near the amount what you used to when you go shopping. Somebody forgot to tell my husband’s employer that inflation hit the supermarket, too! Thankful that God provides, though, and gives me great deals along the way! 🙂
My Aldi gave out a $10/$40 coupon this week and I’ll submit my receipt for a $10 Corona rebate, so I only paid $28 for $48 worth of groceries this week 🙂 That was a “large” purchase for me, as I usually only run in for a few items there once a month. I was reminded what great products and prices Aldi has. Some prices have increased but still less than my other grocery stores.
Great deal on the edamame! My kids and I love them! They keep raising the price on them though – the same bags are almost $4 in my area.
Been loving Aldi lately! Haven’t had a lot of time to clip, sort and then keep on top of the coupons – so Aldi has been a blessing!
I just LOVE when couponers post their healthy deals! Too often I see couponers stocking up on chips, soda, and candy. I’m new to couponing and pass up many deals because of the quality of “food”. Just because you can get it for free or nearly free does not mean you should put it into your body. I just may have to link this post on a future article I’m doing on groceries.
Thanks for making my day with the health food post 🙂 Keep’em coming!
try the local farmers markets! not only is the produce and meat homegrown, it is healthier:-) no, not cheaper probably, but if you watch Food, Inc., you will be happy to pay alot for beef…LOL!
The Sterling Silver beef is the best we’ve been able to find that comes close to grass-fed beef. We’re supposed to be getting part of a cow from a local farmer really soon, so I bought some meat to tide me over until then. I’m excited!
You can check to see where the farmer will process the meat (unless he does it himself) and see if they sell hamburger by the lb. Our local processing store (where people bring in their deer meat and cow meat) sells hamburger and it is great quality (almost no fat). And it is $2.69/lb. A lot cheaper (and tastes better!) than the stores.
The farmer we’re getting it from is a few hours away so not really conducive to just buying a few pounds at a time. 🙂 I’ve searched high and low for a local source for grass-fed ground beef for less than $4/lb. and have yet to find one.
I would agree. I’m thankful ours is local. (Although, it was one of those things where I drove past the store for years, and I didn’t know they sold hamburger until about 4 months ago.) 🙂
Oh and many farmer’s markets actually have a lot of conventionally-grown stuff, so you want to be careful. Just because you find it at the Farmer’s Market doesn’t mean someone grew it in their backyard; sometimes it’s the same stuff sold at the grocery store!
UGH!! I recently learned this and was soooo irritated!! I live in a small farming community and was shopping one of the local farmers little stores that they have….when I saw a produce company truck drive up and make a delivery!!! I was so mad. Obviously most people were shopping there thinking we were getting goood quality, locally grown produce and we were NOT!
Rachael,
Check the guidelines and policies of your local farmers markets. Alot of our farmers do sell to the grocers and the stores are great about posting the farm name and location. You may see large trucks delivering produce as farmers do have refrigerated, larger sized trucks in order to transport to the markets. Aske them!!! Most are more than happy to have a chat and talk about their farms and farming practices:-)
Was it a chain produce company? It may still be local. My husband is a farmer and sells large truck loads of his produce to a produce processing company, which turns around and trucks quite a bit of it locally.
This is SO frustrating and so true! The city we just moved from had three farmer’s markets, but one had all local policies–the food had to be grown or made within fifty miles. The market made visits to each farm or merchant before allowing them to sell at the market to make sure they were actually local and going by the standards that they set up (humanely raised meat, organically grown if they advertised organically grown). It was fabulous shopping there knowing that everything at every booth was local. But the other farmer’s markets had TONS of shipped in produce–I would sometimes see Dole pineapples and things like that that I knew weren’t being grown in my home state of KY! The local market was a little more pricey, but it was worth it knowing that all of the vendors were actually local farmers and merchants and not just re-sellers.
I am very disappointed to hear that some Farmer’s Markets have conventionally grown items or sell items that are not local. I helped to organize and start a Farmer’s Market here in my small town. It’s all volunteer run and all of our vendors are local small town farmers. They only sell what is in season – what was freshly picked that morning or the night before. Some weeks they have more to offer depending on what was harvested. Unfortunately the state of NJ is an expensive place to farm as land prices and property taxes are crazy. Our state puts very strict guidelines on our farmers and our small farmers can not afford to be an “Official” organic fram even though none of them use any pesticides. The prices are about teh same as Whole Foods – sometimes a little cheaper. I pay $4.00 a pound for local grass fed beef (the farm is only two miles from our house and is a town’s historic preservation project) My children have had fun trying out heirloom produce like Chioggia beets. They have learned (and me too!) that carrots can be purple and many other colors. Thanks you Crystal and your blog for helping me to save money on our everyday products so I have the money to splurge a little on these great products at our Farmer’s Market. I love helping out these small farmers and it’s nice to talk to the owners who are passionate about what they produce.
I feel a little lucky for having fiesta mart here in Houston Texas. The price of meat there are really cheap. We eat rice twice daily everyday! So it’s really hard to plan menu.we have $200 monthly budget for 4. About 2 weeks ago,I did my monthly shopping trip, I spent $95 on 8 family size packages of meat(beef,chicken,pork),vegetables,fruits,pantry essentials,good for our 1 month menu.next stop is walmart,I did most price matched and used coupons. I got fruits,pantry essentials,bathroom essentials vegetables,frozen and fresh,canned goods for $72. So thats $169 for our 1 month budget for 4 people.
That’s incredible, Raquel! Way to take care of your family! ☺
Wow. That is good. We only spend about $70 a week on groceries for 3 of us. We could probably spend a lot less if we had freezer space to stock up on good deals.
From this viewpoint, your Aldi prices are incredible. $.99 for an entire bag of tomatoes? $.99 for tortillas? $1.49 for whole cantaloupe? I might give my right arm to live in Aldi-land. We make due…but not nearly as good as the deals you’re able to shop. Teensy bit jealous ;o)
I was so excited about that tomato price. And yes, at $0.99 for tortillas, you can see what I don’t make them!
https://moneysavingmom.com/2010/09/why-i-dont-make-homemade-tortillas.html
I wish I could send some Aldi stores down your way! 🙁
I moved from Missouri to Louisiana 8 months ago, and I SOOOOO miss Aldi. 🙁
I am literally spending twice as much on groceries as I was prior to moving. Milk is almost double, no bread store, no good coupon stores… I live in the sticks too and actually bought the little bit of groceries that I needed this morning at Dollar General so I wouldn’t have to burn 7 bucks’ worth of gas to go into town!
I REALLY live in the sticks, I have to burn $30 worth of gas to drive into town to get groceries!! It has to be a really good coupon week to get me there 🙂 And I just moved here from Houston where everything was literally at my doorstep!!
I used to love going to aldi for things like cheese and basic produce, but on my last two trips, the prices at our aldi has gone up substantially–it’s not worth the extra gas and time to make the trek to aldi. I paid 3.99/lb. for local ground beef at whole foods last week–it’s actually gone down just a little at our local whole foods. I LOVE it when I find super ripe bananas marked down–my kiddos eats the mess out of bananas, so they never last long enough to get ripe enough for me to bake with unless I find them nice and brown like yours 🙂
I agree with you.. i went for a few odds and ends yesterday and my total was $45. I just about fell over. I was like “but I”m at Aldi!!!!”
I still like going to aldi, especially for things like snacks for my daughter, beans, and produce. We don’t eat meat and buying enough veggies each week for our family gets very expensive. Yet, I agree with you in that the prices now mimic walmart at best. We make a once a week stop by just to pick up a few things, I try to keep it at 12 dollars. Our produce used to be good and now it doesn’t seem to be what it was a few months ago. You would think June would yield better produce than February! Oh well!
I just had to gasp at the price for beef there, here in OKC I’m paying $1.99/lb for 80/20! Ouch!
I was thinking the same. Fortunately I got it on sale for $2.99/lb the other day (93% lean), but it’s crazy these days. I remember when I first got married and could go to WalMart early in the mornings and snag all the reduced-for-quick-sale meat for 50 cents a pound ~ even the ground sirloin and extra lean.
love the produce this time of year! Too bad beef has to be so expensive. Last year I got it for 1.98/lb (93% lean).