We Spent $56.49 on Groceries This Week (+ here’s what we ate)

I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

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I got back from my girls’ beach trip on Sunday night and we left last night (Thursday night) for a family road trip to AL, MS, and LA. We are staying at hotels that offer free breakfast and then we brought much of our food and snacks, so we don’t plan to spend that much extra on food on this trip.

However, we’re under-budget again this week, so I’m using the extra $39 we had in grocery money last week to cover an extra dinner out for our road trip.

Note: When you see the groceries and meals below, please remember this: I buy ahead often. Which means that when I find a great deal on something I know we’ll use, I buy as much as I can afford in our budget to have on hand.

This means that you aren’t going to see all of the groceries in these shopping trips that I used to make all of the meals we ate. And  it also means we didn’t use all of these groceries up this week — because some of them will be saved for later weeks!

Please also remember that I’m putting this out there and it’s not a perfectly balanced menu. This is just really what we ate — and I hope that it encourages you to see the real-ness and lack of perfection here. ?

Kroger Shopping Trip #1

• 4 Simple Truth yogurts — marked down to $0.49 each
• Kroger Cream Cheese — $1.19
• Oui yogurts — marked down to $1.19
• Kroger Whipping Cream — $1.99
• Kroger Lemon Juice — $1.39
• Salad Kit — marked down to $1.89
• 1 bag of red peppers — marked down to $0.99
• 1 bag of nectarines and apples — marked down to $0.99
• Simple Truth Eggs — $1
• Simple Truth Eggs — marked down to $0.49
• Total with tax: $16.65

Kroger Shopping Trip #2

• 5 dozen Simple Truth Eggs — marked down to $0.49 per dozen
• 2 bags of cinnamon/raisin bagels — marked down to $1.49 each
• 3 Simple Truth yogurts — marked down to $0.49 each
• Oui Yogurts — marked down to $1.19 each, used $0.30/1 Kroger digital coupon
• Artisan Lettuce — marked down to $1.49
• 2 bags of grapefruit/oranges — marked down to $0.99 each
• 1 bag of apples — marked down to $0.99
• Stayfree pads — $1.79 when you buy 5 participating products, used $1/1 Kroger digital coupon, got $0.50 back from iBotta rebate = $0.39
• 4 Suave Shampoo/Conditioner — $1.99 each when you buy 5 participating products, used $3/2 Kroger digital coupon + $1/1 coupon that Kroger had sent to me (I should have just bought 3 bottles — for some reason, I got mixed up and thought it was a $1/2 coupon… oh well!) = $0.99 each
• 2 Speedstick deodorant — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating products
• 2 Gillette Shave Gel — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating products
• Colgate toothpaste — $1.99 when you buy 5 participating products
• 2 Suave Kids’ Body Wash — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items
• 2 Huggies Baby Wipes — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $0.50/2 Kroger digital coupon = $0.74 each after coupon
• 2 Honey Nut Cheerios — $1.79 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $1/2 Kroger digital coupon = $1.29 each after coupon
• 4 packages of Goldfish — $0.99 each when you 5 participating items
• 8 boxes of Quaker Granola bars — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items
• 2 packages of Oscar Mayer lunch meat — $2.79 each when you buy 5 participating items
• Used $10/$40 coupon that Kroger mailed to me recently (make sure you always have your address correct on the Kroger site — they often mail out great coupons!
• Total with tax: $39.84

The best deal of the week by far (at least to me!) was the Simple Truth Cage-Free Eggs for $0.49!!!!! I have never seen cage free eggs this inexpensive and was so excited for this deal!

Since we already had 4 dozen eggs from recent deals, I shared two dozen with a friend and we plan to have lots of scrambled eggs, fried eggs, and hard boiled eggs over the next 2-3 weeks.

I don’t usually freeze eggs, because we can easily eat through 3 dozen in a week, but I will be making French Toast or Egg Casserole if we really need to use them up and aren’t seeming to eat through them quickly enough. I never have had any issue keeping eggs in the fridge for 2-3 weeks past their sell by date, so I’m not too worried about us being able to use them before they go bad.

I was also excited because I earned 436 points on Fetch Rewards for my second shopping trip! If you haven’t signed up for Fetch Rewards yet, I highly recommend signing up and scanning your receipts. It’s such an easy-peasy way to earn free gift cards!

(Want more details on Fetch Rewards and how it works? Read this post on How I Earned $5 in Free Gift Cards in 3 Weeks — just for scanning my grocery receipts.)

What I Spent This Week

Total spent: $56.49

Cashback Earned This Week: 461 points from Fetch Rewards for scanning my receipts + I earned $0.60 back from iBotta for scanning my receipt and purchasing Stayfree.

What We Ate This Week

Breakfasts:

• Cereal, Oatmeal, Scrambled Eggs, Banana Bread with Peanut Butter (Everyone is on their own for breakfast!)

Lunches:

• Hard Boiled Eggs, Avocados, Salad, Grapefruit, Cottage Cheese, Lunch out with a friend (she insisted that she pay for my lunch!), Apples, Pumpkin Waffles (Jesse & Me)
• Turkey Sandwiches, Fruit, Veggies, Banana Bread, Granola Bars, Yogurt, Cookies, Capri Sun (For the kids — They are in charge of their own lunches.)

Snacks:

• Banana Bread, Oreo Cheesecake (that Kaitlynn made), Yogurt, Cottage Cheese, Fruit/Veggies, Cookies, Hard Boiled Eggs, Turmeric Milk

Dinners:

• Saturday: Jesse and the kids went over to our friends’ house for dinner since I was gone
• Sunday: Leftovers/Fend For Yourself
• Monday: Sausage/Peppers/Onions in the Crockpot
• Tuesday: Fend For Yourself (Silas had a baseball game) — The kids had cereal, I had a muffin, egg, and apple, Jesse can’t remember what he ate!
• Wednesday: Pumpkin Pancakes (recipe coming this next week on the blog — these were a hit!)
• Thursday: Lasagna Casserole (from the freezer) Salad
• Friday: Dinner Out