Economic Endeavors

Since my little hiatus from deal shopping and blogging, my coupon stash has seriously dwindled. I am happy to say that I am back in the saddle, and feeling great about it!

I need to build back up my coupon organizer, but in the meantime, I have been managing to stay well within our grocery budget ($70 per week for our family of 5) without coupons, by shopping at Aldi. A new Aldi store opened near us last month, and I have been so excited to be able to have their great prices to fall back on while I was burned out on coupon and deal shopping.

Every week, I have been planning out my menus and grocery lists with prices based on Aldi's pricing sheet (available inside the door at my Aldi store), and I thought that starting this week, I'd post about it in case any of you need dinner ideas or just want to use my whole list!

So here it is. Typically, I plan for 7 dinners, my daughters and I eat cereal for breakfast most days and my husband has a granola bar on the way to work. I know, not very exciting, but it works for us at this stage. My 11 year old eats lunch at school, and my husband has a separate amount of money budgeted for his lunches on his break from work, so I only plan lunches for my 2 1/2 year old and myself (my 8 month old eats baby food).

This week's dinners (this week I bought 8 dinners because I threw on the pizza at the last minute, but I still stayed way under budget!) :

• Pizza (take and bake from Aldi)
• Pineapple-Brown Sugar Ham (Put a 3 lb turkey ham in the crockpot with half a can of pineapple and a cup of brown sugar, cook on low for 3 hours), with Sour cream and chive mashed potatoes and peas as side dishes *I already have the peas in my pantry*
  
• Spaghetti (1 lb spaghetti noodles, one jar spaghetti sauce, and 1 lb. ground beef *I already have the ground beef in my freezer*)
  
• Chicken and Dumplings (Put 3 cans of Chicken broth and 3 large chicken breasts in the crockpot on high for 4 hours. Remove the cooked chicken and cut into bite sized pieces. Return chicken to the crockpot. Remove 2 cups of broth and in a separate bowl, stir in 1/2 cup of flour, return broth/flour mixture to crockpot to help thicken. Using 2 tubes of buttermilk biscuits, flatten each biscuit in your hands and tear into small pieces and add to crockpot. These will be your dumplings. Cook for 30-90 minutes more until dumplings are cooked through. You can also add carrots and celery to this when you add the dumplings, I did not this week), serve with corn *I already have corn in the pantry*
  
• Meatball Stroganoff (Using 3 packets of brown gravy mix, prepare as directed in a large saucepan. Add 8oz of sour cream and 1 package of frozen turkey meatballs, simmer until meatballs are cooked through. You can also add a can of mushrooms if you like, I did not. Serve over cooked egg noodles.) Serve with peas *I already have peas in the pantry*
  
• Bubble Pizza (I made exactly as directed, only exchanged the pizza sauce for spaghetti sauce. I didn't use any extra ingredients). Thanks Meal Planning Mommies! I love their site. Serve with green beans *I already have green beans in the pantry*
  
• Chili (Brown 1 lb ground turkey, drain. Add 1 large can of tomato juice, 2 cans chili beans, and a packet of chili seasoning. We eat ours with cheese crackers)
  
• Salsa Chicken (Put 4 chicken breasts in the crockpot, add one large jar of salsa and 8oz sour cream. I usually add a cup or two of shredded cheddar, but I only have mozzarella this time, so I will try that. Cook on high for 6 hours, shred up the chicken with 2 forks before serving. Serve over cooked elbow noodles. This is a staple in our house, we all love it!) Serve with corn *I already have corn in the pantry*

For lunches, I planned 3 Mac and cheese days (I have fruit cups in the fridge already) and 2 cold tuna noodle casserole days. Maybe a pb&j in there if we get bored (we always have the fixins for pb&j)! I also threw in ramen noodles and 3 cans of soup for my older daughter, who often comes home from school hungry and is a total soup and ramen lover.

Here's my grocery list, with prices:

$5.97 3 gallons of skim milk
$1.89 Cookie Cereal
$0.89 canned pineapple
$0.99 box of Sour cream and chive potatoes
$0.99 cheese crackers
$1.69 2 lb box of spaghetti noodles
$0.99 egg noodles
$1.69 2 lb box of elbow noodles
$3.57 3 boxes of Shells and Cheese
$1.98 2 jars of spaghetti sauce
$1.14 2 cans of tuna
$1.56 4 chicken broth
3 packets brown gravy (not sure on the price)
chili seasoning (not sure on the price)
$0.99 large can of tomato juice
$0.90 2 cans of chili beans
$2.00 box of 12 ramen noodles
$4.17 3 cans of Chunky soup
$6.50 take-and-bake pizza
$1.52 4 cans of refrigerated biscuit dough
$0.99 16oz tub of sour cream
$1.99 bag of mozzarella cheese
$1.49 1 lb of ground sausage
$3.50 turkey ham
$6.49 3lbs frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts
$1.99 frozen turkey meatballs

Pre-planned total: $55.88
Actual total when leaving the store was $60.xx
The other $10 of our weekly budget will go to buy Hubs's granola bars (he doesn't like the ones from Aldi) and baby food at Kroger or Meijer.


There you have it, that's what we'll be eating around here this week. If you like this kind of post, or if it was helpful to you, leave me a comment and I'll try to do them every week in the future!