My Healthy Food Budget Weekly total: $165.95 (extra long week!)
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.
September – Month Eleven, Week Two
The official “Project Food Budget” is coming to a close in a couple of weeks, but my full year of budgeting will end in October. I’ve decided to adjust my “budget week” as Sunday to Saturday, as I think it’ll make it a lot easier to stay on track.
This week, I spent $165.95, with a monthly total of $296.71. That leaves $103.29 for the rest of September, calculating to about $50 per week.
Our dining-out spending was through the roof this week, but since we didn’t take any vacation time this year, we wanted to treat ourselves to one last blast of summertime fried (local) seafood. We’re so lucky to be on the coast!
Dining Out: $64.34
Groceries: $101.61
Spending Details
Mann Orchards $15.12: (Friday) half peck of local Mac apples (.99/lb), 1/2 gallon local apple cider, local green peppers, onions, lemons, garlic
Whole Foods $46.64: (Friday) 2lbs grassfed 90% ground beef (not local, but on sale), Tamari soy sauce, organic bananas, organic grapes (sale), kerrygold cheddar, bulk sucanat, bulk raisins, organic cashews (Canada), organic pasta, (2) fair trade chocolate bars, artichoke spinach hommus
Seven Acre Farm $7: (Saturday) 2 dozen jumbo eggs
Andover Farmers Market $4.50: (Saturday) bunch of “red” baby bok choy from Gaouette farm and three potatoes from Farmer Dave’s
Trader Joe’s $20.13: (Thursday) organic raisins, (2) peanuts, raw almonds, (2) organic pasta, feta cheese
Market Basket: (Thursday) Not part of my food budget, but I bought two Dr Bronner’s Magic Soap 32 oz bottles for only $6.99 each, in tax-free New Hampshire! whoo hooo!
Lowell Provisions Store (Thursday) $0 free coupon for 1 lb ground beef
Local Farm stand $8.22: (Saturday) Green pepper, large scallion, rainbow chard, (2) apples, (2) pears
Week of Meals
I’m adjusting my budget “week” as Sunday to Saturday, so there’ll be extra meals this week.
- Thursday: Baked egg & brown rice with cream, radish greens, onions, garden eggplant & garden tomatoes topped with mozzarella
- Friday: Grassfed beef burger sandwiches with roasted peppers & onions and steamed green beans
- Saturday: Take out
- Sunday: Dining out fried seafood shack (splurge for end of summer)
- Monday: Chicken broth soup with vegetables (carrots, scallions, baby bok choy, garden tomatoes) and quinoa
- Tuesday: Pasta with garden tomato sauce
- Wednesday: Leftover quinoa with tomato sauce
- Thursday: Baked haddock (frozen from DH’s fishing trip) with leftover quinoa topped with butter & cheddar
- Friday: Beef Meatloaf topped with stewed garden tomatoes with brown rice and side of steamed carrots
- Saturday: Baked eggs & veggies (garden eggplant, baby red bok choy, bell pepper, garden Carmen peppers, scallions with a little bit of leftover brown rice)
Who Else is Budgeting?
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