Simple Little Moments

This post includes exactly what my family of 3 purchased for groceries in one week and the total cost of the grocery trip. It also includes what meals we will eat for dinner with the items purchased.

As your family grows… so do the expenses. In my little family of 3 (soon to be 4!), we try to be frugal in all areas of life. We moved out to my in-laws property where we rent a small 1-bedroom home from them, sold our second vehicle, and have cancelled all monthly subscriptions to cut down our expenses as much as possible.

Our philosophy on food is that we aim to feed ourselves and our family quality ingredients, limit processed food, and buy foods with no seed oils. Sometimes that can make grocery trips difficult because our stores are so polluted with junk! I wanted to share our weekly grocery run with you, including costs, to help you gain some inspiration in your own homemaking journey.

What we bought this week:

Meat
Halal Ground Beef: $4.48 x 3
Eggs (30): $10.82
12-pack Chicken Thighs: $10.72
12-pack Chicken Thighs: $12.40

Veggies
Organic Kale (bag): $6.97
Green Onion: $1.47
Mushrooms: $2.97
Cucumbers: $1.77 x 3
3-pack Bell Peppers: $5.97

Fruits
Raspberries x 2: $3.97 + $3.97
Green Grapes: $5.91
Gala Apples: $6.97
Frozen Blueberries: $13.63
Mandarin Oranges: $5.97
Bananas: $2.31

Dairy
Medium Cheddar Cheese: $5.98
1L 3% Milk: $2.84
Organic Plain Yogurt 2kg: $12.97
Lactose Free 2L Milk: 2 for $11

Misc
Toddler Mum-mum Crackers: $3.47
Cream Crackers: $5.97

I was actually so proud of us this grocery trip because we didn’t succumb to any extras – we stuck to what we needed.

Important ingredients we already had at home

Obviously this grocery trip didn’t include every possible item in our kitchen. These are definitely the staples though. Big/important ingredients we already had at home are things like: noodles, potatoes, rice, flour, condiments, salt/pepper, olive oil, butter, etc. We tend to bulk up on ingredients that are on sale. As an example, there was recently a really good sale on noodles so we got a ton of boxes. We probably have enough noodles for the next 6 months!

Dinner ideas for this week

Since we typically go grocery shopping once per week, we have to make a conscious effort to use only what we’ve purchased, especially the fresh stuff! We basically have to eat a kale salad with our dinner every night to make sure we use it up before it goes bad. If we can’t finish it though, I’ll probably freeze the rest and use it in smoothies. Here’s my tentative plan of what we’ll eat this week for dinners. Hopefully this gives you some inspiration!

Monday:
Leftover ham from Easter dinner
Kale salad with bell peppers, cucumbers, mushrooms, green onions, cheese
Leftover rice

Tuesday:
Baked chicken thighs with Worcestershire sauce
Kale salad (same ingredients as Monday)

Wednesday:
Pesto chicken pasta with leftover chicken from Tuesday
Kale salad (same ingredients)

Thursday:
Taco bowls with ground beef
Kale salad (same ingredients)

Friday:
Pizza night (homemade)

Hoping to be even more frugal

We are really looking forward to the continuation of spring and then the oncoming of summer for so many reasons. Two of the huge reasons though are gardening and chickens.

We’re getting baby chickens near the end of June and this will eventually cut down on the amount of money we spend on eggs. We use 4+ eggs per day, so being able to have egg-laying chickens is going to be really helpful. We’re also putting a lot more effort into our garden this year and plan to plant cucumbers, peppers, and kale. Maybe green onion too? I’m hoping this year will be more successful than others for gardening because I haven’t had much luck in years past. I’m still learning. 🙂

Let’s reflect

I’m so curious how your weekly grocery bill compares to ours. I feel like we spend so much money on food, but we don’t want to compromise high quality foods just to buy cheaper stuff. We make an effort lately to shop at the cheapest grocery store in our area and that seems to make a difference.

Hopefully this helped you budget in some way or get some grocery ideas and meal ideas!