Week 3 - Update - Cut Back Grocery Shopping

This week we took advantage of Aldi's meat special. of 1.89 a pound for ground beef. They also had chicken thighs on sale for .49 cents a pound but by the time we got there they were none and if any of you know Aldi's, once they're gone they're gone. What can you do, you win some you lose some right. We went ahead and grabbed ourselves two packages of the ground beef (they come in 5-lb rolls)  and a pack of green peppers priced at 4 for $1. We also stopped at Kroger and used my $2 off $10 meat coupon to buy some boneless skinless chicken thighs making them $1.32 the pound and got a little over 6lbs Not as good as Aldi's, but what can you do. I usually try to get my meat at $1.99/lb or less so in my book it was still good. Plus it was convenient to not have to debone them and remove the skin my self. Which is what I do most of the time and then save the skin and bones to make chicken stock.

Remember I said I wanted to plan my meals a little better. Well I didn't plan pre buying the meat (in fact the meat was kind of a spur of the moment buy) but when I got home I figured I have to do something better than just popping it in the freezer as is., so I planned ahead quite a bit. It took a few hours because I didn't go in with a plan and came up with all the recipe ideas as I went along but I think its better than not having a game plan at all.

See here is what I did.

16 meals were produced from the proteins that were purchased. Two didn't make it into the picture, oopsies.  I made sure to use ingredients that were already in my fridge, freezer or pantry plus the peppers I had just purchased. I also made sure that they matched with sides I could make at home from things I already had on hand as well, such as potatoes, rice, pasta or frozen vegetables.

The good thing is that because it was divided into so many meals I was able to use throughout the remainder of February and about a week into March or longer if I continue to add meatless meals into the mix in between.

The meals are:
1. BBQ chicken thighs - mashed potatoes and frozen vegetables
2. Curry chicken thighs - with white rice and beans
3. Honey garlic ginger soy chicken thighs - with white rice
4. Lemon cilantro chicken thighs - inside homemade pitas with fries from freezer
5. Thighs for making chicken salads sandwiches - on homemade sliced bread
6. Fajita Chicken thighs - on homemade flour tortillas
7. Beef stew - with white rice
8. Taco meat - homemade corn tortillas, onion and cilantro
9. Sweet and sour meatballs - with white rice
10. Beef - added to large elbow macaroni
11. Sloppy Joes - with homemade buns and fries from freezer
12. Salisbury meatballs - with homemade brown gravy and mashed potatoes
13. Hamburger patties - with homemade buns and fries from freezer
14. Meat loaf - with potatoes and frozen veggies
15. Thai Beef - with white rice (not pictured)
16. Thighs for grilled chicken salad - with lettuce, peppers, onions, tomatoes, cucumber (not pictured)

In the end I would say this cut back grocery shopping was a half success. While we did far less trips to the grocery store than usual and spent less money on each of our trips we still spent more than I was hoping for and went out more than even intended, at some point it kind of fell apart and I was a bit disappointed. Okay, ok a lot disappointed.  I do think however that next month we can do an even better job with our budget and making even less trips. There were times where because my husband is practicing his driving for his license we ended up near a shopping center or at one and kind of just went in for a few things, like lets check out the clearance and oh lets get milk and made some impulse buys we didn't NEED. We certainly made use of them or stored them in our fridge or pantry but we really could've gone without because we had all our needs met already. My husband sometimes says "lets go out for a drive and/or get this one thing" and though I try to convince him lets just put it on a list and get everything we need on one day so we have less temptation and waste less gas on needless trips but convincing him doesn't always work or maybe I am not trying hard enough.

We have started using Mint.com and I think this will also give us a better idea of where our money goes and help us keep a closer eye and tighter leash on things, I think its already helping hubby see that these spur of the moment driving adventures are not helping us stick to our budget and we are both promising to keep one another in check about it. Hopefully next month we can do even better and continue to grow from there.

I plan to start menu planning based off the weekly ads and whatever is currently in my pantry, fridge or freezer. I shop Kroger most of the time with the occasional trip to Aldi, Albertsons or Walmart and my beloved Dollar Tree. I will often make a day of shopping since all these stores are within 10 minutes of my apartment and just hit them up in order from furthest to closest depending on what sales are available. Walmart usually only gets used for when we have more than just food shopping to do which is rare. Dollar Tree on the other hand we end up in way too often and yes everything is a $1 but when you fill up your cart with $1 items eventually it really adds up to surprising amounts.

Thank you all for joining me on this challenge. I hope we can all learn something from what I may have done right to what I may have done wrong. I think we started off strong and committed and fell off track. I hope to see more of you enjoying my page. Join me next month as we attempt to really get on track with getting this budgeting thing to work and as I integrate menu planning into our lives to hopefully add to our savings.

Leave a comment below if you have any thoughts or tips to share with us. Appreciate it, until next week.

Also check back soon for a little mini project I have in the works for Free printable to make Menu Planning easy and hassle free.