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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We got back from Kansas late, late Sunday night. Well, actually it was early Monday morning because our flights got delayed for a total of 9 hours.
Unlike the last 3 weeks where I was traveling each weekend, this week, we were home all week and didn’t travel this weekend — which was nice! After three weeks of back to back travel, it was nice to have a week at home where we ate dinner at home together and got to just hang out together in the evenings!
Kroger Trip #1:
- 6 Kroger Moose Tracks yogurt — marked down to $0.29 each
- 1 JetPuffed Marshmallows — $1.25, use $1/1 Kroger Digital Coupon = $0.25 after coupons
- 2 Kroger canned Pumpkin — $0.99 each
- 1 King Arthur Flour — $4.19
- 6 packages of Turkey Breast — on closeout for $2 each
- 4 packages of Goldfish crackers — $0.99 each when you purchase 5 participating items
- 1 VeggieChips — $0.99 each when you purchase 5 participating items
- 2 Suave Kids Shampoo — $0.99 each when you purchase 5 participating items, used $1/2 Kroger Digital Coupon = $0.49 each after coupon
- 1 Suave Kids Body Wash — $0.99 each when you purchase 5 participating items, used $0.50/1 Kroger Digital Coupon = $0.49 after coupon
- 4 Suave Professionals Shampoo — $1.99 each when you purchase 5 participating items, used 2 $3/2 Kroger Digital coupon = $0.49 each after coupon
- Colgate Toothpaste — $1.99 each when you purchase 5 participating items, used $2/1 Kroger Digital coupon = free after coupon
- 2 Speedstick deodorant — $0.99 each when you purchase 5 participating items
- Half & Half — $1.99
- 2 cantaloupe — marked down to $0.99 each
- 2 bags of apples — marked down to $0.99 per bag
- 1 bag of plums — marked down to $0.99 per bag
- 1 bag of avocados — marked down to $0.99 per bag
- 3 grapefruit — marked down to $0.99 total
- Used $10/$40 coupon (that Kroger sent me in the mail)
- Total with tax: $36.44
Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- Dole Chopped Salad — marked down to $1.89
- 2 loaves of bread — marked down to $1.79 each
- Chorizo — used Free Friday coupon
- 5 packages of Oscar Mayer Beef Dogs — $1.99 each with Friday and Saturday Digital Coupon deal
- 5 Red Baron Pizzas — $1.99 each with Friday and Saturday Digital Coupon deal
- Wasabi Sauce — on closeout for $1.24
- Surimi — marked down to $1.99
- 1 bag of apples — marked down to $0.99
- 1 bag of Anjou Pears — $1.99, used $0.50/1 Kroger Digital coupon = $1.49
- Total with tax: $33.02
A friend of mine — who is a sourdough expert — gave me some sourdough starter and I’m having fun learning how to feed it an use it.
I was happy with how the sourdough pancakes turned out, but the sourdough bread didn’t quite turn out how I had envisioned it — though it wasn’t terrible. I’m excited to keep experimenting!
I was excited to earn extra points from Fetch Rewards this week for buying Oscar Mayer, Suave, and Pepperidge Farm. Have you signed up for Fetch Rewards yet? If not, I highly recommend it. It’s such an easy way to earn cashback every week just for scanning your grocery receipts! Read more on how to sign up here.
What I Spent This Week
Total spent: $69.46
Cashback Earned This Week: 258 points + 149 points from Fetch Rewards for scanning my receipts + $0.10 for scanning my receipt on iBotta
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. 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. ?
What We Ate This Week
Breakfasts:
- Cereal, Oatmeal, Scrambled Eggs, Baked Oatmeal (from the freezer), Yogurt, English Muffins (from the freezer)
Lunches:
- Hard Boiled Eggs, Best Bran Muffins, Avocados, Salad, Grapefruit, Apples, Sourdough Bread (for Jesse and me)
- Turkey Sandwiches, Fruit, Veggies, Yogurt, Cookies, Hard Boiled Eggs (For the kids — They are in charge of their own lunches.)
Snacks:
- Best Bran Muffins, Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, Sourdough Bread, Yogurt, Fruit/Veggies, Goldfish, VeggieChips, Cookies, Hard Boiled Eggs, Turmeric Milk
Dinners:
- Saturday: Dinner with Jesse’s family (we were in KS for my sister’s wedding)
- Sunday: Dinner at the airport (our flight was delayed by 9 hours, so we ended up having to buy food at the airport)
- Monday: Turkey Meatballs from the freezer, mashed potatoes, fruit
- Tuesday: Sourdough Pancakes, eggs, fruit, yogurt
- Wednesday: Turkey, Rice, Cantaloupe
- Thursday: Sausage/Peppers/Onions in the Crockpot, cantaloupe, homemade Sourdough Bread
- Friday: Dinner Out
Hi! I totally stick with a small budget (about $65) for 4 people weekly. However toiletries and paper products take me over my budget. Do you run a separate budget for these items?
We include most all toiletries and hygiene product as part of our $70 budget.
How do you freeze the oatmeal? Need to try this ! I get so caught up meal planning I forget how simple dinners can be. Thanks for this post!
Also iBotta has a $1 rebate on that Simply Surimi!
Oh! Thank you so much for that tip!!!
Have you found a particular day and time to be the best for scoring markdowns in meat and produce at Kroger? Or is it just random?
Thank you!
I think it really depends upon your store… I’d suggest asking your produce manager and meat manager when they do markdowns. I also wrote some tips here: https://moneysavingmom.com/2018/05/find-great-markdowns-kroger.html
$69.46 for the entire family? I’m so impressed!
Hi Crystal! I have followed you for years. I have just stated watching your videos and i have always enjoyed your posts. I thinking of something you might want to mention to your viewers…I went to Kroger today to get the five packages of Oscar Meyer beef hotdogs. They were sold out and i even talked to a girl in the meat department. There are not rain checks for the Friday/Saturday items. Once they are sold out they are sold out. I thought you may want to mention this and let people know. Thanks
I’m so sorry that happened for you… I’ve mentioned it a few different times, but I know it can be easy to miss all my posts!