Fun Friday Shopping Totals: See how I feed my family of six (including 3 teens!) for around $400/month. See our $100 Budget Weekly Menu here and (NEW!) link up your savings below!
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Read more about how I stick to a $100 a week budget in my FREE e-book Save More-Clip Less.
PRODUCE MARKET–Lots of Meat On Sale!
(Check back Tuesday to see what I did with all this meat!
Total spent for meat and produce-$56.35.
SAVE A LOT Part 1
SAVE A LOT Part 2–Total Spent $57.93.
(not pictured: large watermelon and a head of cabbage)
Weekly Total: $ 114.28
May Monthly Total: $ 596.06
($100/week budget for six people–This total is for five weeks of shopping, so I am averaging $120 per week, or $20 over budget. I did have to purchase a lot of pantry staples this month, but we are considering raising the budget from $100 to $120 per week. I’m going to see how I do for the next couple of weeks and then we’ll make a decision.)
Click here to see previous week’s shopping trips.
How did you do this week? Link up your savings posts below!
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
It still amazes me how much menu planning can save. This week I am trying to skip the store and eat what is in the house. Lunch foods for my husband are starting to dwindle….. plus Monday is Memorial Day. So i might end up going but hopefully with a small list. We spend about $100a week on our family of four. Two toddlers. I do believe the more you have to feed the easier it can be to buy in bulk and such cutting down on waste. Plus bulk is usually cheaper. I am hoping to cut my budget but we will see if the rising prices of groceries allows this. Thanks for the steady encouragement.
I didn’t grocery shop this week, I will do it Tuesday since we’ll be away for Memorial Day weekend but have a pretty short list just of a few of the best sales. I did get about 6 gallons of cherries free (I picked them off a friend’s tree) and we’re in the process of freezing most of them (the ones that didn’t turn into cherry crisp).
I understand why you are considering a food-budget raise. Costs continue to escalate and food is becoming more and more expensive. Publix has some good BOGO items this week….best sale ad in several weeks.
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
This may be a silly question – but what is a produce market??
Not silly at all. I actually thought about that this morning when I wrote the post and then I forgot to change it. We have a local produce market down the street that is run by a hispanic family. I don’t know how they do it, but they have AMAZING prices. I have heard that in other areas there are local Asian markets that are similar, basically a mom and pop operation that has low prices because they have low overhead and terrific customer service.
Thanks!! I live north of Charleston so I am sure that we have something similar – I will have to start asking around
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We have a Latin market on the corner. While almost everything on the signs is in Spanish, as long as you have something to translate what you may not be able to read by sight, you can find amazing prices. I love it!
We get paid every two weeks. After reading your blog we dropped our budget down to $200 every two weeks. I never realized how much I was spending, but looking back now it was almost $800-$900 a month in groceries. And we are a family of 4 but only 3 eat solid food. Granted that $800-$900 did include formula which is now in a separate budget, but formula wasn’t $400 a month. I had a question about something, just wondering if you think it is a good deal (I’m new at this whole budget lol) A meat market here in town offers a meat package for $79.99. It totals up to 33lbs of meat for dinner and then 2lbs of bacon for breakfasts. We do 6 meals a week and then a leftover/sandwich night (sandwiches if we have no leftovers). This week I bought the meat packaged as is. It broke down into 13 separate meals, but with our small family I can have some packages broken down smaller and it will total 21 meals. Which means I can store quite a bit in my freezer and use that meat when I need to focus on restocking my pantry. I see this as a good deal. With what I have in my pantry I can still purchase everything on $200 a paycheck. Like I said, I am still used to pretty lavish spending, so something that I might see as a good deal may be easily fooling me. Do you see this meat package to be a good deal? On average what do you spend on meats alone for a weekly period?
I try to spend around $2.00 a pound for meat. In our area $1.79/lb-$1.99/lb is a stockup price for boneless chicken breasts, $.99/lb for bone-in breasts. Top Sirloin and London Broil can be purchased for around $2.39/lb on sale and ground beef for $1.99/lb. 35 pounds of meat would be around $70 at my stock up prices, but this may be a good deal for you if you don’t want to or cannot find good sale prices at different stores each week. I don’t think that the $10 “extra” you are spending is excessive and meat prices in your area may be higher than in mine. I think it’s amazing that you have cut your budget as far as you have and if this is working for you, keep doing it until you find something cheaper (if you do).