How did you do on your first week of the Grocery challenge? Planning a menu helped a lot in making sure we use what we have. A menu plan is more like a guideline, I found too. I didn’t end up making each meal on the days I planned for because sometimes life just happens but for the most part I stuck to the plan.
Here’s a recap of my expenses:
$29.02 walmart
$5.12 grocery store for yogurt
$5.99 milk, eggs and bananas
$8.08 McDonalds for Thursday lunch. I ran errands with the kids on Thursday and was out later than I expected.
$9.17 Culvers ($1 Butter burgers on Saturday)
$45 Sushi for dinner on Saturday (it was our 8th wedding anniversary on Wednesday and we waited until Saturday to celebrate)
Total Expenses: $102.38 which is just above the $100 allowance for our family of four
But as you can see, we spent more than half of our allowance eating out. I know a lot of you were concerned about doing the challenge because you were going on vacation or had a birthday during this period. This is what I realized this week: life happens. Sure, some weeks we can spend $50 feeding our families but there will be weeks when vacations, birthdays or anniversaries happen, so you will go over your budget. What matters is to focus on long term results not short term ones.
Having said that, our challenge goes on to Week Two and this week will actually be tougher because: I am going to Blogher 09!! Blogher is only the biggest conference available for women bloggers and thanks to my sponsor Walmart I am going!
This means I am leaving my husband and children on their own for three days. Since the conference is in Chicago, my family is taking advantage of the opportunity to visit friends and family there. What does this mean? Lots of opportunities to spend money eating out. So, I am expecting this to be a week when we go well above our challenge allowance of $100. But for the three days we will be home here’s our menu plan:
Breakfasts
Cereal, Oatmeal, Oatmeal Pancakes and Blueberry muffins
Lunches and Dinners
Monday – Lunch: PB sandwiches and fruit
Dinner: Broccoli Quiche
Tuesday – Lunch: Leftover quiche
Dinner: Spaghetti with meat sauce (already made and in freezer)
Wednesday – Lunch: Leftover pasta
Dinner: I will be alone with the kids so probably something like cereal for me and chicken nuggets for them
I haven’t had a chance to go shopping yet but for the next three weeks we need: apples, grapes and blueberries. We still have OJ from last week and eggs and milk.
If you are following the All You Grocery Challenge with me, how did you do? did you have any setbacks? what successes did you enjoy?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Happy belated anniversary, Mercedes! I really appreciate what you do for us!
Thank you Pam!!
I also want you to know that I have a lot of fun doing what I do, so it really it’s a pleasure for me.
Mercedes
Well, I have already blown it. Starbucks with a friend, stopping at the bread store with my dad and dropping $21 on bread and oil, on top of the $145 I spent at the 2 grocery stores. Add in that we want to go blueberry picking this week and suddenly I will have spent a good $50 over my challenge amount. And we haven’t even gone on vacation yet. I really didn’t think it would be hard at all, because I rarely spend $150 a week on food. But right now, obviously I can’t stick to a budget. Happy Anniversary!
I’ll be at BlogHer on Friday. Maybe I’ll see you there!
~Jaycie
See you at BlogHer! I wonder if there is a Birds of a Feather session for bargain bloggers.
My budget is $50. I did pretty well this week…only spent $46.03 OOP but will get the $10 Kellogg’s rebate for part of my purchase. I’ve been documenting my purchases & menus on a blog which really helps me keep on track.
The Broccoli Quiche sounds yummy – I just might have to try it! Thank you so much for all your great posts. I really enjoy your blog.
doing pretty well so far mercedes. Between Kroger & HT last week I spent around 45.00 for two people. (only counting myself and my daughter)
I went to publix today and spent 15.00 on nothing really :/ Well okay 5.00 of that was strawberries – well 3.00 of it.
My dad keeps cooking & feeding us so I could probably just put my money away for the rest of the challenge and not spend a dime but then i’d miss out on deals and well…we can’t have that – can we?! of course not! I’m not really sure how to count my WIC because it is free to me. It’s a voucher I use to obtain milk, eggs, cheese and cereal (as well as formula – what a blessing that is especially since my husband left us!!!) I need to ask the AY staff but i’m betting they will say not to count it…maybe it’s in the rules…I don’t know though…
some highlights of food we’ve had this past week included:
homemade meat sauce for spaghetti
Chicken Parmesean
chicken salad
tuna salad
chicken & dressing (HAH i’m noticing a theme LOL)
bunches of salad…
Cooking for myself and a 1 year old is SO HARD to get the right proportions…I keep having lots of extra left overs
I try cooking for dad but he’s weird.
now we have super doubles at Harris teeter coming up so i’ll have to struggle not to blow my budget!!!
I’m also now grocery shopping for my best friend so I have to make sure i keep our receipts totally separate.
Went shopping today and was discouraged because I went over budget partly from great deals and partly buying for upcoming event. Then I got home and caught up on emails and read your encouragement about “life happens”. I was able to refocus on my “long term results” instead of whining about falling short of the “short term ones”. Thanks so much for the encouragement. I really love your blog. It is like having a support team.