Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: May Month 7 / Week 4

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $122.34

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal (local if possible,) home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 $350 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.

May – Month Seven, Week Four

This week, I’ve spent $122.34, with a monthly total of $322.76. That leaves $27.24 for 8 more days in May.

Yeah, okay, I don’t think May is my month for budgeting! I’ve been a little impulsive, especially for dining out. A little bit here and a little bit there adds up. I think I’ll be under my original budget of $400, but I am not sure how I’ll do with the $350 adjusted budget.

The good news is we did spend a lot on our vegetable garden, so I am not too worried if I am over.

Dining Out: $27.40
Entertaining: $0
Gardening: $53.93
Groceries: $41.01

Spending Details

Whole Foods $26.97: Peanut butter, vidalia onions, cherries, organic beets, cabbage, red delicious apples, local fresh mozzarella, & organic corn tortillas.

Local Farm $6.50: farm fresh eggs

Meat CSA $7.54: Boneless pork chops (Luckily, products from the Meat CSA are technically paid in full, so no real money is actually spent, but I apply the cost to my budget as we consume it.)

McCue’s Gardening Center $32.97: A few months ago, I bought a Groupon for $30 worth of plants for only $15. I bought three flats of veggies for a total of $32.97, that’s almost like getting one flat for free. Yeah, I went crazy overboard with too many plants (hmm, I think almost 150 plants), but in the end, after they’re all eventually planted, it’s gonna be glorious!

Mahoney’s Garden Center $5.96: Even though I bought an exorbitant amount of plants, DH wanted to try growing watermelon, so we bought 2 Sugar Baby watermelon plants.

Miscellaneous $15: One yard/truckload of compost/dirt. Yes, we have an unlimited supply of compost in our backyard, but it was getting time-consuming digging and sifting enough for the new beds and containers needed for all the plants we bought! DH knew a place in town that offered excellent-quality soil for cheap $ so we decided it was worth it.

Week of Meals

  • Thursday: Steamed broccoli with bulgar topped with fried egg
  • Friday: Burger King šŸ™
  • Saturday: Marinated pork chop with broccoli and quinoa
  • Sunday: PBJ sandwiches w/ sliced apples
  • Monday: Red lentils with (leftover frozen) chicken vegetable soup
  • Tuesday: Quiche with asparagus, roasted onions, and feta
  • Wednesday: Homemade sausage braised w/ wine, carrots & cabbage, over brown rice

I mentioned in a previous post that I don’t use anything fancy for meal planning; I keep a very simple “Note” on my iPad, which also syncs to my iPhone using my Gmail account. Notes can also be synced using iCloud.

Below is a screen shot of my Meal Planning note for anyone that’s interested. I keep list of current dates, and a tentative meal idea for each day. You can’t see on the screen shot, but under the dates, there is a long list of ingredients as well as future meal ideas and classic go-to meals. It’s very basic, but it works for me! šŸ™‚

meal planning note on iPad

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