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Stay at Home Moms
mrsnorthernbell
member
grocery budget
mrsnorthernbell
member
This may turn into a multiple part question/discussion.
Anyways, we have a $400 a month grocery budget. Usually that would work well for us but with formula it is a bit tight. I coupon shop, stock up and sales and plan meals around what I already have but it still seems to be a tight budget.
What do you ladies do to keep with in your grocery budgets? What are you favorite to go in expensive meal ideas?
Thanks!
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Re: grocery budget
Our grocery budget including formula is between 400-500$ a month. I use coupons, I price match. I make double batches of some meals, and freeze them so it helps cut down a little bit.
I don't really know any inexpensive meals. I pretty much plan meals around what we have and what's on sale. I have tons of go-to meals, but I don't know how inexpensive they are. Sorry, I'm no help in that department.
We have a grocery budget of about $400 a month as well. We strive for 3-4 meatless dinners each week for environmental and health reasons, but this helps our budget quite a bit as well. Some favorite ideas:
1) buy a package of whole wheat pasta and a 32 oz bag of broccoli normandy or mixed Italian vegetables. While pasta is cooking sautee the veggies in garlic and olive oil then toss into the pasta. Less than $5, reasonably healthy (especially with salad on the side) and feeds the four of us for dinner plus gives DH a lunch.
2) black beans and rice. I lost my good recipe and am looking for a new one, but this is always a favorite
3) buy dried beans and soak them yourself instead of using canned. They freeze beautifully, so I freeze in 1-cup increments to use in lieu of 1 can in recipes
3) I've never bought a jar of salad dressing in my life. Combine olive oil and balsamic vinegar in 2:3 or 3:4 ratio (taste), throw in some garlic, salt pepper and dijon mustard, shake up and you're done. Other dressings are equally easy.
I wrote a blog post on how we save on groceries. We are a bit unconventional and my methods do take work, but we are happy with them.
My frugal meals tag in my blog.
Never pay full price for meat. Stock up when it's on sale (usually BOGO).
Coupon - use www.southernsavers.com and hip2save.com
Breakfast for dinner one night a week (it's cheap and we love breakfast food)
Soup - soup can be a cheap dinner alternative - potato soup, veggie soup, etc
DH and I don't eat meat. And, I'm a vegan... that saves us a TON of money because I'm not buying meat, eggs, milk or cheese. These seem to be things that used to cost us quite a bit of money.
You could try getting protein from other sources so you can cut back on your need for meat during the week. Could save you some cash...
Our budget is similar...a little less, but without formula now.
Aside from all of the great ideas mentioned already, I would suggest finding meals where the meat isn't the focus of the meal. (Think pasta, stirfrys, casseroles, lots of 1 dish meals) This way you can still have meat if you'd like but you stretch it with veggies and starches. For instance, I end up using 1 chicken breast in casseroles, whereas if I made grilled chicken with sides I would have probably used 2-3 times that.
DD2: Lucia (Lucy) 07/13
Do you have an Aldi near you? I started buying non-perishables and cheese there, and it's incredible how much I've saved. I buy things like sugar, flour, oil, tortillas, granola, snacks/cookies, bread, frozen veggies, frozen fruit, cheese. I don't really buy their meat (other than the ground turkey). It saves a TON.
Our budget is around $400/month, and I usually spend about $350. I find that Giant Eagle has good prices on non-perishables, as well. They have a ton of BOGO offers. Kroger, my go-to store, does not. But they have great meat and produce. I buy meat on sale there and freeze it.
I cook a lot in our crock pot. Things like barbecue pork, pot roast, and chili are good meals because I can get 3-4 meals out of the batch. I freeze what we don't eat after one night fresh and one night of leftovers.
I used couponmom and hip2save to let me know of good deals. Kroger sends me coupons in the mail. Check to see if your grocery store sends coupons to the house if you sign up for them. I bf, but when we used formula, I gave her the Kroger brand (Comforts, I think). It was much less expensive and had the same ingredients, plus they sent me lots of coupons.
inexpensive ideas -
breakfast for dinner. Eggs and ground sausage is cheap! Pancakes are cheap if you have all the ingredients on hand anyway. We eat various versions of brinner at least once a week.
Pasta and marinara sauce
tuna, rice, frozen veggies...all very inexpensive and healthy. Sometimes I just get creative and mix up various things. My newest creation was rice mixed with black beans and salsa. We ate it on tortillas with cheese.
ground turkey is inexpensive. I usually find it for $2 a pound and you can substitute it in any recipe that calls for ground beef. We don't even hardly eat ground beef anymore!
Cam 6.6.10 - Autism, Global Developmental Delay, Mixed Receptive/Expressive Communication Disorder