You would think it would be fairly simple, you make a list, you go to the grocery store and buy what is on the list. Not so simple is it? How much on average a week do you think a family of four spends on groceries? Answer: roughly 150.00 or 600.00 a month, now how much of that do you suppose goes to waste? how much is spent towards house hold items; cleaning supplies, hygiene supplies, pet food and supplies the like.
I have a family of 3 (well 6 if you include 3 cats) and I try very hard to maintain a 90.00 a week budget. Yep 60.00 below average. Some weeks I do eh some not so much. I don't use a lot of coupons because quite honestly I forget to take them. I do however diligently price check, and shop around.
In my last post I showed you pictures of my price lists, they really do exist, I really did do all the leg work and they really do help me at least. Again I am not that organized I promise you but I want to be able to feed my kids and myself relatively healthy and for as little as I can possibly spend. I try very hard not to buy a lot of processed items, boxed meals that type of thing,with my type 2 diabetes I do not know for sure which foods will trigger it in a bad way so I tend to play it safe when I can. I know that sounds crazy but it's just better for us all around the less processed junk you eat the better you will feel really.
So when I left off my last post we had gone through about everything we had in the house, it was time to grocery shop , yep the dreaded "g" word as it's known around here. I really am not good at it I fake it very well some times. Key's for me; knowing what things cost in advance, scouring the store web sites and fliers for sales, and adjusting on the fly depending on what is on sale or isn't. For me, at least, the key is being flexible. I can sit down and get a "rough" idea of what I want to fix for meals that week, but I always have to keep my mind open to being flexible enough to change course if something I counted on is out of stock or not on sale.
I do make a list yes, there are things that I simply can not or will not buy generic on; toilet paper( did this will NOT do it again ..owch) , sweetener, cereal everything else is pretty much fair game. One of the hardest adjustments for my daughter was being less of a food snob. For the longest time she would eat only Kraft Mac n cheese, or certain cereals, now she is getting better not by choice much LOL. My son not so much he tries everything at least once.
One of the other things that ties in with this, is what you cook. Figure out what your go to dishes are, stock up on those ingredients and then play. As I said in earlier posts this has really reignited my passion for cooking, in our house we have "experimental food' night at least once a week. More so lOL when the supplies are running low somethings are wonderful and there have been a few flops I will admit it but not many.
So I make my list, here again it comes in hand to know roughly what you already have in the house. I will post pic's of my list it hangs on the inside of my pantry door and really as I use stuff I do mark it off or check it so I know i need to stock up. Once you have a vague idea of what you want to make, what you already have on hand the list becomes a little simpler. I try to allow a certain amount in my budget for unexpected sales, this too goes along with the willingness to be flexible about what you want to feed everyone for the week.
For instnace; the grocery trip I'm talking about above, when my daughter and I went,we found an unadvertised sale on chicken breasts bone out skin off, I stocked up mulitpurpose ingredient here really it is. And chicken being chicken you can make it take any flavor or spice you choose. They also had sirloin tip roasts (a hellaciously big treat in our house ) on sale so there you go. It changed my menu drastically but I still managed to stay on budget only going over by .10. Okay okay die hards yes an overage is an overage but when it's a dime I'll take the hit and be proud of myself.
Have I rambled too far off course, such is the lot with an ADD brain like mine.
Once at the store I do try very hard to stick to the list, for me it's easier if I take no one with me then I'm not as tempted to throw extra items in. Although my daughter is pretty good when she goes with me so it all works out
Once home the meat I process down , if I buy in bulk like the chicken breasts I portion it out to four servings per freezer bag, that is one each for us and an extra the kid's can split or left overs for chicken salad or something similar. I do the same thing with ground beef and the chuck roasts I cut at least one or two up into stew beef sized chunks.
One of our bigger expenses is snacks for the kids, my daughter will snack on frozen veggies this I encourage my son well he is a teen age boy so we are still working on that part.
I cook abou 5 days out of 7 I try to have over the weekend a turkey breast, or ham so that we can just graze and not feel obligated to make a big meal. It does not always work but hey we try.
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