I'm currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).
You can see all of my $70 Grocery Budget Update posts here. For live updates, be sure to follow my Instagram Stories.
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One of the things I’m loving about this $70 Grocery Budget Challenge is that it’s inspiring me to look through our cupboards and freezers and find odds and ends of items that I forgot we had.
For instance, I found this half bag of Great Northern Beans last night in one of our cupboards. I had planned that we were going to go out to dinner tonight, but when I saw that bag of beans, I decided to take a raincheck on the eating out plans and make sausage and beans in the Crockpot instead.
I used this recipe for inspiration and cooked the beans for three hours and then chopped up the sausage and mixed it in. I already taste-tested it and it’s super yummy!
Another thing I’m loving about this challenge is that it’s encouraging me to think outside my usual box. As you all know, I drink a gallon of lemon water every day. And that means that I go through a LOT of lemon juice — to the tune of one 32-oz. bottle every 8-10 days.
A few of my readers told me that Dollar Tree has lemon juice… why had I never thought to look there?? Sure enough, Jesse was there last night with Kaitlynn and I had him check and they had 32-oz. bottles for $1. Woot!
I had been buying lemon juice for $2.49 at Kroger, so I was thrilled to discover this much cheaper option! And I realized that this one simple change will save me at least $40+ over the next year!!
You guys! Never stop looking for creative ways to stretch your grocery budget further and save on those things you buy all the time. The savings can really add up!
Dollar Tree Shopping Trip — $2.20
2 bottles lemon juice — $1 each + tax
I ran by Kroger this morning and was excited to find a few deals to round out my grocery spending for this week (I allot $70 per week and my weeks run Saturday to Friday). I didn’t need to buy anything, but I still had $13+ to spend, so I wanted to go ahead and spend it on some snack items and other things that were on a great deal that we could use over the next 1-3 weeks.
(By the way, this is one way that we save a LOT — I try to always be buying ahead when items are on great deals. Even though it means my grocery purchases don’t necessarily match what we’re eating that week, it means that we have a variety of items to base our menus on and it means that we are rarely paying full price for most items!)
Friday Kroger Shopping Trip — $12.33
- 2 bags of Goldfish Crackers — $0.99 each when you buy 4 participating items
- 3 bags of Quaker Rice Snacks — $0.67 each when you buy 4 participating items
- Lindt chocolate — Free Friday Download coupon
- 2 boxes of Barbara's cereals — on sale for $1.99 when you buy 4 participating items, used $1 off coupons = $0.99 each after coupon and sale
- 1 bag of apples –marked down to $0.99
- 2 pounds of ground turkey — marked down to $1.99 each
- Huggies wipes — $0.99 when you buy 4 participating items, used $0.50/1 Kroger Digital coupon, $0.49 after sale and coupon
- Total with tax: $12.33
I made some DIY Taco Seasoning and browned the ground turkey with it.
And then I let it cool and stuck them into two freezer bags and froze them — and two more dinners are in the freezer!
Our garage freezer was almost empty after we moved and I’m excited to slowly be filling it back up with freezer meals. We now have Chorizo burritos, 2 pans of lasagna, 2 bags of Taco Meat, and 1 bag of sausage/onions/peppers to serve over rice.
My Grocery Total For This Week: $68.36
Cash back: $0.25 from Ibotta for submitting my receipt, $1.50 from Ibotta for buy 2 cups of Fage yogurt, and $1 from Ibotta for buying Bubly, and $0.25 from Checkout 51 for buying Tortilla Chips last week, another $0.25 from Ibotta for submitting my receipt, $3 from Ibotta for buying 3 boxes of Kroger Ibuprofen = $6.25 in cash back!
To see all of the grocery shopping I did this week + what I spent and what we ate, be sure to check out all of my $70 Grocery Budget posts.
Want to virtually “have coffee with me” and see me talk about my grocery savings today? Watch the video above. 🙂
