Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $27.47
My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal, home-cooked meals while sticking to a $308.49 $400 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and spices/herbs.
There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.
January – Month Three, Week Three
This week, I’ve spent $27.47 for a monthly total of $148.95. After my $83.34 CSA meat delivery coming this weekend, that leaves about $65 for the rest of January.
Dining Out: $13.00
Groceries: $14.47
(Saturday) Market Basket: $14.47 = organic spinach, bananas, Haagen daz vanilla ice cream (for the big playoff game), and California olive oil. Not a whole lot of product for the money – the olive oil quashed me, but I was down to about 1.5 Tbsp and it was desperately needed.
This Week’s Struggle
It was a struggle (mentally) this week.
One part of me was telling myself to relax, it’s not the end of the world if I overspend a little. I can just roll any overage into Feb. Who’s going to care if I couldn’t fully absorb December’s $100 overage in January! It would be fine if I needed to split the overage into 2 months.
Then the other part of me was saying no, I have to stick with it! If I give in to extra spending when it gets tough, then what’s to stop me from overspending every other time!
So, I quit whining and I took a quick inventory of my pantry, fridge and freezer; then I created a list of the remaining days left in January, and proceeded to set a tentative meal plan for each day.
Meals are not set in stone, but it least gives me an idea of what’s possible; I have hope that I will indeed have plenty of food for the rest of January.
It may sound silly to some, that I’m worrying about this so intensely, but it’s become a personal challenge for me to stick to my budget this month. I will feel so accomplished on January 31st!
Week of Meals
Lots of freezer leftovers this week.
- Thursday: Take out
- Friday: leftover freezer veggie soup with beans, lentils & white rice
- Saturday: Pasta with tomatoes, roasted peppers, and spinach
- Sunday: Leftover freezer pork chops with sauce of mushrooms, beets, onions & tomatoes over quinoa and lentils
- Monday: leftover freezer ham bean tomato soup with added mushrooms and leftover lentils & quinoa
- Tuesday: leftover freezer grass fed (local) burgers with butternut squash & bulgar cooked with tamari & sesame oil
- Wednesday: Jalapeno corn muffins with fried egg & sides of cranberry apple compote (freezer) and caraway cabbage slaw
Want to Join the Project Food Budget?
Everyone is doing a great job with the project!
It’s never to late to join us! They officially started in October 2011, but there are new bloggers joining every week!
If you’d like to participate in the Project Food Budget, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!
Here’s who else is budget blogging this week:
- Emily Levenson
- Dairy-Free Cooking
- Test Kitchen Tuesday
- Red Pen Mama
- Acquired Tastes
- Fit Flexitarian
- Warm As Pie
- Katy Rank Lev
- My Inner Healthy
- Little Blue Hen
- xox, b
- What da Health?
- Project Food Budget 2.0
- Fresh…A New Chapter
- Chandeleah
- Two Eggs Over Easy
- Eat Whole Be Vital
- Four Happy Violets
- Naturally {Un}Refined
- PGH Dad
- Yoga Beauty Life
- Charmingly Modern
- NaMAMAste
I have this feeling most of the time too… I’m like “what money if for anyway”?!? And then I realize that I don’t wanna spend it all in food!!!
Good idea for the pantry inventory! Have a nice weekend!
$65 for the rest of January = you can totally do it! I love the idea of a pantry/freezer “use up” – it can really force creativity. :) It looks like you have quite a variety of items in the freezer to keep things interesting, too.
You will feel so accomplished on January 31!! Go Debbie!
Go Debbie, go!
Love that you stopped the anxiety trap and did something about it: made a plan.
And I’m pretty sure a lot of us (ME) have the same issue every week about going over. I cut myself some slack, and appreciate the progress that I’ve made. And remind myself of what I learn each week about our spending. Helps.
I completely get it about wanting to stay within budget – I am the same way. But way to go for making a plan for the rest of the month so you can avoid stressing. I really need to do that for myself.
Wow, thank you all so much. I think this whole experience has been incredible, and it’s been a pleasure to read all of your own experiences!
I haven’t gotten strict with the money yet. I usually set a week-to-week goal. But planning is key, and I know the way I shop, plan, and cook makes budgetary concerns secondary, if that makes sense. You are doing great, and as everyone else said, making and having a plan can really alleviate the stress. After all cooking and eating should be enjoyable!