The Seven Day Grocery Stretch

I'm so not a fan of grocery budgets.  I can work on a budget in just about any area, but the food one hurts the most. So, typically, I don't do it.  But every now and then, I like to challenge myself.  See how much we really spend on groceries. I have an amount in my head, but is what we really spend even close?  I like to use up things that have been hanging around in the cupboard and freezer.  And I know it's good to deny myself every now and then and be content with what we have.  Including that stuff in the cupboard and freezer.

Plus, I get tired of running to the store all the time.

And it's kind of like a game.  What can I make with what we have?

So I challenged myself the last time Josh got paid.  I set a very reasonable budget for groceries and determined to stick to it.  Now, Josh gets paid every two weeks, and I had spent the entire budget in six days.  First of all, I bought a 25 lb box of almond meal, one of my newest, most favorite things in the world for cooking.  More on that another time, perhaps.  That baby wasn't cheap, so it put a large dent in my budget.  A few more trips to the store, and the money was gone.  I spent the last $25 on produce and milk.  I knew I had to make this work and make this last.

So I made a list of what was hanging around.

In the pantry:
2 lbs of dry beans
plenty of flours and baking ingredients
dry pasta
snacks for the kids
cans of beans
1 jar of spaghetti sauce
tomato paste
1 can of diced tomatoes
canned milk
sweet potatoes
potatoes

In the freezer:
Corned beef
Chicken breasts
A bag of shredded hash browns
A pound of bacon
Frozen veggies
1 package of Twinkies
10 lbs of hot dogs (for a BBQ)
Venison
Ground turkey
shredded mozzarella

In the fridge:
6 slices swiss cheese
2 dozen eggs
3 gallons of milk
1 quart half and half
salad fixins
about 16 oz fiesta blend cheese
flour tortillas
white grape juice
about 20 baby carrots
grapes, apples, oranges
cheese sticks
plain Greek yogurt


Is it possible to live off this for a week?

Well, here's what we ate!

Friday night: Pizza night!  I discovered I only had the one package of mozzarella, no pizza sauce, and a little bit of pepperoni.  Solution: I made my own pizza sauce using the tomato paste, and some of the jarred spaghetti sauce. I mixed some fiesta blend cheese in with the mozzarella.  The grown up pizza was sautéed peppers and onion with some of the bacon. The other two pizzas were cheese and pepperoni.

Saturday night: Cereal.  Salad.  I confess we went to Denny's for lunch and we were all stuffed, so I didn't feel the need to make a meal. (Hey, the eating out budget is entirely different than the grocery budget!)

Sunday:  For breakfast I made (the night before) a quiche with crust made from most of the bag of shredded hash browns, the six slices of swiss cheese, and real bacon bits (saving the other half of the packaged bacon for something else).

Lunch: leftover pizza

Our neighbor, who sells us eggs, brought us two more dozen (I'm paid up for awhile, too!).

For supper: Boiled dinner with corned beef, the last of the potatoes, sweet potatoes, and baby carrots and the last onion.  Biscuits I had frozen that were leftover from a party we had.  We invited Grammy and Grampy to join us.

For dessert, we made homemade ice cream using milk, half and half, a can of sweetened condensed milk, eggs, and peanut butter.... plus I found a small package of Oreos and some peanut butter sandwich cookies to crumble up and mix in!  We are eating SO well!

NOTE: I was SO tempted to go to the store on Sunday!  My boiled dinner looked so measly with just six small potatoes and 20 baby carrots.  But then I added the last of the sweet potatoes and figured I could cook some peas to go with it.

Also, we met a new family at church and invited them to lunch.  THIS is why I hate being on a food budget, I told Josh.  I always like to be ready "in season and out of season" to invite people over for a meal!  I never want to be more concerned with my budget than I am hospitality and generosity.  I was mentally preparing my stop at the grocery store or pizza place, when I realized it really didn't matter what we fed this family. I had the giant pack of hot dogs, buns, chips, grapes, apples, oranges, salad stuff, we could make smores.... it would be just fine!  It turned out that they were unable to come, but this is a lesson I learn over and over again: It's not what we feed people, it's the invitation and fellowship that matters most.

Monday: Breakfast was the last of the Honey Nut Cheerios and a packet of oatmeal for the kids, the usual Alive shake for me.

Lunch: Leftover pizza for the kids and a giant Cobb salad for me that used up the last of the blue cheese.  I sent leftovers from last night's dinner with Josh.

Supper: Grilled chicken, mashed cauliflower, and grilled Normandy blend veggies.

I also made a double batch of pumpkin muffins using almond flour (hey, I've got plenty!), one can of pumpkin, the last of the Greek yogurt, with some added chocolate chips.  I started planning our menu for our trip to camp for the 4th of July and packing up some of the food we'll need.  We were going up Tuesday morning and returning late Thursday night after the fireworks... so that's three lunches and three suppers to plan with a dwindling supply of food!  Why did I challenge myself this way before a major (feasting) holiday???  Oh, but the good news- July 4th is Thursday! (When I can shop again.)

I planned the following meals:

Tuesday night: Baked nachos using up some of the Tostitoes, ground turkey, last of the fiesta cheese, and anything else I could scrounge up to add to it.

Wednesday night: I was on a desperate search for some kind of chicken crockpot recipe that didn't use cheese or cream of something soup (cause I had none of either).  I settled on chicken topped with two bags of steam-in-the-bag broccoli and cheese over rice pasta.

Thursday, the 4th: My last pound of hamburg for, what else? burgers, the giant package of hot dogs, smores fixins, and buns.  Thankfully we'll have a crowd of contributors to help round out the menu :)

I confess that I forgot to pack the chicken for Wednesday night, so I went to the grocery store and bought some pork chops on sale and a packet of marinade, plus a bag of potatoes for mashed potato.  And 2 containers of ice cream.  But I made up for it on Friday, by still not making a trip to the grocery store and using what was on hand.

Friday: A trip to the beach bringing snacks we had on hand and using the last of the bread for sandwiches.  Dinner was homemade mac n cheese using a can of evaporated milk, the last cup of shredded cheese, and the last of the bacon, cooked and crumbled inside it. Served with steamed sugar snap peas.

I have to say, I am really proud of myself for pretty much doing what I challenged myself to do.  We're out of lots of things so it is definitely time to make a grocery run.  But I stuck to my budget and we didn't go hungry. A little creativity and telling myself no, I couldn't run to the store, made this seven day grocery stretch challenging, but not painful.