Grocery Budget and Menu - family of 4

[aprilchem]

My budget is $150 a week, which includes all paper products, personal products, health and beauty items, and dog food. This is for a family of 5 and two large (100 lb) dogs. This week we ate:

Breakfasts: oatmeal casserole, biscuits with jelly, cinnamon rolls, eggs/bacon, pancakes (fruit is served with all of these)
Lunches: Leftovers or sandwiches (I pack for everyone)
Dinners: This week we had meatballs, sauce and pasta, rice with broccoli and ham, quiche, homemade pizza, grilled brats, and leftover night. One night I just made the kids sandwiches because DH worked really late.

I cooked everything from scratch except I did not make the pasta myself; I usually do but I was busy so we used boxed pasta. The sauce was frozen from my summer garden, and the meatballs were made from ground pork. Our diet right now is pork-heavy because I just got a 1/2 a pig from our local farm and the farm that we buy our beef from doesn't butcher until July, but free-range pork is super lean so it's not really a big deal to me. We don't eat chicken very often because humanely-raised chicken is too expensive for our budget.

I will say, though, that I don't spend $150 a week every week. Some weeks I'll only spend $50 for the basics, but other weeks (like when I bought the pig two weeks ago) I spent $500. I stock up on wheat berries for flour twice a year and that's a big spending week, same if I buy rice or something else in bulk.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

Until last summer, my son and his wife and their little boy lived with me. We're vegan. I spent about $125 a week on groceries. It is less now, but still around $90 because my family (about 10 - 12 people) come over every weekend.
Some things that work for me:
I watch closely for sales and when they are good, I stock up. We eat a lot of beans, and I like the convenience of canned so when those are on sale I will buy a lot of them, for example. Also canned tomatoes, frozen fruit and vegetables (although we eat a lot of fresh as well, it helps to have some in the freezer as back-up), whole-grain pasta, condiments, paper goods, peanut butter, etc. are bought in large quantities when on sale.
I use my small appliances - the slow cooker (great for dried beans, soups, stews, etc.) and my bread machine (I have sourdough starter I got from a friend - makes great-tasting bread and saves on yeast; I also make pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, burger buns, etc. in the bread machine then bake in the oven) to save me time and make cooking from scratch easier.
We try to focus on eating healthy foods. You can save money by living on ramen noodles but your health is going to suffer so it isn't worth it. We aim for half of the plate (or more) to be vegetables, one-quarter a healthy starch (sweet potatoes, brown rice, quinoa, whole-grain pasta), and one-quarter protein (for us, that's beans, mushrooms, tofu, seitan, etc.). Fruit is good for desserts.

 

[barkley]

i'll pass on something I did yesterday. if there's a particular product you want/need that you tend to keep a good supply on hand of but rarely goes on sale-ask the manager of the grocery store if they will give you a case discount. we use canned water packed artichoke hearts (quartered) ALLOT. use them in salads, in some pasta dishes, stuffed in chicken breasts....and they rarely go on sale, and when they do it's the much more expensive brand name so the store brand (which I prefer) still ends up cheaper. I went shopping yesterday and hit up the manager of the store for a case discount (they only come in cases of 12) which resulted in about a 15% discount. I knew the grocery store would do the case discount for special orders but the manager informed that any time an item wasn't on sale if a customer wanted to buy the equivalent to a case of that item they just had to let the manager know so they could provide the case price to the cashier.

 

[keelyhealthnut]

I like the sound of your menus (except I would swap all the tofu/veggie stuff for meats since I have a wicked soy allergy) Would you care to share some recipes? I am also DF and GF,and keep all the meats free range/organic. Do you make your own cashew 'cheese'? I try to minimize grains-when I do grains it's either some brown rice or quinoa...The budget starts straining if I buy all these specialty items,so I am always looking for things I can make for less. I also shop costco which helps some...but I am way overspending on groceries lately... Though last nights HUGE pot of lentil/white bean soup will provide a lot of meals (I am freezing some)

I love making big pots of soup! Even here in Texas in the summer, I can still eat a hot bowl of soup. Hey, I'm in the A/C inside so I can deal. My friends love to give me a hard time about that!

Sure, I'd love to share some recipes!

Here is one that we use as a fruit dip, toast spread, and I actually usually just take a few bites and call it breakfast. haha http://www.thrive-style.com/2012/11...a-therapeutic-dose-of-coconut-oil-do-for-you/

Refried beans, but I spice them up quite a bit more. Smoked paprika adds a nice smoky flavor to beans and it costs a lot less than bacon. http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/08/29/recipe-easy-slow-cooker-refried-beans/#more-1701

A staple breakfast for me - http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vege...tm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareurlbuttons

Another lentil soup that we love - http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/01/vegan-coconut-lentil-soup-cilantro-habanero-gremolata.html

This is the cashew cream cheese recipe that I use. I haven't gotten to set up quite as good as the picture in the recipe, but it is still a great replacement for recipes that call for cream cheese. I haven't used it as a backbone for a recipe with the cream cheese as the focal point, but I love it in the recipes I've used it in so far. http://www.rawchef.com/products-br-1.php

I also make cashew ricotta for eggplant with this recipe and the whole recipe is really good - http://www.ordinaryvegan.net/eggplantparmigiana/

Then I'll make cashew cream just basically with soaked cashews in water to stir into soup or whatever if it's supposed to have some heavy cream stirred in at the end.

If you want to do some grains, or quinoa a pseudo-grain, then this is a great recipe - http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-13311/red-lentil-quinoa-cakes-with-basil-cream.html

I have used many recipes for vegan queso for nachos. Here's one of them - http://plantpoweredkitchen.com/recipes/recipe-vegveeta-dip/ and another http://minimalistbaker.com/cashew-less-vegan-queso/

This makes a great lunch with a salad - http://www.milkfreemom.com/dairy-free-eggplant-sandwiches-with-avocado-tomato/

I have a ton of recipes on my pinterest board too - https://www.pinterest.com/keelyhealthnut/recipes-tried-true/

 

[Bree]

Cooking Light has lots of recipes for a family of 4 that will cost $10. Here are some http://www.cookinglight.com/m/food/everyday-menus/healthy-budget-recipes

I find that my grocery budget is lower when I steer clear of boxes and canned foods. Frozen veggies are usually cheaper than fresh. I always have frozen broccoli, green beans, peas, corn and edamame on hand. If you have the room, stock up when things you use a lot are on sale.

 

[puffkin]

I do coupon, meal plan with the cirucular, and try to stock up on things when on sale. We waste very little food because over time I have learned to reuse things in another meal (like last week I roasted a chicken for dinner, then I picked the chicken and used the leftovers to make chicken corn chowder). We package leftovers in single serve containers for lunches (DH and I brown bag every day, DS9 buys at school and DS2 is provided lunch at daycare). I have a handful of quick and easy recipes that I fall back on and try to avoid using ready made meals and "junk" as much as possible. If the leftovers start piling up, we eat them for a meal to use them up.

That being said, I have found that I would rather spend a little more money at the store if it means more time. I work full time and DS9 is pretty involved in activities and I have some committees I am on as well and I just don't have the time to cook everything from scratch, buy in bulk, prep in advance, etc. I do the best I can but saving $20/week but putting in 6 hours of work to do so just isn't a productive use of my time.

I spend anywhere from $85-$150/wk at the store....but it usually is around $120 for a family of four and that includes paper products, cleaning products, personal hygiene and diapers that I may need that week.

 

[Narnia_girl]

OP, if you are not already following Couponing to Disney you might want to read her blog/follow her Facebook. A lot of the deals she posts don't apply to me, but then she'll share something that saves me a lot of money.

 

[neatokimmo]

This is a regular meal plan for us when I get pork roast on sale. I normally have a couple sitting in my freezer. We did a variation of this last week and will probably wait about a month to do it again. I posted this on another site:

This is our meal plan for 5 days this week.There are three of us, but the kid eats like an adult.

We got a pork loin from Kroger. It was $1.79 pp and was a little over 4 pounds and the cost was $7.36. I put this in the crockpot with a can of chicken broth. I took meal 5's portion of meat and put it in the freezer. 5 days in the fridge weirds me out.

Meal One: 4.86
Shredded pork with gravy, peas and stuffing.
Pork - $1.47
broth from crockpot - .50
milk - 1.00
Peas - .89
stove top - $1.00

Meal Two: 5.54
Pulled pork with chips and apples.
Pork - $1.47
1 bottle of bbq - .99
1 bag of buns - .99
chips - 1.29
apples - .80 (these were 40 cents a pound this week)

Meal Three: 5.30
Chinese Pizza
Pork - 1.47
Chinese bbq sauce (it is similar to Chinese ribs sauce, think of a bbq chicken pizza with more zing) - $1.29
Mozzerella Cheese - $1.79
Homemade crust - .50
sprouts - .25 (I grow these from seed in a mason jar. They are radish and peppery and go on top of the pizza.)

Meal Four: 3.53
Pork fried rice and cooked cabbage
pork - 1.47
bag of mixed vegs= .89
rice - .25
2 eggs - .17
5 spice powder (no clue?)
half an onion - .25
cabbage - .50

Vietnamese Pork Sandwich & slaw: 4.42
pork - 1.47
jalapeno - .10
cucumber - .50
buns from above
3-4 baby carrots (no clue)
little bit of sugar and vinegar (no clue)
a little mayo (no clue)
half an onion - .25
a little Sriracha - .10 (it was $1 a bottle)
some fish sauce, hoisin sauce, (neither are expensive, let's say $1 max)
cabbage - .50
mayo, vinegar, sugar - .50 max

$23.65

Some items are super hard to price out. A few sauces and such, I picked up from asian markets which are always cheaper than a regular store. We primarily shop at Aldi, and pick up specials at Kroger. Our rice, flour, and yeast all came from Sams in big bags. I am sure I am off a little one pricing (plus we are missing that pesky tax), but this is pretty close.