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.
Whew! What a wild week it’s been!
In addition to everything surrounding COVID-19… school cancellations, church cancellations, sports cancellations, my parents cancelling their trip to come see us, Kathrynne being in Suriname while all this was going down*, and just figuring out how to navigate life in the middle of all of the unknown, we’ve also personally had some pretty HUGE things happen at our house this week… namely, we said yes to fostering a newborn who was born prematurely and is currently in the NICU.
So, much of our week was spent at the NICU loving on this little baby and meeting with the social worker/DCS/the medical team and learning how to care for a medically fragile baby.
I had never stepped foot in the NICU up until 4 days ago, so it’s been a whole new experience. And of all of the weeks, this was probably one of the most unique and weird weeks to be spending a lot of time at a hospital!! (They have a screening process just to get in the door and then to get in the NICU is a whole other level!)
The nurses and staff and social worker and DCS have all been amazing throughout this process and they have taught me so much and walked alongside us so well through this new territory. Also, we are so thrilled that the baby is doing so well, has started to bottle feed a little this week, and maybe get to come home in a few weeks!
(And yes, in case you’re wondering, this means that we’re planning to have two newborns at our house soon!! The kids could not be more excited!! Of course, this is foster care, so things could always change at any time… we’re just taking one day at a time and seeking to love well in this.)
If you want to follow along with this journey, I’m sharing little peeks on my Instagram stories every day.
*As of last night, Kathrynne is currently stranded in Suriname because they closed the borders just hours before she was supposed to fly back home today! Her school is working hard to get this situation resolved ASAP and get the girls back home. In the mean time, she has such a good attitude about it all. You can read more details here.
Okay, enough of an update! Let’s talk about groceries!
We checked our stockpile and realized it was lacking in a few areas, so we shored up those areas so that we have a 30-day supply on hand — even though not everything was on sale this week.
I’m grateful that we did this earlier in the week, because our stores are pretty sold out of a lot of staple items now.
Jesse ran by Kroger on Monday to pick up a few things we needed:
Kroger Shopping Trip #1
- Potatoes — $2.49
- Milk — $2.99
- Cheese — $2.29
- 4 yogurts — marked down to $0.39 each
- Total with tax: $9.91
And then he ran by Aldi later on in the week to get a few more staple items:
Aldi Shopping Trip
- 10-lb. potatoes — $3.79
- Eggs — $0.58
- Black Beans — $2.45
- 4 boxes Mac & Cheese — $0.33 each
- Steel Cut Oats — $2.99
- Great Northern Beans — $1.69
- Milk — $2.49
- Total with tax: $16.07 (The bag of sugar had a small hole in it, so they gave it to Jesse for free!!)
Psst! Have you checked out my post on my 25 Favorite Things to Buy at Aldi?
I’m glad we got potatoes, because our store was completely sold out of them by Friday! (Who knew potatoes would be the big thing to stock up on?? That one surprised me!)
Kroger had some three-day sales that I wanted to try to take advantage of. I wasn’t sure whether they would have these items in stock when I went by on Friday night, but they did!
In thinking of making sure we have a 30-day supply of food and household items, I made sure we had enough on hand to make 30 dinners with our freezer and pantry items. I always love to have a few frozen pizzas on hand — especially for a quick dinner on busy nights or if the kids have friends over at the last minute! Yay for them being on sale for just $3.14!
Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- 2 Kroger Pizzas — $3.14 each with the three-day sale
- 2 bags of rice — $1.99 each
- 5 packages Kroger cheese — $1.29 each with the three-day sale
- Eggs — $1.19
- 3 packages strawberries — $1.67 each
- 2 bunches bananas — $2.71 total
- 5 packages Nathan Beef Franks — $1.99 each with the three-day sale
- Milk — $2.99
- Apples — $3.99
- Total with tax: $45.42
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, Banana Muffins, Danimals, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, Cookies, Pears, Yogurt, Random other markdowns/sale items 🙂
Dinners:
Sunday — Fend for yourself
Monday — Turkey Meatballs, Breaded Eggplant, Salad
Tuesday — Rotisserie Chicken, Steamed Veggies, Twice Baked Potatoes
Wednesday — Chicken Tetrazinni, Banana Muffins, Veggies
Thursday — Meatballs, Apple Crisp
Friday — Leftover Meatballs, Leftover Twice Baked Potatoes, Steamed Veggies
Saturday — Pumpkin Waffles, Bacon, Strawberries
Cashback Earned: 75 points from Fetch Rewards and $1 from iBotta
Dear Crystal- I was so thankful for the NICU 17 years ago too! The first time I discovered/learned about it was when our daughter was born in 2002. She was born at 34.5 weeks and weighed 4.8 lbs. Our hospital’s NICU was the best! So thankful the little baby your fostering is doing well and thank God for the NICUs. Have a great week-God Bless- Cheryl
(Our daughter is now 17 and finishing her senior year and preparing for college in the fall-healthy and strong)
Thank you so much for your encouragement!
I am new to your site and i DO NOT mean to be in any way offensive, or rude at all. I am just asking. But have you posted somewhere about eating store brand vs. organic or something like that. I was intrigued by the thought of $70 for groceries FOR A WEEK for a family, but I don’t eat kroger cheese! or macaroni and cheese from a box. I wish I could do this ( buying for such a small amount) but we really do not eat processed food. Please direct me to that post-
We have LOTS of posts on ways to save money on eating organic! Check out these links here: https://moneysavingmom.com/money-saving-mom-search-results/?cx=007411191005105397513%3Aunk5vrqj0se&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=organic
Prayers for both your daughter’s safe and swift return and the sweet baby entering your care!
Thank you so much!
I’m with you on the potatoes. Who knew? My local natural foods store was also sold out of broccoli, sweet potatoes, ginger, and ground turkey. Interesting to see what people are stocking up on.
I’m thinking the potatoes is because St. Patty’s Day is Tuesday. Corned beef, cabbage, carrots and potatoes anyone?
And it is comfort food/people are anxious right now
I also noticed they were almost out of rice and ramen. I guess people like their carbs?? 🙂
Potatoes last a long time, and are versatile.
Rice and ramen are shelf stable and can be cooked with only water, so are good for stockpiling.
I spent over 500 stockpiling this week, we should be good until May
YES! I just thought it was funny because that is NOT what people in this area are usually buying. And there were so many, many different shelf stable things that no one was buying. So I just found it intriguing and fascinating what people would go to as their stock-up items! 🙂
Our stores are out of some of the craziest things. Ground beef, chicken in any form, lunchables, the usuals toilet paper, paper towels, santizing wipes, oreos were hard hit, pasta all but lasanga. Baby wipes are becoming a hot commodity as is baby formula. I worry about those that can’t afford to overly stock up. We are among them.
It’s because price per lb potatoes are relatively cheap and filling. Think about it- you could probably buy a large box of cereal not on sale for the same price as 5 lbs odd potatoes. But what will fill you up and last longer?