Grocery Haul – NourishingWhole

Grocery Haul-Sept 24, 2018

September is almost over! Which means I am WAY behind on getting my kids Halloween costumes made… Our family theme this year is going to be incredible, just wait!

Monday, I went grocery shopping, and literally less than 5 minutes in the store I lost my list. I could. not. find. it! So I had to guess what was on it, because I couldn’t remember, I made it Saturday or Sunday and the only thing on the menu I could remember was green chili enchiladas for Taco Tuesday! Hopefully, I am not running to the store a bunch more times this week.

So here it is, ONE STORE! HEB, I got some lettuce, shredded cheese (Y’all I KNOW block cheese is cheaper, but I do not have time to shred cheese or wash more dishes, plus 2 pounds shredded for $5 is a great price.) Chicken broth, and a misplaced can that snuck in masquerading, beef broth, HEB brand Shell Mac and Cheese (I have no idea what we will do if we ever leave Texas, this Mac and Cheese is the BEST EVER, well beside homemade.) More cream of rice, sour cream, diced green chilis, hotdog buns, grapes, tortillas, and two loaves of bread (2 for $2 sale! One went straight into the freezer.) Total spent: $26.16, which leave a grocery roll over of about $20. WHOOP!

Groceries-Week Sept 17th

This week is busy! I keep telling myself to sit down and write, but I haven’t had time! Hopefully Baby Hercules will nap long enough for me to finish.

I wasn’t planning on shopping this week, but we *think* Mr Z is reacting to oats. Lets just say it’s not pretty. So since all most all of the breakfast foods we have are oat based and a lot of his snacks are, I had to get some non-oat stuff. I went to HEB and Kroger. I went to Kroger only because Ibotta had some deals that HEB didn’t. So don’t judge me on the no produce this week. We have some from last week still.

HEB:

I spent $31.22. We got HEB brand rice krispies (Mr. Z was begging to make rice krispie treats and I caved.), yogurt cups and go gurts, cream of rice, cream of wheat instant packs, 2 things of hummus, carrots, Annie’s crispy snacks (which I thought we more like granola bars, but after Mr. Z eating one they are totally just rice krispie treats…) Clif Kids Zbars and some quinoa.

Kroger:

I spent $22.47. We got some more Zbars (Ibotta purchase, plus the baby likes them and I feel better about these than other soft granola bars), peanut butter crackers x 3, cheese and breadstick dippers x 2, and 5 kid RXbars.

Like I said, almost all of this is for Mr. Z and the next 30 days while we see if oats are what is causing the issues. I needed things that are self stable, and not going to be crushed to bits in his school bag or my purse. This week we spent $53.69, which leaves us about $53 for the rest of the month, which is totally doable.

I also wanted to share the amazing steal I stumbled upon at Kroger yesterday! My store was under stocked in the All laundry detergent weekend sale, so they extended the sale. I got 5 bottles of All for $5.40!! They are the small bottles, 33 loads, but that’s about 5 months of detergent. Whoop!

Groceries-Week of Sept 10

Grocery shopping this week, with what happened Monday, was not in budget or really planned. Plans often go out to the wayside when unpredictable things like that happen.

The whole family headed to HEB late on Monday, so it took longer and we got a handful of impulse buys. I was not in the mood to fight for the budget.

At HEB we spent $67.98 (oops! That’s the whole budget for this week!)

We got, some frozen pizzas (there was no way I was cooking dinner after my morning), lettuce, chicken breasts, oatmeal, lunch meat, granola bars, salad dressing, strawberries ($0.87 a pound! We are going to slice and freeze mosts of them.) Oatmeal digestive cookies (Baby Hercules likes these ones, I got the wrong ones last time.) Hummus, and some cheddar bunnies.

Tuesday, I made it out to Aldi, and after loading up, realized I forget the peppers and had to drag the kids back in. I spent a total of $31.94 at Aldi.

At Aldi I stocked up on some things that we need for lunches and pizza night; pasta sauce, pepperoni, trail mix, yogurt, mini cucumbers, yellow potatoes, pretzels, grapes, and bell peppers.

This week’s total on groceries was $99.42. Yikes! If I am careful, I think we can manage skipping the grocery store next week! That will help the budget, and maybe, just maybe give us a small rollover.

I also had a helper today with pictures… Good thing he is cute!

Budgeting-Groceries

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.