Week 2 Healthy Food Budget: $134.74 for a total of $201.32 for April
Even though I spent over $100, I feel good about my spending this week. With almost $200 left for the rest of the month, I’m confident I’ll meet my budget.
I’m actually hoping to reduce my April food budget to $380, but we’ll see.
We splurged on a nice lunch last Saturday. Almost $30 was more than we like to normally spend for lunch or take-out, but it’s nice to splurge once in awhile.
To compensate for last Saturday, last night, I made a homemade Italian calzone, instead of opting for take-out. It cost less than $5 and was absolutely delicious. Yes, it was totally unhealthy and decadent with white flour and loads of deli meat, but if we are going to have “junk food” it’s better to make it myself, right?
DH is already trying to convince me to buy Chinese take-out tonight because we saved last night. Ha!
There was some stock-up spending this week. Almond butter and raisins/nuts at Trader Joe’s. Four lbs of chicken breasts at Whole Foods, which I promptly baked and froze for 4-5 weeks of meals/soups.
I bought a lot of fruit and vegetables, including a splurge for a container of Olivia’s lettuce greens (I was craving salad). It’s good because I’ll have enough veggies to last the upcoming week, but I’ll need to buy more fruit soon.
My canned/frozen summer tomato stock is still strong, but my grape jam is dwindling down. I do have lots of jars of grape “syrup” that I could boil down into jam (adding some Pamona’s pectin) but commercial fruit preserves might be necessary.
Spending Details for Groceries Budget – Week 2 April
Dining Out: $28.78 / Total $47.02
Groceries: $105.96 / Total $154.30
(Sat) Trader Joe’s $29.38: Feta cheese, (4) Bananas, organic half & half, hazelnuts, shelled pistachios, organic raisins, pasta, almond butter, frozen organic green beans
(Sun) Woburn Winter Farmer’s Market @ Spence Farm (Jones Farm) $5.60: batch of beets complete with green tops ($3) and small bunch of “Red Rain Asian Greens” ($2) and one apple (.60)
(Sun) Market Basket $11.04: Olivia organic spring mix, organic Fuji apples, Savoy cabbage
(Thurs) Market Basket $11.45: Cauliflower, organic apples, minneola oranges, bananas, and 6pk organic eggs (not happy but I had to buy “Born Free” brand, but I guess it’s better than Eggland’s Best CFO brand)
(Thurs) Open Meadow Farm $12.80 (pre-purchased meat): pork spareribs (yum)
(Fri) Market Basket $4.53 for deli meat (homemade calzone)
(Fri) Whole Foods Market $31.16: Organic rainbow chard (sale), organic baby bok choy, organic celery, 5lb bag o’ organic carrots, jar of sauerkraut, (2) local ricotta cheese (raincheck), and 4 lbs bone-in chicken breast ($1.99lb sale)
About My Healthy Budget
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. DH occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.