Economic Endeavors

Every two weeks, I go grocery shopping at Aldi for the next two weeks' groceries. The nearest Aldi is about a 45 minute drive for me, which is why I only go bi-weekly.

Before going, I make up a menu plan for two weeks and then write up my grocery list. I include approximate prices from my Aldi Price Sheet, so when I go to the store I know a ball park figure of how much I'm spending before going in.

My grocery budget for 2 weeks is $15o, including diapers, baby wipes, and all the household supplies. I very rarely spend all of that, usually I come in right around $100, and we use the remaining to go out to eat during that two weeks, as a treat.
I started a special diet 10 days ago, so unfortunately I am spending more on groceries this week because of special foods I need to buy for it. But this week, I got everything on my list for $126, which is $63 per week. Not bad for our family of 5!

I thought I would post my list, for anyone who is interested in seeing how I shop. In a follow up to this post, I'll show you how shopping the sales at Publix each week using coupons allows me to stockpile items that I can get for free or close to free and how that helps to keep my grocery budget down.

Here is my menu for the next two weeks:

Dinners:

• spaghetti, peas

• tacos & yellow rice, corn

• salsa chicken (chicken breasts, salsa, shredded cheddar, and sour cream cooked in the crockpot and then shredded and served over elbow noodles), corn

• chicken and dumplings (I add carrots and celery to mine), green beans

• porcupine balls (ground turkey seasoned with salt and pepper and mixed with minute rice and shaped into balls, then simmered in spaghetti sauce until cooked through), peas

• chili cheese burgers (cooked ground turkey,mixed with a can of chili and a cup of cheese, heated through and served on hamburger buns, sloppy joe style), curly fries, corn

• augratin taco bake, green beans

• brown sugar ham (a $4 turley ham cooked in the crockpot with a can of pineapples and juice and a cup of brown sugar), rice

• spaghetti, peas

• middle eastern rice, green beans

• salisbury steaks (store bought frozen family size meal with gravy), over white rice, corn

• veggie burgers (cooken ground turkey mixed with a can of condensed vegetable soup, served over hamburger buns, sloppy joe style), mac and cheese, green beans

• chicken ceasar salad pasta (I mix mine with half a bottle of store bought ceasar dressing, rather than making my own as she instructs in the recipe), corn

Breakfasts are cereal or pop tarts (stockpiled) or peanut butter toast.
Lunches are PB&J sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, or leftovers from dinner, and fruit.

And here is my Aldi list:

6.87 3 gallons milk
1.18 3 cans biscuit dough
0.99 sour cream
1.99 shredded cheddar
4.00 ham
2.98 3 bags salad mix

0.99 veg oil
1.10 garlic powder
1.10 onion powder
1.10 chili powder
1.10 cumin
1.10 basil
1.99 corn meal
2.97 spaghetti sauce 3
1.59 spaghetti
1.69 elbow noodles
0.99 egg noodles
3.38 2 boxes cereal
1.98 yellow rice 2
1.49 salsa
0.99 augratin potatoes
3.00 canned chili 2
3.00 bullion cubes
0.90 diced tomatoes2
0.95 vegetable soup 2
1.50 ramen noodles
9.73 7 chunky soup
4.90 corn 4, peas 2, green beans 4
1.99 pineapples
2.00 zucchini
4.00 2 oranges
5.97 3 apples
7.50 5 tomatoes
1.58 2 hamburger buns
0.99 bread

3.98 salisbury steak 2
celery carrots
11.90 ground turkey 10
16.47 chicken 3

120.84

Some of the prices above weren't listed on my price sheet, so I estimated what I thought they would cost. I always estimate high. I forgot to add diapers ($5.49) to the list, and baby wipes. Even after adding those at the store, my total was only $126, because I estimated high on the things I didn't know the cost of.

So that's how I do my grocery shopping. Be sure to read the follow up to this post and see how I got over $80 worth of groceries at Publix this week for only $1.20!