Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: December

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $141.57

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal, home-cooked meals while sticking to a $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. Breakfasts are usually light, and we try to eat left-overs for lunch. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

December – Month Two, Week One

I’ve spent $141.57 during the first week of December, so that leaves a balance of $255.08 for the rest of the month.

I’m a little bit nervous about this month, seeing that there’s an extra week plus the holiday, but I’m keeping the confidence up, and trying to plan ahead.

Whole Foods was my first stop @ $58.80 – lots of produce, including local cranberries, organic leeks, bananas, organic apples, organic pears, organic acorn squash, broccoli crowns, organic carrots, fennel, organic lemons, meyer lemons, mushrooms, (local) cocktail tomatoes, and satsuma mandarins, plus Earth Balance mindful mayo, brown cow plain whole yogurt, and olives at the antipasti bar. I also needed some pantry items: white & brown rice, organic ketchup, and bulk whole caraway seeds.

Trader Joe’s totaled $35.09: turkey bacon, raw almonds, peanuts, de-shelled pistachios, frozen organic corn, frozen organic peas, (2) frozen organic raspberries, frozen pesticide-free blueberries, and I was craving Barbara’s Multi-grain Shredded Spoonfuls cereal. I rarely ever buy cereal anymore, but I just love munching on this stuff, and it was a huge box for an excellent price!

I also picked up some King Arthur whole wheat white flour at the local grocery for $2.99 and two dozen local eggs for $5.75.

I had originally wanted to only spend $50-$60 this week, but since I needed to be in same area as Trader Joe’s so I knew it would be frugal-wise to stock up on a few things there, after my visit to Whole Foods. Since I’m fairly stocked now, I am hoping that I won’t need much next week, but some fresh produce. I’m lucky in that the local grocery has a decent offering of organic fruit, so I probably will not need to head to Whole Foods (hopefully!)

Dining Out: $33.45 – much higher this week since DH decided to replace the kitchen floor this week!
Entertaining: $5.49
Groceries: $102.63

Our local meat CSA will be delivered on Saturday December 17th, and I originally thought I should apply the cost as we cook/eat the meat. But that could be a nightmare to keep track of individual meats, so now I’m leaning toward adding the total each month as it’s delivered.

I’m really trying this month, but with Christmas and New Years Eve, I might be forced to go over a little bit. If that happens, I am not going to beat myself up about it. It’ll be okay. I’ll try my best, but things happen. I’ll just deduct the amount from January!

Week of Meals

Thursday: Take out
Friday: Braised beefalo brisket & cabbage with barley
Saturday: Left over beefalo & cabbage with white rice
Sunday: birthday party in the afternoon, so simple cheese sandwich with veggies for dinner
Monday: Spicy leek tomato soup with corn & beans
Tuesday: Take out – DH decided to work on replacing the kitchen floor this week, so it messed up meals a little
Wednesday: Potato pancakes (previously frozen left-overs) with eggs & toast

PS Next week, I won’t be so long-winded!!!!

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

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Here’s who else is participating:

• 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
• Ignition Nutrition
• A Nice Heart and a White Suit
• Because Hobbies Happen
• Primary Focus Health Coaching
• Chicken Tender
• Fresh…A New Chapter
• Whole Living Gal
• Chandeleah
• Two Eggs Over Easy