Have y’all seen the grocery haul videos on YouTube? They are when some budget blogger goes over everything they purchased at the store that week and how much they spent. Usually, the person is single and able to get everything for some crazy low amount. OR they have some crazy large family and bought a ton of processed food for cheap.
Well, I am not single, we are a family of 4. We also, live on a graduate student stipend. Our grocery budget is small and not really flexible. We budget about $70 a week. Some weeks, depending on the sales, we go over stocking up on meat or something non perishable. Some months, there is more month than money.
I don’t think we eat extravagantly. But I wanted to share what a real family actually buys and eats. So I added a menu for the month. You can see it here. I usually meal plan for the week, so I will add to it every week. I have also added links to recipes for some things.
This week’s grocery shopping trip I went to Aldi and HEB, two of my FAVORITE grocery stores.
At Aldi I spent $28.49 and here is what I got:
Mango salsa, pretzels, raw honey, butter (2 lbs), organic whole milk yogurt (I love this yogurt), 2 limes, low sodium bacon, garlic bulbs, brown mushrooms, cilantro, broccoli crowns, romaine hearts, and carrots.
At HEB I spent $51.99 and got:
Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, vegetable broth (2), unbleached all-purpose flour (2), canola oil mayo, roasted red pepper hummus (2, they were out of the big tub we usually get), one grapefruit (per Mr. Z’s request), extra virgin olive oil, oatmeal digestive cookies (these are for Baby Hercules), ranch dressing, apple cider vinegar, Mexican blend shredded cheese (2 lbs bag), granola bars, instant oatmeal packets (one apple cinnamon and two maple and brown sugar).
In total, we spent $80.48. Yes, we are over, but I had to get a few items that are more expensive, olive oil and honey, that we don’t normally need. Without those two items we would have spent $66.03. Sometimes we spend more, sometimes we spend less. I also was able to buy a couple of duplicate items for things that we use regularly, like an extra bag of flour, extra oatmeal, and broth. Let’s see how next week goes! Budget goal is is spend less that $68.
