Yesterday I shared our philosophy of living on less. Today I’ll share how we eat well and stay full on a grocery budget of $40 a week.
Once again, I want to emphasize this is how we do it. This style may or may not be for you, but I do want to encourage you to spend your money wisely and, perhaps, if you feel led reevaluate your budget. The end goal is to live for the Kingdom, not see how close we can get our bill to zero.
When Joe and I first got married we spent about $60 a week on groceries, after awhile we cut back to $50, and then $40 a week. It took time getting used to shopping for two people instead of one and knowing what we were going to eat. Have you ever done that? Gone to the grocery store and have your pantry full, but still not know what to cook for dinner? Me too.
Let me introduce you to two words that helped reign in our budget and bring sanity to my mind: menu plan.
Before I got pregnant with Joey I worked full-time, so I would often come home tired from my day and have no clue what I was going to make for dinner. Of course, I’d find a recipe and then realize I didn’t have one or two ingredients, should have already thawed the meat, or it’d take an hour in the oven. Frustrating.
Finally I jumped on the menu planning bandwagon and it has made life so much easier. I set aside time toward the end of the week to plan my next week’s menu, check the pantry for the ingredients I already have, and write my grocery list. It has made life so much easier for us. Even though meals may get switched around or saved for another date, I have a game plan and we get to eat.
So…you probably thinking ‘quit babbling and tell me how you do this $40 a week thing.’ Okay, I will.
How We Spend $40 a Week on Groceries
Menu Planning. Like I already said, menu planning helps out a whole lot. Check out Organizing Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday meme is you need ideas for getting started.
Make a list and stick to it. Knowing the ingredients I need makes grocery shopping so much easier, especially when I have a toddler. I’m in and out. I know what I need, I know where it is, and I’m gone. If I don’t come with a list you can pretty much guarantee I’ll wander the aisles and add a few other things that I didn’t really need.
Eat real food. I hope no one takes offense at this, but Hamburger Helper isn’t real food. Not much in the middle of the grocery store is these days. It’s, as Michael Pollan author of In Defense of Food, would call,
“edible food-like substances, which is to say highly processed things that might be called yogurt, might be called cereals, whatever, but in fact are very intricate products of food science that are really imitations of foods” (see link).
This hits on the discussion between food and nutritionism. Stick with fresh produce as the anchor to your meals. It’s better for your health and if you buy what’s in season it’s even better for your wallet.
Eat less (or no) meat. One of the things that keeps our weekly food budget so low is that we rarely eat meat. We like to call ourselves de facto vegetarians, more for the economic factors than moral. I know this won’t work for a lot of families who have husbands who are meat and potato guys. My husband was a vegan for a year and then a vegetarian for three years. He’s also the guy who had a 24-hour meat fest in high school, so sometimes I’m surprised this works for us!
Eat out less. We rarely eat out and if we do it’s usually with a giftcard. On the occasions we do dine out we try to go to somewhere that has 1/2 appetizers during their happy hour. Most appetizers can constitute for a meal. Or try splitting a meal. Eat where the kids eat for free.
And while buffets can be tasty they aren’t always worth the money. You usually can’t take home leftovers and, really, how much sub-par Chinese food can you eat in an hour?
Cook from scratch. This is my favorite. I love to cook and bake and bring spices together into a tasty aroma. Mmmm…
Somewhere along the way cooking from scratch has gotten a bad rap. It’s really not that hard and takes about the same time as preparing prepackaged meals. I mean, seriously, pour in the pasta and your own spices or pour in the boxed pasta and cut open the the bag of powder and spices that’s been sitting on the grocery shelf for months and has a year to go before it expires. Really? Even the prep time between a boxed cake mix and one from scratch is minimal, though the latter is much more satisfying.
Cooking from scratch is therapeutic, healthier, and all around cheaper.
So…what do we eat?
Our usual, quick breakfast is oatmeal. When time allows you’ll find us eating whole wheat pancakes, eggs with spinach and eggs, and every now and then Amish Baked Oatmeal or the very tasty (but very fattening) German Pancakes.
Our lunches are usually leftovers from various dinners of the previous evening or week.
Snacks are usually fruits, bread, leftovers, or cheese for Joey.
We get a bit more variety with our dinners. Here’s what this week’s menu looks like:
Fried Tilipia with lime and Chipotle Roasted Potatoes
Spinach Minestrone
Black Bean & Rice Enchiladas
Lentil Soup
Onion Soup
Mushroom Barley Soup
Other favorites are: Butternut Squash Pizza (with homemade crust), Sweet Potato & Onion Pizza, Pasta with Peanut Sauce, Healing Cabbage Soup, Ethiopian Cabbage, Potato Curry, Pasta E’ Fagioli, Black Bean Chili, and Nacho Lentil Casserole.
Does Joey eat what we eat?
Yes, Joey (our 14-month old) eats what we eat. We don’t want to raise a picky eater, so we give him what we eat and he’s yet to turn it away! The only time we wouldn’t give him the same thing we’re eating is if it’s too spicy.
Where do we shop?
I usually shop at Wal-Mart’s Neighborhood Market. I just started shopping at Alidi’s last week and have saved $10-15 each week!
Since our goal to live on less is to be more generous in our giving the money we have leftover from each week’s shopping trip goes to a charitable organization. Some weeks it’s pennies, some dollars, others nothing.
So…how do you eat on a budget?
I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Tagged as:
budget,
food,
frugal,
Living Intentionally,
Living on Less
