Hellobee

Previously in this series I have shared how we decide what we will eat all month. Now I want to get into the important part – the shopping.

I mentioned before that even though I plan monthly, I shop weekly. I try to do my grocery shopping on Friday or Saturday, when I can go without Little Lion in tow. I typically have to go to at least 2, sometimes 3 stores, so having him with me makes this take considerably longer. If I go alone I can be done in about an hour (plus, solo time out of the house is always a win when you are a SAHP!)

Once I have my meal plan in place, I create my shopping lists. These are crucial, and I try really hard to not buy anything that isn’t on the list (this is probably the MOST important part if you want to stick to a small budget!) Week 4 I accidentally went to Trader Joes without my list (for shame!) and you can tell there are a few things on there that I normally wouldn’t have bought. (Dark chocolate peanut butter cups? Don’t mind if I do…) I try not to make a habit of this, but toward the end of the month if I know I am pretty close to being within budget, I may splurge on a few things and not feel bad about it. I try to avoid this in the beginning of the month completely. This month, by week 4, I had come in under budget so far for the month, so I knew we had a little more wiggle room.

I am pretty old school when it comes to my grocery lists….I like to use a simple note pad. I know there are a lot of fabulous apps that you can use, but for me it is a million times faster to just write it down. I pull off one piece of paper for each week, plus a list for Sams Club. In total I will have 5 shopping lists. This month I actually needed to go to Sams Club twice (apparently LL cannot get enough of mandarin oranges!) so I had a 6th list this month.

Week 1 is stock up week. I take a minute to look over the meal plan while I am standing in the kitchen, to remind myself of what we have and what we are almost out of. Any items that are almost gone, I add to my stock up list. This is especially important for things like spices that I use all the time. I try to buy as many of these things as I can the first week to make shopping every other week a little bit faster.

Then I go through my recipes for week 1. Most of them are things I make frequently, so I am familiar with the ingredients. I add all of the ingredients that I need to purchase to my list. Then I add staple items that I need to buy every week: eggs, milk, yogurt, etc.

I repeat this process for week 2, week 3, and week 4. I leave staples off of those lists, unless it is something that can’t wait until the following month. As the month goes on and we run out of items that we need to have, I will add to the lists. These lists live on our refrigerator so that I can easily add to them throughout the month.

As far as our budget goes, I definitely spend the most week 1 (usually around $120). This amount varies depending on how many things needed to be restocked. I then take the rest of the budget (usually around $180) and split that among the remaining 3 weeks. This is the amount I have to spend on each of the following weeks. This is not an exact science…some months I need to spend $160 stocking things that have run out, so we have to be more frugal the following weeks. This occasionally means that I need to adjust my meal plan to account for more vegetarian meals or to make simpler meals that require less ingredients. After doing this for about a year, however, I have gotten a feel for what we can and cannot afford, and take that into account when making my meal plan in the first place.

Budgeting this way definitely requires some discipline, and it doesn’t work perfectly every time. But just like any skill, it gets easier with practice, and the rewards are well worth it.

Grocery Spending for April

Week 1 – Total – $105.60

• Trader Joes – $62.84
• Sams Club – $29.60
• Walmart – $13.16 (highlighted items only – household items are not included in grocery budget)

Items purchased at Sams  (I lost my receipt) – Chicken (5ish lbs), mandarin oranges in 100% juice (16 servings), organic spaghetti sauce (3 jars), salmon (6 servings)

Things for recipes I didn’t need to buy because we already had them on hand: Frozen broccoli, ground turkey, quinoa, pesto, spices, honey, cream cheese, black beans

Week 2 – Total $43.95

• Trader Joes – $35.43
• Food Lion – $8.52

Things for recipes I didn’t need to buy because we already had them on hand: chicken, ground turkey, pesto, frozen broccoli, spaghetti sauce, spices, quinoa, parmesan cheese, black beans, enchilada sauce, spaghetti squash is now out of season here, so we substituted pasta for that meal.

Week 3 – Total $57.92

• Trader Joes – $39.37
• Harris Teeter – $6.13
• Target – $12.42

Things for recipes I didn’t need to buy because we already had them on hand: black beans, buns, pasta, frozen corn, salmon (we decided to use the Morrey Salmon this week instead of trying a new recipe), potatoes, spaghetti squash is now out of season here, so we substituted pasta for that meal.

Week 4 – Total $105.60

• Sams Club – ~$40
• Trader Joes – $65.60

Things purchased at Sams (Lost my receipt again…) Ground Turkey (5lbs), mandarin oranges in 100% fruit juice (16 servings) applesauce pouches (16 servings), cheddar cheese (2lbs)

Things for recipes I didn’t need to buy because we already had them on hand: black beans, salmon, pasta, broccoli, chicken, ground turkey, potatoes

Monthly Total – $313.07

*Disclaimer – This month turned out to be a 5 week month for us (we budget weekly, so this month’s budget actually started March 28th). We did put additional money in our budget for the 5th week (an additional $40) that will pay for fresh produce, milk, eggs, and bread next week. That would make the grand total for this month $353.07. Since most of our months are 4 week months, I left this post based on that number of weeks so that it will more closely resemble our typical budget.