As a stay at home mama to five babes, living on one income and living in CALIFORNIA budgeting has always been so hard and so discouraging for me. Mostly because after our mortgage, property taxes, and car payment there's not a whole lot left over. Everything else goes to food and bills. And when I say everything, I mean it. This summer has been a budget buster for us when it comes to grocery shopping. A combination of growing babes and everyone being home all day everyday has forced me to start spending almost twice as much as I was before and that's really only to restock the pantry. We hardly ever eat out and while I could definitely cut back by implementing more mac n cheese and cold cereal nights, I really don't spend a lot on meal prep. I always go with recipes that are as simple as possible with the least amount of ingredients required or I make stuff up according to what we have already. If any recipe has more than three ingredients that I need to purchase, I don't use it.
This last weekend I shopped at four different grocery stores per some recommendations in an effort to save some money and I thought I would share what I learned...
PRODUCE: Fruit is one of our favorite go to snacks, especially when my kids have already eaten a meal or had a snack and they're still hungry. I stopped at Food Maxx this week and spent $21. I got 5 apples, 1 apple pear, a small bag of baby carrots, 2 lbs of grapes, 1 green bell pepper, 1 small container of raspberries, 1 small container of blackberries, 1 lb of strawberries, and 2 big bunches of bananas. It was actually quite a bit of fruit! Sadly it all started to go bad not even two days later and we noticed that it brought in a bunch of fruit flies. Maybe I caught their produce section on an off day but I've never had good experience with the freshness and quality of anything I've bought at Food Maxx. It wouldn't have cost me a whole lot more to buy all of that fruit at Costco and Trader Joes with better quality and freshness. The tiny bit extra is worth it to us especially when I have to throw out half of a container of berries only a couple of days after purchase. If you love Food Maxx and have good experiences there that's great and I'm so glad it works for you, it just didn't work well for us and what we need. Also, I've been buying a bundle of Organic bananas (usually has 5-6 bananas in each bunch) for anywhere between $.99-$1.41 from Target which is SUCH a good deal! Plus I save 5% when I use my RedCard.
MEAT: I don't buy a whole lot of meat because it's so expensive but I thought I'd share what we do buy and where we buy it to get the best deal. The only chicken I buy anymore is the 10 pound bag of frozen boneless/skinless chicken breasts from Costco! It comes in at about $20 and I only buy one bag a month. Two of my favorite, simple recipes to use this chicken are...
BBQ Chicken: 1 cup of bbq sauce, 1/4 cup of Italian dressing, 1 tbsp. of brown sugar. Coat crockpot in olive oil, add 2 chicken breasts, pour sauce mixture over top, and cook on high for 6 hours from frozen and 4 hours from thawed. Shred and enjoy!
SALSA CHICKEN: Coat crockpot in olive oil, add 2 chicken breasts, pour 1 jar of salsa on top, and cook on high for 6 hours from frozen and 4 hours from thawed. Shred and enjoy! I normally make rice bowls or burritos out of the salsa chicken and it's so good!
I buy 1 pound of ground turkey a week for taco night and I get it at Trader Joes for a little less than $4/lb. It is great quality and not very fatty so I retain most of what I buy. One pound feeds our entire family tacos for one dinner and I always have a little left over that Kaleb will either take to work or I'll use in an egg scramble or omelet for breakfast the next day.
Natural turkey lunch meat! I buy a big tub (33 oz) of it from Costco every other week (maybe every 3 weeks) and I think it costs about $9. It occasionally goes on sale for a couple bucks off and it's the best deal for the natural kind that doesn't have all the extra junk in it like artificial ingredients and nitrates.
I just recently started buying turkey bacon because I love it and it's added protein for my breakfast in the morning. I just found a two pound package for $12 from Costco. That will last me at least a month, maybe more and the quality is amazing. It's sliced nice and thick and doesn't have a ton of fat.
BULK PANTRY STAPLES: Organic canned blackbeans, bag of rice, bag of quinoa, pure maple syrup, and peanut butter (especially when it's on sale). I buy all of these items at Costco and they all last me at least a couple of months each. The rice and quinoa have lasted us several months and those items are so versatile and can be used so many different ways.
SNACKS: I always start my grocery shopping at Grocery Outlet. I'll grab as many snacks as I can from there if they're priced well, which they usually are, and then I'll head to Trader Joes to grab anything else I need. I absolutely love Grocery Outlet because they carry lots of big brand organic foods for less than half of the retail value! It's hit and miss since they are always changing their inventory but I can normally grab things like cheese, yogurt, orange juice, granola bars, cereal, and frozen veggies for very inexpensive. I tried Wal Mart grocery per several recommendations and after scouring every aisle I found that I could have gotten everything at better quality for the same price (sometimes even a little less) at Trader Joe's. I seriously love TJ's SO MUCH!!! Their food is mostly preservative free and they carry so many great specialty items at really good prices! Most of their granola bars are $2.45/5 bars, 32 oz of honey greek yogurt (which is the best greek yogurt) is $4.99, I always buy their bag of chopped onions (cause who likes/has time to chop onions?? NOT ME), and so many other things! I know my prices pretty well so there are a few things that are overpriced that I won't purchase from there but for the most part it is very reasonable!
All in all I think I grocery shop pretty well, I just don't have a lot to work with along with lots of mouths to feed and that's ok! Our needs are all provided for, always, and I'm constantly having to remind myself that although we barely scrape by, we do indeed scrape by. I could definitely be better about cutting back on Starbucks runs and donuts....womp womp....which I never spend more than $5 each time and I don't go every day but it definitely adds up in the long run, we don't eat out very much and if we do it's In-n-Out and not anything fancy and expensive, our only monthly expenses that we could cut out are internet and Netflix which we are really considering at least temporarily...I'm all about saving money and shopping wisely! If you have tips and/or tricks send them my way!
