Want to see what we bought for this week’s $70 grocery budget? I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).
For live updates, be sure to follow my Instagram Stories. See all posts on my $70 Grocery Budget here.
I was excited to find some great deals at Kroger, be able to stock up on a few things, and stay under budget. Here’s what we bought this week:
Kroger Shopping Trip #1:
- 4 boxes Creamette Pasta — $0.49 each with the Kroger digital coupon
- Duncan Hines Microwave Cakes (I thought these would be fun to have for a movie night!) — marked down to $0.39 each
- Kroger Hashbrowns — $1.79
- Fresh Salsa — marked down to $0.99
- 1 bag of apples — marked down to $0.99
- 3 jars Kroger peanut butter — $0.99 each after Kroger digital coupon
- 1 jar natural Kroger peanut butter — $1.79
- Kroger cheese (16 oz.) — $3.99
- Pillsbury Pie Crust — marked down to $0.99
- 3-lb bag of Gala apples — $3.99
- 2 lbs ground beef — marked down to $1.99 each
- 3 bottles Odwalla juice — marked down to $0.99 each
- 2 boxes Kroger cereal — $1.49 each
- Milk — $2.79
- Half & Half — $1.99
- Total with tax: $38.38
Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- 2 boxes Kroger cereal — $1.49 each
- Hostess Cupcake Dessert Mix — marked down to $0.39
- 2 cans Chef Boyardee — marked down to $0.19 each
- Simple Truth Refried Beans — marked down to $0.39
- 4 bags Kroger Frozen Veggies — $1 each
- Lemi-Shine Dishwasher Tabs — marked down to $0.89
- 5 packages of Pampers wipes — $0.99 each with Friday-Saturday digital coupon
- 2 Stayfree pads — $1.69 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $3/2 Kroger digital coupon = $0.19 each
- 2 Suave shampoo/conditioner — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $1/2 Kroger digital coupon = $0.49 each
- Kellogg’s Raisin Bran — $1.79 when you buy 5 participating items
- Milk — $2.99
- Simple Truth Eggs — marked down to $1.49
- Total with tax: $29.86
Our Menu Plan This Week
Note: When you see the 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 my shopping trip that I used to make all of the meals we ate.
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.
Breakfasts: Cereal
Lunches: Leftovers, Salad, Apples/Peanut Butter, Mac & Cheese, Yogurt, Cookies, Chips, Random other markdowns/sale items 🙂
Dinners:
Sunday: Leftovers + Mac & Cheese
Monday: Breakfast Casserole (recipe sent to me by a follower)
Tuesday: Fend for yourself + leftovers
Wednesday: Tyson Anytizers, Broccoli, Brown Rice
Thursday: Chicken Tetrazinni, Green Beans, Bran Muffins
Friday: Pumpkin Waffles, Bacon (Jesse & I went out to dinner with a gift card we were given by his parents — we’re trying to get in some dates before the baby gets here!)
Saturday: Dinner out (Kathrynne had an out of town basketball tournament)
Thanks for these posts! We have six people in our family and eat almost entirely organic and I have a super-specific diet because I’m a cancer survivor, and we live in a high cost of living area (Southern California)… so I’ve been really trying to stick to a $175/week budget + $175 a month at Costco.
I share this because even though that’s a lot more than you, it still takes some effort to stick to that amount – we would naturally settle in at more like $300 a week and a couple $300-400 Costco visits, if I wasn’t intentional about how we shop. Thank you for your encouragement in inspiring me to stick to a budget that works for us!
One tip that helps me a lot: I divide my shopping list by section of the grocery store: produce, bakery/bread, freezer, meat, shelves, and dairy (cheese, milk, eggs). Then I take my given amount to spend for the week (usually $175, but maybe a little more or less depending on our other spending that month), and I write how much I can spend per category: $50 for produce, $10 in the bakery/cereal/bread section, $20 in dairy, and so on.
I like it because it keeps me focused in that area of the grocery store, and it also keeps our eating a bit balanced: we don’t blow all our money on baked goods and then not have any fresh produce, for example.
It’s a strategy that’s working well for me lately!
Thank you so much for sharing what is working for you!
Love this and your whole blog. I was so excited to find out there was a Kroger in the town I grocery shop at. I’ve saved so much money shopping their with the markdowns. I menu plan, shop my freezer/pantry first, shop for 2 weeks at a time, scratch cook as much as possible and shop from 3 different stores. We hit Kroger first, then Aldi and then Walmart making a big circle. We have a family of 6 and budget $150 per week including toiletries, cleaning supplies and dog food (2 German shepards and a Chiweenie).
Woohoo!! I’m so proud of you!
I try so hard every week to use only $100 for our groceries but always go over. We are a fsmily of five. Do you have any tips for not going over your grocery budget? Thanks!
Have you ever tried only bringing cash (in the amount of your grocery budget) to the store for a few months? That’s one surefire way to make sure you don’t go over your budget. Also, I add up my total as I add the items to the cart and I’ll put things back if I’m going to be over the total.
I really need to start tracking our food budget. There’s no way on earth I could get it to $70 with a family of six and two teenagers (the 14 year old boy is a bottomless pit and surprisingly the 3 year old isn’t much better).
You might be surprised what you can do! I’m not saying $70/week, but I would challenge you to change your mindset from “there’s no way I could do that!” to “What can I do??” A can do, creative, committed attitude can rock your world — and your grocery budget!
I stayed at 80 then another 20 so 100 a week for 4 still trying to lower but I have picky eaters
Great job!
So, you have inspired me to work on my food budget. I don’t know if I’ll make $70 a week, but I spent $95 including cat litter (which every week I spent $10-$20 on cat food and litter). But I made 6 freezer meals and 4 lunches for myself. I have lots of ingredients to make other things as well as fruits and veggies. I’ve learned to make my own yogurt and crackers. My goal is $125 or less each week and trying for $100. Thanks for sharing.
Woohoo!! I’m so grateful that this has inspired you!