November Grocery Shopping

To continue my previous post - this post will cover my planning for a monthly grocery shopping trip and what I purchased. 

Once I make my monthly meal plan, I go down the list for each item and write down all of the ingredients, even the ones that I think that I have in my stash already.  Once that list is compiled, I then go through my pantries, refrigerators and freezers for the items that I need from that list.  I cross off the ingredients that I have and add other items at that time that I need for other meals that aren't dinners.  My mom watches our children and my niece during the day, so I always add extra lunch options, extra milk, juice, etc to the list for them, plus breakfast and lunch options for myself, Corry and Grace.  Then I take that edited list and re-write it for the specific grocery stores that I am going to use that month.  Normally, I like to buy the bulk of my items at Aldi, and then I split the remaining between Brookshires and Walmart. 

So far we have shopped this month at Brookshires, Costco and Aldi.  Tomorrow I will finish up my initial shopping at Walmart and will update with that total.  We bought some produce this week because we did not purchase our CSA this week.  Normally that will add $18.50 including fees per week - separate post on that coming soon!

Below is a list of items that I purchased and the actual total from each trip so you get an idea of what I am buying. 

Brookshires total $24.74:

• 2 cans sliced pickled jalapenos
• sesame oil
• soy sauce
• mustard
• 2 aluminum loaf pans
• sweetened condensed milk

Aldi total $166.61

• 4 gallons whole milk
• 2x10lb bags russet potatoes
• 4x New Orleans rice side dishes
• cream cheese
• 3x toaster pastries
• 3x frozen appetizers - random dinner for tonight
• 3x random boxes of breakfast cereals
• 2x 100 calorie snack pack boxes
• Elbow macaroni
• 2x cream of mushroom soup
• 4x cream of chicken soup
• 5x random kids canned lunch options, i.e. spaghetti-o's, etc.
• 2x jumbo canned biscuits
• 3x 1lb ground turkey
• 2x country style pork ribs
• bananas
• 2x ranch dressing
• ketchup
• sliced pepperoni
• 2x white chocolate morsels
• steak sauce
• powdered sugar
• 3x canned diced tomatoes
• 4x canned green beans
• 1x canned corn
• 2x canned refried beans
• 2x canned black beans
• 4x canned tomato sauce
• 3x bagged tortilla chips
• 4x bagged 'Frito' chips
• salsa
• 2x jar salsa con queso
• 3x lunch meat packages
• 2x sliced American cheese
• 2x 3lb bags frozen chicken breasts
• Parmesan cheese block
• small bag oranges
• strawberry cereal bars
• unsalted butter
• 8x block Colby jack cheese
• 6x block sharp cheddar cheese
• white sandwich bread

Costco total $40.04

• chocolate chips
• organic pasta blend
• pecan halves
• frozen egg rolls

This month is a weird month for us grocery wise because we are buying more items to make sweets for the holidays (powdered sugar, chocolate chips, pecans, etc), and we are trying out a couple of new recipes and buying the items for those (soy sauce, sesame oil, etc).  All in all this is a fairly similar month to our usual.  I will call out that we do eat a lot of cheese in our meals and for various reasons I do not buy pre-shredded cheese.  I only buy the block cheese and shred it myself for all of our meals. 

I hope that this helps those of you who are considering the once a month shopping trip.  It is a larger expense upfront but I think that it is less expensive overall for our family. 

Let me know if there are any questions. 

Meal Planning 8/20- 8/25

The week back from vacation is always tough.  You have just spent several days not worrying about working or bills or what is for dinner.  And now you are back... sigh.  I guess that now is as good of a time as ever to start posting meal plans, grocery lists, and recipes again for weekly meals since I have been slacking on those. 

As a reminder, I always make a list of the meals that I want to have during the week but I never assign a specific day to a specific meal because that will ultimately go awry somewhere during the week and then my whole attitude towards meal planning will be thrown off. 

I write down the meals that I would like to have/make for the week like this: 

Then I take a separate sheet of paper and make a list of all of the ingredients that I will need to make any of these meals to see if I have any of the ingredients that are needed ahead of time so I don't repurchase items that we already have in stock.  As I find that item in my pantry or freezer I cross it off the list like this: 

 

 

Then, lastly, from that list I take all of the remaining items and write them down with an idea of where I am going to buy that item next to it like this:

 

                                              

 

Normally I try to buy the bulk of our items at Aldi because they are significantly less expensive especially when it comes to produce and usually dairy items.  If I have to go to Walmart, that is usually a last ditch trip where I have to buy name-brand items or something that doesn't exist at Aldi. 

 

As you can see, this week our meal plan is as follows:

• Baked Tacos
• Stuffed Shells and garlic bread
• Salsa Chicken and Spanish Rice
• Grilled Chicken/Steak and Twice Baked Potatoes or Baked Potato Casserole
• Spaghetti

What's on your menu for this week?