Grocery Budget Challenge

We are a family of nine and usually spend between $850 and $1000 per month on groceries. This month, I budgeted $750 and it looks like we might actually be able to pull it off. Don't worry, the children are being very well fed and I have most of my Thanksgiving shopping done.

I usually shop at two grocery/wholesale stores once a week, Winco (employee owned) and Costco. If a store is advertising a loss leader (a grocery item at a very low price) that we usually buy, then I have my husband stop on his way home and pick up that item only.

What I Changed and Rules that I Made:

1. Made Wednesday the only day of the week that I can go grocery shopping.

2. Visited Winco and Costco on a bi-weekly, instead of a weekly, basis (i.e. I went to Costco this week, so I go to Winco next week).

3. Limited my family's milk consumption to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We are only allowed one (breakfast) bowl or glass of milk at each meal. We were drinking ten or more gallons of milk a week; now, we are drinking 8 gallons of milk a week.

4. Only purchased meat or chicken breasts if they were under $2 a pound. Only purchased whole chicken if it was under $0.80 per pound. Turkey was purchased for $0.27 per pound (or less) and I bought two of them (one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas). I want to buy one more turkey for whenever.

5. Only cooked chicken or meat two nights a week. Cut up the leftover meat or chicken and mixed it into other dishes (no recipes, just something that I threw together). This means that we are having meat or chicken at least four times a week, sometimes five.

6. On the remaining two or three nights a week, I made a lentil or bean dish. I bought lentils and beans in bulk or in bags, not canned (the latter gets expensive). To soften the beans, I added a pinch of sugar to the water when I cooked them. I made enough for two nights and lunch one day. I varied the dish slightly by throwing in some new ingredients the second night (vegetables, spices, barley, brown rice, etc.).

7. I alternated what we had for breakfast each morning. We used to always have breakfast cereal, but this gets expensive.

Now our breakfast menu looks like this:

• Sunday: Eggs, bacon/sausage, and orange juice (made from frozen concentrate)
• Monday: Oatmeal
• Tuesday: Ceareal
• Wednesday: Oatmeal
• Thursday: Eggs, bacon/sausage, and orange juice
• Friday: Cereal
• Saturday: Oatmeal (I want to change it to pancakes or homemade waffles)

8. Limited fruit consumption to one a day. Reminded the children that "An apple a day (not two apples a day) keeps the doctor away." Cut up apples and/or oranges for snacks...this guaranteed that my little boys did not waste any wasted less fruit.

9. Reminded the children that I had purchased plenty of food for the entire week and that it needed to last us a week. In other words, it is not okay for seven children to eat a 2 pound loaf of cheese in one day. Nor is it okay, to eat three or four bananas each in one day (this goes along with number 8).

10. Made a running list of what we needed throughout the week, so that my husband did not need to stop at the grocery store for forgotten items.

What I Need to Do:

1. Encourage the children to eat carrots, celery, etc. for snacks.

2. Be better about alternating our lunches.

Thank you to my husband, my older sister, and my friend (Elena) for their support and ideas.  Thank you to my mom for her example as I was growing up and her advice during the first few years of my marriage (I miss her).  Thank you to my dad who used to enjoy cooking eggs, bacon, and tomatoes for us on Sunday mornings.

Dominus providebit!

Feeding a Large or Small Family on a Budget

A few years ago, I gave myself a grocery budget challenge. A week or so ago, I received the following from a dear friend:

On my last trip to Winco, I was amazed at how expensive all the meats were. I was walking in circles trying to find some dinner meats that didn't cost at least $12. Anyway, if you write down your dinners, I'll write down mine for you ;)

I am posting my response just in case other mothers find it helpful:

A serving of meat should be no bigger than the palm of a person's hand.

We eat a lot of chicken. I look through all of the ads that we get each week and I buy whole chickens when they are under $1.00 per pound (used to be under $0.70 per pound), stocking up on as many as I can. We have an extra freezer to store meat and other foods. If we run out of chicken and there haven't been any sales, then I will buy it from Costco for $1.19 per pound. We cook 2 chickens at a time. Served with rice, vegetables, and sometimes salad, this usually gives us dinner for 2 nights and lunch for my husband for at least one day.

In addition to whole chickens, we also eat chicken breasts. I buy fresh, boneless, skinless chicken breasts when they are under $1.70 a pound or frozen from Costco for $2.19 a pound. The Costco chicken breasts are large, so we cut them in half before serving them with vegetables, rice/potato, and sometimes salad.

We throw any left-over chicken, whether from a whole chicken or chicken breasts, into a stir fry with rice, vegetables, and a couple of eggs.

Beef is a treat in our house, served once a week (twice if  we have leftovers). I usually cook a roast in the crock-pot with onions, carrots and garlic. I serve it with potatoes/yams, and sometimes salad. When we were first married, my mom told me to never spend more than $1.50 per pound on beef. Now, I can only buy it if it is under $4.00 a pound. During the summer, we will buy steak occasionally if it is on sale and under $4.00 a pound. Once again, we cut the steak in half when serving (unless we have guests). Two or three times a year, we will have Irish stew.

We used to get ground beef because it was the cheapest beef that we could find, but this is no longer the case. We liked to use it, along with oatmeal, to make meatloaf. I will only buy it for under $3.00 and even then I cringe to pay so much for it.

Costco's hams are a decent price. We don't buy them often, but when we do they last a few days. I freeze the ham bone and use it in beans when needed. As a side note, it is cheaper to buy Costco's black forest ham and slice it up for sandwiches, then it is to buy lunch meat.

Right now, pumpkins and squashes are a good price at Winco, so we are eating those with dinner. I have found that pumpkin is very filling which means we don't need as much meat. 

During Lent and Advent, we try to eat meatless meals on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. I have occasionally tried to carry this into Ordinary Time, but eventually I hear balking. Beans, lentils, spinach lasagna, and homemade soup tend to be our staples for meatless meals. Leftover beans from Wednesday or Saturday can have a ham bone thrown into the pot for dinner on Thursday or Sunday. We have added a little ground beef to the spinach lasagna recipe once and it tasted good.

I wish that we could afford fish and other seafood, but, unless I have a fisherman in the house, the cost is prohibitive. I miss the days when I could buy a salmon for $1.99 a pound on sale.

When we lived in _______, the local Safeway used to mark down some of their meats that needed to be sold by that date for quick sale on Wednesday mornings. I would buy what I wanted and freeze what I wasn't going to use that night. This summer, I was in Fred Meyer when they were marking down their whole chickens for a quick sale. I placed every single one of them in my cart. Heather told me that the Safeway she frequents will sell their milk for 50% off on Tuesday nights. You might want to call a couple of local stores and see if they will tell you when they mark down their meat and milk.

If you would like any specific recipes, please let me know.

May God bless you and may Mary keep you close to her Immaculate Heart!