So Aaron and I are going to try to do the $150 for our food budget for the month of April. We're practicing by spending only 45 a week for the next two weeks. On Saturday, I spent $17 at C-ville market for produce (10 lbs of potatos, 10 lbs of apples, bananas, cabbage, cilantro and kale) and $27 at Kroger for everything else (milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, frozen vegetables, cereal etc).
So far, I've been amazed at how do able this is. It takes more planning but Aaron and I are eating the same meals and we've eliminated a lot of "waste." Since I know a lot of people are generally curious about what we eat day to day, due to our mixed household, I thought I'd share our recent menu.
Saturday: Poblano Cilantro Rice with canned vegetarian chili
Somebody bought poblano chilis about a week ago for chili relleno but I HATE chili relleno and I didn't want to let them go to waste so I tried this recipe for the first time. It was pretty good.
Sunday: White Bean Casserole
Great recipe for a day old baguette, you know the kind that's on the "Manager's special" This casserole is probably my favorite casserole we make. I love it and it has Kale. I love kale. I don't put the cheese on the toast, it makes it too cheesy for me. It's yummy and cheaper without it.
Monday: Quorn Mushroom nuggets, mashed potatoes, green beans and a big glass of milk with some green food coloring
The Quorn mushroom nuggets were my splurge at the grocery store (they were on sale for $3.39) and my celebration of St Patty's day. Ask Aaron, they're really really yummy to carnivores too.
And here's the recipes we have planned for the rest of the week:
Tuesday: Perogies, apple cider cabbage, and Fage yogurt
Wed: Spaghetti
Thursday: quesidillas with fresh salsa and home made bean dip
Friday: Polenta Pizza -Get a cake pan, put a layer of cooked polenta down, then tomato sauce, cheese and veggies and cook it in the oven til everything melts together.
8 comments:
sounds yummy!
Wow! This is all on that budget? It sounds better than what we eat and I spend double that!
I hate to break it to you, but you'll have to spend more like $35/wk if you want to stay under $150/month. I know this because we've been doing it ever since we got married. I find it is a very doable budget - and we are horrible meal planners. The main thing that is sacrificed, I think, is junk food (well, I should say snack foods, since there are many healthy snack foods). But we usually do stuff like make our own cookies from scratch or eat something like apples and peanut butter etc.
That's impressive you've done that your whole married life. We realize it's more like $35 a week, we're just practicing for the month of April when we'll go after the $150 food budget in earnest. It will be an adjustment for us. What usually kills us is entertaining and making fancy recipes that require special ingredients. We actually don't eat too much snack food, at least that we don't make ourselves. Katy's lead the way on this one and I've been very impressed. Our food budget definitely needed an adjustment.
Good for you guys! The fact that we could eat very well (the same things we had been and then some) also surprised me. But it was a most welcome and pleasant surprise. And not only does my wallet feel good about the whole thing, but so does my body. Because the budget pretty much cuts out unnecessary junk food, we're eating much healthier. Good luck in April!
Aaron, I agree that entertaining can be a problem as well. We usually put any food we buy especially for entertaining into our entertainment budget.
that's a great goal. One day I will learn to budget. If I try to spend less on food, it seems we end up going out to eat more, then spending way more. I'll have too learn the planning with the budgeting. Some day...
When I was carefully budgeting we spent about 350-400 per month on food. Things are a little looser now and I've been buying more organic stuff but I still don't spend more than about 600. Some of my friends are shocked that I could keep it so low. You all who spend only 150/month are very impressive--good planning can make it happen!
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