We had a lot of extra food in our refrigerator, freezer, and cupboards this week, so we’re mostly eating from the pantry this week. (See our menu plan for this week here.)
I had a really, really full workday yesterday, so Jesse offered to go to the grocery store last night for me. He went to ALDI and spent $61.57. (Have you read my Open Letter to ALDI?)
Our Grocery Budget
We currently budget $125 per week for groceries for our family of 5. This does not include eating out once a week (we budget separately for that).
We also get some of our expensive groceries and personal products (such as makeup) via Amazon using credit earned from Swagbucks + we get the majority of our household products (cleaners, toothpaste, detergent, etc.) via credit earned from Grove.
We only spent $61.57, which leaves me wiggle room to buy more markdowns at Kroger if I have time to swing by there later this week to see if they have some great markdowns. If I don’t have time or they don’t have good markdowns, I’ll roll over the extra $$ to next week.
Here’s what we bought:
ALDI Shopping Trip
- Mandarins — $3.99
- Sweet potatoes — $0.99
- Organic Mixed Green — $2.49
- Organic Arugula x 2 — $2.49 each
- Spring Mix — $1.99
- Frozen Sweet corn — $0.95
- Granny Smith Apples — $2.99
- Tomatoes — $1.49
- Frozen blueberries — $2.19
- Salad dressing mix — $0.49
- Blackberries x 3 — $1.99 each
- Avocados x 2 — $0.99 each
- Strawberries x 2 — $2.49 each
- Lettuce — $1.99
- Cottage cheese — $1.99
- Cucumbers x 5 — $0.49
- Milk — $1.39
- Kidney beans x 4 — $0.79 each
- Pineapple — $0.99
- Peppers — $2.99
- Beef broth — $1.39
- Cheddar cheese x 2 — $1.89 each
- Diced tomatoes — $0.49
- Total with tax — $61.57 (Plus, don’t forget that when you shop at ALDI — or any grocery store — you can upload your receipt to Yaarlo & earned a little cashback for doing so. If you haven’t signed up with Yaarlo, use my coupon code MONEYSAVINGMOM when you sign up to earn more.)
This Week’s Menu Plan
Interested in what we’re eating this week? You can see our menu plan for this week here. I plan our menu based upon what we already have on hand, so I didn’t have to buy every single item needed to make everything on our menu.
Struggling with menu planning? Check out this post on How to Be a Meal Planning Mama.
Wow! You’re doing great with your budget! We have a similar grocery budget for our family of five but I’ve yet to have leftover money. Having an almost teenager and two other active boys may contribute to that. But I’m determined to make it work!
$74.26 does not equal $62.57. Am I missing something? Also, I don’t see Aldi on Yaarlo. Is that a rare thing to see?
WHoops! I had the $$ from my last grocery post! (I copy and paste parts of these grocery store posts each week and I forgot to fix that part of the post — thanks for catching that!)
You can scan any receipt from any grocery store on Yaarlo! The stores listed are just the ones you can *buy* gift cards from!
At the top of the post you say he spent $62 but the total of your purchases is listed as $74, what am I missing?
WHoops! I had the $$ from my last grocery post! (I copy and paste parts of these grocery store posts each week and I forgot to fix that part of the post — thanks for catching that!)
Thanks. I thought I must have missed something about how you saved extra at Aldi. I’d be all over that kind of discount. ?
Hi, if you don’t mind I was wondering what your spending would be if you didn’t have the amazon credit and had to pay cash for that stuff, because a lot of us don’t have credit to use for amazon ( I was just curious). ( I have tried using swagbucks a few yrs ago and it messed up my computer, and I just don’t have the time for it. My husband tried swagbucks this year and it messed up his computer)
It might be an additional $25 per week? However, we’ve not been hitting our $125 per week budget most weeks, so we could definitely do it for $125 per week and eat well without the Amazon credit.
Crystal,
You mean, $125 is excluding your Amazon spending. Not trying to get into the details. We are a family of 3 and expecting a baby. I’m just trying to benchmark our spending with yours.
Thank you!
We’ve not been hitting our $125 per week budget most weeks, so we could definitely do it for $125 per week and eat well without the Amazon credit. But it’s fun to have the credit help stretch the budget some!
Crystal,
Thank you. Appreciate the response.