We went to ALDI on Sunday night and spent $52 total. Because I've been buying extra deals here and there over the last few weeks, we had more to work with this week and I didn't need to spend as much this week — which was great!
Note: If you missed my post on Why I'm Back to Grocery Shopping, Menu-Planning, and Freezer Cooking, be sure to read it here.
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.
I only spent $52 this week, which leaves me lots of 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.
This time around, our whole family went to ALDI together because we had a Community Group lunch right after church and it was held close to ALDI.
So, you might see a few extra things in my grocery purchases that I wouldn’t normally splurge on (hello, Goldfish crackers and fresh salsa!), but that I was happy to buy since everyone was willing to go to the grocery store with me and because we had quite a bit of extra wiggle room in the budget this week.
Here's what we bought:
- Tortilla Chips — $1.19
- Freezer Bags — $1.99
- Baby Lettuce — $1.99
- 3 Macaroni & Cheese — $0.33 per box
- 3 Cucumbers — $0.25 each
- Feta Cheese — $1.79
- Bag of Red Grapes — $1.58
- 2 bags of String Cheese — $1.99 per bag
- Crispy Oats Cereal — $1.19
- Triple Chocolate Cake (purchased for an event we were heading to right after the shopping trip!) — $2.99
- Fresh Salsa — $2.49
- Milk — $2.39
- Goldfish Crackers — $1.85
- Pretzel Sticks — $1.29
- 3 bags Baby Carrots — $0.49 per bag
- Cinnamon Crunch Cereal — $1.29
- 2 bags of bananas — $0.44/lb. — $1.95
- Butter — $2.49
- Dried Cranberries — $1.29
- Honey Nut Oats Cereal — $1.19
- Blueberries — $1.49 (got a $0.25 rebate back from Checkout 51)
- 2 dozen eggs — $0.49 per dozen
- 1 bag of apples — $2.99
- Cottage Cheese — $1.99
- Cantaloupe — $0.99
- 24-pack of Purified Water — $1.99
- Gallon Water — $0.79
Total with tax — $52.86 (Plus, I uploaded my receipt to Yaarlo & earned a little cashback for doing so. If you haven't signed up with Yaarlo, use my coupon code CRYSTALP861 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.
