Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $62.88
My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal (local if possible,) home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and gardening.
There’s two of us eating (mostly) 3 meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.
June – Month Eight, Week Two
This week, I’ve spent $62.88, with a monthly total of $211.19. That leaves $188.81 for the rest of June’s budget, about $60 per week.
Dining Out: $21.54
Entertaining: $0
Gardening: $8.77
Groceries: $32.57
We lucked out this week, in that we both of our two “dining out” dinners paid courtesy of others. NICE!
On the negative side, I felt like we were backtracking into bad habits. Eating high fat, high sodium, low nutritious junk meals at chain restaurants. Ugh. I put a stop to it, and for the rest of the week, we ate healthy.
I’m hoping that I’ll do okay for the rest of the month, we have three weekends of parties coming up, starting with Father’s Day, so we’ll see how that goes.
I have the Trader Joe’s “Get $5 Back if You Spend $50” from MyLinkables.com looming over my head. Hmm, yeah, it’s free $, but if I have to force myself to spend $50, is the $5 worth it? I have until the 27th to decide if I have enough money in the budget. Looking at my current TJ’s shopping list, I’m at about $40-$47, and I could easily add some organic chicken legs for the dogs, which doesn’t count for my groceries.
Spending Details
Wilson Farms (large local farm) spent $7.39 for $32.39 worth of produce, plants & seeds: Whoo hoo, BARGAIN shopper! Groupon offered $15 for $30 – I had a $10 referral credit on my Groupon acct, so it only cost me $5 for the groupon plus $2.39 for the extra purchase amount.
I bought 6pk basil plants, 6pk red lettuce plants, pk of seeds, along with local radishes, local snap peas, (2) local lettuces, asparagus, tomatoes, and organic nectarines. PLUS, they were having a “Grand Re-Opening” special day, giving away a bag of goodies, like shelling peas, homemade donuts & blueberry bread, jelly, root beer, granola, and apple juice sample. It was a great morning!
Whole Foods $24.73: organic raspberries (Driscoll’s .50 coupon!), 5lb bag o’ organic carrots, organic celery, (2) organic canned tomatoes, organic salsa (.50 coupon), block of parmesan cheese (NOT the good stuff, but I liked it actually better than Reggiano), and organic jelly ($1 coupon).
Market Basket $9.22: (3) oranges, (5) bananas, and a large watermelon. Geez, watermelons are expensive ($6). I liked Trader Joe’s price last week! But the one watermelon was very large, and it lasted for many snacks!
Week of Meals
Meal planning is still helping a lot. I sometimes forget what was planned for dinner that day, and it’s so easy to take a peek at my meal plan for the details. Not having easy access is what made it more difficult to stick to my plan before.
- Thursday: Leftover burger in tomato spice sauce over pasta
- Friday: dining out – we only had to pay for tip
- Saturday: dining out – yes again! only paid for tip
- Sunday: Homemade pizza topped with fresh tomatoes, salsa, feta & parmesan cheese, and a large veggie salad
- Monday: Stir fry asparagus, carrots, celery with leftover (dining out) steak over barley
- Tuesday: Homemade pizza shell topped with salsa, parmesan & radish greens, with a veggie salad
- Wednesday: Fried eggs topped over red lentils, (frozen) corn, & fresh shelled peas
Want to Join the Project Food Budget?
It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget! There’s still plenty to learn and experience!
If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!
Here’s who else is budgeting this week:
Wow, you go with the Groupon! That is fantastic!
We all fall off the wagon sometimes, it’s how fast you get back on the wagon that matters. Congrats on a great week!