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.).
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A number of you have been asking if I can go to stores other than Kroger… and so I’m going to try to make that happen, if it works out in our schedule and there’s a good enough deal warrant going to Publix or Walgreens or CVS or Sprouts or Aldi. We’ll see!
(As most of you know, I drive by multiple Kroger stores on an almost-daily basis. So it makes it SO easy to pop in there. Most of the other stores require going out of my way a little to shop at them, so that’s why you don’t see me shop at them as often. Plus, I’m just so familiar with Kroger and usually find such great deals there, that it’s hard for me to sometimes want to go to other stores!)
This week, Jesse and I were right by Publix and Walgreens one of the days and I had a few minutes, so I ran in to get a few deals. Plus, I went to Kroger three different times.
Here’s what I bought:
Kroger Shopping Trip #1 (pictured above):
Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- Colgate MaxFresh — $1.99 when you buy 6 participating items, used $2/1 Kroger Digital Coupon = Free after coupon
- 5 packages of Cheese — $2.99 each when you buy 6 participating items
- Kroger half & half — $1.79
- Natural Bliss Pumpkin Spice Creamer — marked down to $0.29 (I don’t think I’ve ever tried this before and I am loving it in my tea, especially at this crazy price!)
- Kroger Unbleached Flour — $1.49
- Kroger Whole Wheat Flour — $1.99
- 5 cans of Simple Truth Organic Refried Beans — $1.19 each, used $0.40/1 Kroger Digital Coupon (can be used up to 5 times per transaction) = $0.79 each
- 4 pounds of ground turkey — marked down to $1.99 per pound
- Romaine Lettuce — marked down to $0.50
- Dole Salad Kit — marked down to $0.89
- Sweet Baby Ray’s Hot Sauce — free after Kroger Digital Coupon
- 1 bag of tomatoes — marked down to $0.99
- Total with tax: $37.28
Pineapple and blackberries are just $0.99 at Kroger right now!
I was super excited to find these tomatoes just $0.39 per can when you buy 5 participating items at Kroger!
Publix Shopping Trip:
Hershey Gold & Pretzel Candy (10-ounce bag) – $4.19
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
Used 2 $2/1 printables
$0.10 each after sale and coupons
*Note: If you don't live in the land of true BOGO, you can buy just one bag at $2.10 and get it for $0.10. If your store is true BOGO, you'll have to buy two bags and use two coupons to get the price of $0.10 per bag!
Publix Shopping Trip Total with tax: $0.60
Walgreens Shopping Trip:
3 Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent – $1.99
Used 3 $1/1 printable
$0.99 each after coup
Walgreens Shopping Trip Total with tax: $3.55
Kroger Shopping Trip #3:
- 2 bags of clementines — marked down to $0.99 each
- 2 boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios — $1.79 each when you buy 6 participating items, used $1/2 Kroger Digital Coupon, $1.29 each after coupon
- 4 cans of Red Gold tomatoes — $0.39 each when you buy 6 participating items
- 1 can Bumble Bee tuna — $0.79 when you buy 6 participating items
- 1 carton of sour cream — marked down to $0.49
- 1 pineapple — $0.99
- 3 boxes of Creamette pasta — $0.49 each when you buy 6 participating items
- 2 bags of Goldfish crackers — $0.99 each when you buy 6 participating items
- Kroger sandwich bags — $1.49
- Kroger gallon bags — $1.99
- Total with tax: $16.36
Kathrynne signed up for birthday freebies since it’s her birthday week and when she signed up for Krispy Kreme she got a coupon for a completely free DOZEN doughnuts!! Needless to say, we’ve all been enjoying those! I may or may not have had one for breakfast! 😉
What We Ate This Past Week
Note: When you see the meals below, please remember this: I buy ahead often. Which means that when I find a great deal on something I know we'll use, I buy as much as I can afford in our budget to have on hand.
This means that you aren't going to see all of the groceries my shopping trip that I used to make all of the meals we ate.
Please also remember that I'm putting this out there and it's not a perfectly balanced menu. This is just really what we ate — and I hope that it encourages you to see the real-ness and lack of perfection here. 🙂
Breakfasts:
Lunches:
- Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches, Cheese Quesadillas, Cheese/Crackers, Hard Boiled Eggs, Salad, Leftovers, Clementines, Cookies
Snacks:
Dinners:
- Sunday — Frozen Pizza, salad
- Monday — Leftovers, apples, chips & salsa
- Tuesday — Baked Chicken, mashed potatoes, Roasted Broccoli
- Wednesday — Brats, Sweet Potato Fries, salad
- Thursday — Refried beans with cheese, chips, lettuce (sort of a meatless build-your-own taco salad)
- Friday — Dinner at Chipotle for Kathrynne’s birthday (we had some of her friends over), brownies
- Saturday — Snack-y dinner (fend for yourself)
Total spent on groceries: $70.35
Psst! Need some help with cutting your grocery budget? Check out my series: 5 Days to a Better Grocery Budget.
Cashback earned this week: $3 from Ibotta for buying Back to Nature and 150 points for submitting my receipts to Fetch rewards.
