**Update**
This post first appeared on my private blog but I am reposting here.
Here are a few of the posts I wrote as kind of follow-ups to this one:
Recipes: click here
What I Buy at Trader Joe's: click here
A lot of people seem to find this post from Pinterest and have asked for updated menus/recipes. These days, we do a lot more organic eating so our budget has increased from our original $200/month. Even still, I try my best to reuse meal ideas, utilize leftovers, and keep costs down as much as possible. I plan to do a post soon with how I do that, even eating more organic/GMO-free foods. When I get around to writing that, I will place an update on this page. Let me know if there's anything else you want to see!
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Remember a million years ago (or 2 months, whatever) when I told you that I'd post my grocery list, monthly meal menu and a few recipes to prove to you that I really do spend under $200 a month for groceries for 3 1/2 people (Jack still counts as a half)? Well, I'm FNALLY getting around to it. I know that most of you don't get a flying fiddle about what the Campbell family eats for dinner or how much I spend on pork, but for those of you who have asked me (and asked me and asked me) to post a breakdown of how we do it, this post is for you!
This month was a relatively normal month. When I travel, John usually eats pizza and Megan eats whatever she can find (she's not a pizza girl. Weird, right?). I didn't think it was accurate to do a post on a month where I was gone for over a week because that meant 1 week of no meal planning...which wouldn't give you a true look into how we save since most people can't just say, "Let's eat a totinos pizza every night for 1 week! Money SAVED!" John, of course, doesn't mind those weeks because he gets pizza and he doesn't have to deal with doing dishes on top of taking care of the house and Jack while I'm away. But like I said, October only brings me away for 2 nights so I was able to meal plan and spend for a whole month. So here ya go.
Our Menu For October
Here is the menu for October:
In case you can’t read that that small of handwriting, here’s the rundown of what we had planned for October:
Buffalo chicken strips & oven fries, ribs and coleslaw, scotch and sushi (John goes out to Scotch tasting with my dad once a month so Megan and I decided it’d be a good excuse for sushi takeout), Greek chicken and veggies, white chicken chili, chicken lo mein, burgers and truffle fries, stuffed pepper casserole, pot roast, frozen pizza/pot roast leftovers, PF Changs frozen meal, Megan cooks, Megan’s bday celebration so no meal planned because we were going to go out to dinner, Burgers and truffle fries, chicken lo mein, KFC (Meggie’s birthday), Chicken korma and naan, breakfast for dinner (eggs, waffles, hash browns), dirty rice and veggies, lemon garlic bread crumb pasta, oven fries and buffalo chicken strips, pasta and sausage, chicken fajitas, buffalo chicken tacos, breakfast tacos, Megan cooks, a couple nights without meals planned (which worked out because there were a couple days where things came up so I didn’t cook, I just shifted meals to those nights), steak (donated to me by my wonderful coworker) with brussel sprouts and those hasselback potatoes that are all over pinterest (YUM!), spaghetti and meatballs, carnitas, green pork enchiladas, lemon pepper pasta
We went over to stay with my parents for a few nights while Megan’s family was in town so the meals planned for those days got axed in favor of my dad’s awesome cooking. Since I work with mostly frozen stuff, I’ll just moved those meals to November. We travel quite a bit in November and between the travel and carrying a couple of October’s meals over, I spent $164 on groceries for November’s meals last weekend.
What I Bought
After making the menu, I write down the shopping list of everything that we need. I don’t just write “chicken” or “beef”. I write down EXACTLY what we need. 6 packages of chicken (a “package” is one of those 8 pack “Fridge to Freezer” things from Costco), 4 lbs ground beef, etc. Then I’ll usually count up how many meat items I have listed and if it’s “too many”, I try and re-work the menu. We are not people who require meat with every meal so that is super helpful for our budget. For instance, this month I had 3 additional meat meals (meatloaf, pasta & meat sauce and something else I can’t remember now). Once I counted up how many pounds of ground beef we needed, I had SIX. Six is WAY too rich for my blood. So I removed lots of those meat meals and replaced them with pasta meals. I also noticed a package of sausage in the freezer that we could use up and save money that way. My monthly goal is usually 1 package of pork, 1 Costco package of chicken (see picture below), and no more than 3 lbs of ground beef. Every other month, I allow for a package of Costco sausage too which is 3 packages of 8 sausages…and lasts at least a couple months in the freezer.
Meat is definitely the priciest of the items on our grocery list. Other than that, it’s pasta, bread dough, random spices & condiments, etc. So if I can get the meat to a minimum, I’m usually pretty confident that we’ll be fine budget-wise.
And since Chelsea demanded that I show actual pictures of what I buy (“You can’t tell me “pork”, there are too many “porks” in the meat aisle. Tell me EXACTLY what it says on the package”), here you go:
I am not loyal to the kind of pork/chicken/sausage I get. Whatever is cheapest. Sometimes chicken breast is cheaper than chicken tenderloins. Sometimes carnitas are cheaper than pork sirloin tip roast. I do, however, always buy 93/7 or leaner when it comes to ground beef.
The Budget Breakdown
The way we shop is the same every month: the weekend closest to the start of the month (so sometimes the 30/31st of the month before) we go to HEB and Costco to load up.
So here’s what we bought at HEB:
1. HEB Frozen Broccoli jumbo bag ($3.50)
2. HEB Frozen Green Beans jumbo bag ($2.99)
3. HEB Frozen Fajita Vegetables (2 packages) ($3.46)
4. HEB Frozen Green Peas ($1.24)
5. 7 packages of Banquet Fully Cooked Turkey Breakfast Sausage ($6.86)
6. Michelina’s Lean Gourmet Frozen Meals (2) ($1.84)
7. 93/7 Ground Beef – 3 lbs ($10.74) 1.8
8. Tony’s Hamburger Pizza ($1.98)
9. Eye of Round Roast ($7.26)
10. Miniature Carrots ($2.58)
11. Rhodes White Frozen Dinner Rolls ($6.36)
12. 1 banana (Jack always insists on eating a banana while we shop) ($0.19)
13. 1 bag of Hill Country Fare cheddar cheese ($2.22)
14. Mission Low Carb Tortillas ($2.69)
15. HEB Fat Free Cheese Singles ($3.78)
16. HEB Spaghetti Sauce, 3 cans ($2.67)
17. La Costena Green Tomatillos, 2 cans ($4.58)
18. Dannon Light N’Fit Large Yogurt ($2.38)
19. HEB Fat Free Sour Cream ($1.00)
20. Kikkoman Panko Bread Crumbs ($1.52)
21. HEB Raisins ($2.84)
22. Hill Country Fare Yellow Mustard ($.82)
23. Oscar Meyer Bacon Bits – 2 bags ($3.96)
24. Fleschmanns Rapid Rise Yeast Packets, 2 strips ($1.96)
25. Goya Reciato, 2 jars ($4.24)
26. Polar Coconut Milk, 2 cans ($3.00)
27. HEB Dried Navy Beans ($0.99)
28. Israeli Cous Cous (from the self serve/hippy/bulk dry goods aisle) ($2.60)
29. HEB Dried Lentils ($0.67)
30. HEB Dried Cranberries ($1.79)
31. Progresso Garlic & Herb Bread Crumbs ($1.48)
32. Barilla Plus Spaghetti, 2 boxes ($4.18)
What we bought at Costco—I lost the receipt so you’ll have to deal with approximates:
1. Chicken (approx $16)
2. Potatoes (approx $7)
3. 3 dozen eggs (approx $6)
4. Costco “Naked Nuggets”: (approx $15)
GRAND TOTAL: Approx $145. Now keep in mind that I had to go back to the store periodically to get things like milk and cheese (for the Jackster) but overall, this is a good representation on where we start. With mostly all our food purchased for $145 at the beginning of the month, we are in VERY good shape to stay well below $200 even with periodic “I need more flour” or “why don’t we have any more shiraz?” trips to the grocery store.
And for even more mind-numbing breakdown of what we bought, here’s the deal on all of that: the frozen veggies double up for both lunches and dinners. John and I eat chicken (naked nuggets) & veggies or leftovers for lunches. We also buy a couple of the Michalena’s Lean Gourmet frozen meals to keep in the freezer at work for “emergency” lunches if we forget ours to prevent us from finding an excuse to go buy a lunch. The breakfast sausage is for kolaches. The frozen bread is for kolaches and random things like hamburger buns and garlic bread. Eye of Round was for pot roast. Cheese is for enchiladas and casseroles. Spaghetti and spaghetti sauce is for pancakes. Just kidding—wanted to see if you were still reading. The Raisins, Cranberries & yeast is for breakfast bread that I make in the bread machine for breakfast to go. Bacon bits are for breakfast tacos and to mix into Jack’s eggs in the morning. Coconut milk is for the Indian food on the menu. Beans are for soups. Cous Cous is for a side for our lunches or if I just need to whip up a quick side for our dinner some night. The breadcrumbs are for the breadcrumb pasta on the menu this month and for meatballs. The tomatillos and reciato are for enchiladas and a sauce for the carnitas. The yogurt is for John’s breakfast that he sometimes makes of cereal and yogurt. Sour cream, mustard, and other condiments are just for random things throughout the month.
Things I Didn’t Buy This Month
1. Corn Tortillas – we buy these at Costco every 2-3 months. They freeze like penguins (which is my way of saying they freeze really well. Perhaps not my best analogy). We thaw them as needed for enchiladas, carnitas, etc.
2. Sausage – I buy packages of sausage at Costco every 2-3 months and freeze them. They come in 3 packs of 6 sausages and we never go through the entire thing in one month.
3. Cereal – Costco again. When I buy cereal at Costco, it usually lasts a couple months. We aren’t super cereal people. We eat kolaches most mornings.
Recipes
I had this big plan to post recipes but seriously, this post has become a behemoth and although I know that a few of you have asked me to write about this, it’s going to be boring as all get out for the other readers who have now vowed to never come to this corner of the web ever again. So how about this, if you want a recipe, leave me a comment and let me know which one. Then I’ll be sure to only post recipes that I know people want. Deal, Lucille?
So there ya go, my tips of the trade for how to spend under $200 on groceries each month. 10 minutes of your life you’re never gonna get back…
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