Our December grocery story continued......

As I mentioned in a recent post we are tracking our grocery shopping by week for one month to show how we primarily live off our pantry storage. I am a numbers person so I of course had to include the grocery totals and the corresponding menus.

We have had a crazy busy week this week thanks to my husband's work implementing a shift change. He went from working afternoons and evenings to working 12 hour shifts over night. As you can imagine that was a bit brutal on our family, we averaged about 30min a day with him if we were lucky. With him being out of the house for 12 hours at a time it became difficult to provide him with enough food in his lunch box to sustain him the entire time he was gone.  We tried for a few days but the poor guy was running out of food and going hungry. So I pulled some cash from our grocery budget to put towards his eating out when he needed to do so.

 I also forgot that our daughters had to pay their Girl Scout dues this week, it is $10 per month. I of course forgot to budget that into this weeks categories. All I had with me was the grocery budget money and that was all in $20's. So the grocery budget became short another $20 and we are now paid up till the first of February. Guess that is a bit of a win for next months grocery budget.

All of that rambling means that this weeks grocery budget was $52. For the record I do NOT advocate "stealing" from your grocery budget for things like fast food or wants (Girl Scout dues is a want not a need). I could have easily adjusted the other budget categories to cover the eating out or the girl scout dues. I however chose not to do so. I knew that we could eat well out of the remaining grocery budget so I decided to "let it ride". Please understand that the needs of your family come first and I do not advocate taking funds from a need category to pay for a want category.

Anyways back to the topic.........Obviously the majority of our meal items this week will be coming from our pantry stockpile. It is times like these that I am VERY happy that we learned how to stock pile our necessary staple items. You know the old fable about the grasshopper and the ant? It is very applicable in this situation.

So how do we feed 8 people for 7 days on $52? It could get really bleak if we didn't have a fully stocked pantry and freezer!

Breakfasts:
Baked Oatmeal
Blueberry Pancakes
Waffles
Toast with eggs
French toast casserole
Biscuits and gravy

*All breakfasts include fruit and milk

Lunch:
Leftovers
Sandwiches (peanut butter, turkey, or ham)
Homemade soups (chicken noodle, chicken and dumpling, etc)

Dinners:
Homemade Pizza
London Broil with potatoes and green beans
Pork chops with broccoli
General Tso chicken with rice and mixed veggies
BBQ pulled pork sandwiches with green beans
Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and corn
Chili with cornbread

So how did the grocery shopping turn out?

Store 1

Pepperoni $2.16
1 lb Dried  pinto beans $0.95
1 lb Dried dark red beans $1.29
1.2 lbs Kale $1.04
1.8 lbs Collard Greens $0.72
Plastic Forks $0.96 Someone keeps throwing our real silverware away. I suspect the 1 yr old.
Plastic Spoons $0.96
Mom treat $0.62 Sometimes you just gotta have a treat!
Oldest Daughter treat $1.10 Going shopping with mom is always a coveted job.

Total: $10.29

Aldi

3lbs Apples $3.29
2 gallons skim milk $5.98
5 loafs of white bread $4.45
2 dozen large eggs $2.78
2lbs butter $4.58
Half gallon egg nog $2.99 The only thing my husband asked for this week
Mayo $1.95
Chocolate chips $1.49 We are making cookies this week as a thank you gift for our rabbit sitter.
Peanut butter $3.49
2 bottles of syrup $3.58

Total: $34.68

That brings us in at $44.97. We have roughly $7 left for any incidentals that are needed this week. My guess is that we will need more sliced bread at some point. Our 8yr old is going through a phase where she eats nothing but white bread and peanut butter. I keep telling myself that she will outgrow it but I am not too sure at this point. Kid is stubborn! I guess she comes by it honestly!

The amazing news is that my husband has a three day weekend happening at the moment and is going back to his normal shift on Monday. I am VERY happy to only have to worry about sending him with one meal while he is away and thrilled to see him for more than 15min twice a day!  I would say things are settling down here but I know not to jinx myself with that kind of talk.

I hope you all have an amazing week and I look forward to hearing about any adventures you have going on!