One Year of $50 Groceries

It works best for my schedule to go grocery shopping on Wednesday or Thursday. So a week refers to Wednesday to Wednesday or Thursday to Thursday. Meal ideas use a combo of the week's groceries and ingredients I already have on hand.

It's been a year since I slashed our grocery budget to $50 a week! When I started, I wasn't sure I would stick to it for so long, but it's working for our family and I'm turning back. This week you'll get a glimpse at what happens when I go to the store with a list of only "must haves" and no game plan for the rest of my budget. It didn't end up too bad, but could have been better.

Quick Facts

• Total Spent: $55.43 ($5.43 over budget)
• Total Savings: $18.72
• Savings Break Down: $5 from Mperks, $12.72 from shopping sale ad and $1.00 from coupons

Must Haves

• Cheez-Its (per Tim's request)
• Milk
• Hot Cocoa (per Stella's request)
• Cheese slices
• Eggs (Turns out these weren't a must have. Got home and I had a dozen in the fridge, oops!)

My Meal Ideas

• Baked oatmeal
• Tortellini with garlic bread
• Beef stir fry with white rice
• Turkey and egg noodle casserole (I have lots of slice turkey, not sure if it will work in the casserole, but I'm going to try anyway) 
• Penne Pizza Bake

So how could have my trip been better? Well for starters, I went over budget. That wouldn't have happened if I would have had a plan. It would have been a good week to stock up on pasta, it was on sale for 79 cents, that 20 cents cheaper than the usual sale price. I didn't actually need eggs, so that's $3 that could have went else where.

You can read my other $50 Grocery posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.