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.).
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We’ve been eating a LOT of cereal these days. Somewhat because I’m moving more slowly and am more tired now that I’m in the third trimester so it’s an easy snack/meal, but also because I keep getting great deals on it and cereal/milk are one of the few things that don’t give me heartburn!
(I didn’t get a picture of these groceries before the kids already got into the cereal & milk!)
Kroger Shopping Trip #1
- 1 gallon milk — $2.69
- 2 tubes Colgate toothpaste — $1.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $4/2 Kroger digital coupon = free after coupons
- 1 box Raisin Bran — $1.79 when you buy 5 participating items
- 2 boxes Cheerios — $1.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $1/2 Kroger digital coupon = $1.49 each after coupons
- Total with tax: $8.49
I was so excited that Kroger had butter on sale for $1.99 again this week! We still have 4 pounds in the freezer from the last sale, but you can bet I went ahead and got 5 more pounds to stock the freezer!
Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- 2 loaves Bakery French Bread — marked down to $0.89 each
- 1 bag of pears — marked down to $0.99
- 2 jars of cinnamon/nutmeg — $1 each
- 1 3-lb. bag of Navel oranges — $1.99
- 2 bags of frozen Broccoli/Cauliflower — $1/bag
- 5 packages of sausage — $1.88 each with Friday-Saturday Kroger digital coupon
- 1 dozen eggs — $2.50
- Milk — $2.99
- 5 pounds of butter — $1.99 each with Friday-Saturday Kroger digital coupon
- Total with tax: $35.70
Since we had about $26 left in our grocery budget, I decided to run by Aldi on Saturday after Silas’ baseball practice. I was hoping to pick up some cereal and cheese. I let Silas add up the amount of the our purchases as we added things to the cart and he made sure we stayed within our budget. He did a great job of doing the mental math!
Aldi Shopping Trip
- Chocolate Chip — $1.69
- Dried Cranberries — $1.29
- 2 Cinnamon Crunch cereal — $1.39 each
- 3 boxes of Macaroni & Cheese — $0.33 each
- 6-pack of Peach Tea — $3.99
- Eggs — $0.58
- Baby Carrots — $0.89
- 2 Honey Crunch Oats cereal — $1.29
- Milk — $2.49
- Frosted Flakes — $2.29
- 2 packages cheese — $1.69 each
- Total with tax: $24.55
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/Snacks: Leftovers, Salad, Apples/Peanut Butter, Mac & Cheese, Danimals, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, Scrambled Eggs, Cookies, Chips, Random other markdowns/sale items 🙂
Dinners:
Sunday — Frozen Pizza
Monday — Quiche (used marked down pie crust, mixed veggies, ground beef, eggs, spices), Apple Turnover (used marked down pie crust)
Tuesday — Instant Pot Apples, Pumpkin Waffles, Sausage
Wednesday — Chicken Noodle Soup, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Thursday — Parmesan Chicken, Rice Pilaf, Peas, Biscuits
Friday — Leftover Buffet, Oranges (Jesse was out of town)
Saturday — Frozen Pizza, Salad (Jesse was out of town)
Margaux says
That’s a lot of cereal! How do you balance shopping between Kroger and Aldi?
Crystal Paine says
I usually go to Kroger (since I drive by it almost every day and can get such great deals there and if often is the same or even beats out most Aldi prices), but if I’m going to be driving near Aldi and I have money left in the budget and time to stop in, I will. It just depends upon my plans for the week, what the deals are like at Kroger, and how much time I have. There are a few things I can routinely get less expensive at Aldi, but they usually don’t merit a special trip unless I’m going to be driving close to it.