The title of this post should be, “Weekly Recap and the Case of the Missing Bananas”
Because I can’t find my bananas.
I remember picking up the bananas, weighing the bananas, adding the price to my tally, and then… later at home, there were no bananas. No bananas on the receipt, either. I can only conclude that I left the bananas right there on the scale in the produce department. I’m that crazy lady wandering around the grocery store picking things up and setting them down in random places.
Ugh.
Other than that, this week went really well! Luckily, I had the last few tangerines and some frozen fruit from before the September Challenge, so I didn’t go without fruit completely this week. Crazier things have happened, I suppose. …Like that time my entire grocery cart full of items disappeared. That really happened, but it’s a story for a different time. Let’s get back to business.
What I Bought
I had a few expensive purchases this week, like ground turkey, arugula, and mozzarella cheese. Those ate up most of my budget, so the overall number of items this week was low. Luckily I scored with sales on avocado ($1 each), and red and orange bell peppers ($0.88 each). The only staples I had to restock on were flour, eggs, and milk.
I decided to do the extra work and cook my beans from dry for my chili instead of buying three cans because I didn’t have much wiggle room in my budget ($1.65 for dry versus three cans at $1.19 each). I used my slow cooker to cook the beans the day before, so it wasn’t much work, it just required planning ahead.
The turkey came in a 19oz. package, so I used half for my chili and froze the second half. That will be a nice money saver in a future week when my budget is running tight, or I want to splurge on something a little more pricey (nuts? frozen fruit?).
Here is what my grocery list and receipts looked like… (no bananas!)
The grocery store was out of green onion (!!), so I got cilantro to top my chili instead. I ran out of room in my budget to replenish my frozen broccoli, so that just had to wait until the following week. That was just so I had supplies on hand to make Bowties and Broccoli (my favorite emergency meal), so it didn’t affect my menu for the week. Everything else on the list went as planned! I love it when that all works out nicely.
What I Ate
My main meal this week was this super easy Weeknight Black Bean Chili. I topped it with either diced avocado or dollops of sour cream, and some cilantro. I actually didn’t make it through all the servings this week, but that’s okay because it freezes great! And that’s more variety for later.
I made this amazing Sweet Potato Cornbread to go with the chili, and sometimes I also ate it for breakfast with eggs… because YUM!
Seriously the best breakfast ever. I added a little maple syrup to the cornbread at breakfast. OMG I’m drooling just typing it out…
For a little more vegetabley-ness, I made this cold Pasta Salad with Sausage and Arugula. My other main reason for making this was to use up a couple of links of sausage that I found in the freezer. Can’t let that good stuff go to waste! This made a HUGE batch, so I actually couldn’t get through all of it this week, and a couple servings went into the trash at the end of the week. :/ Unfortunately this one doesn’t freeze well because of the fresh vegetables.
And lastly, I made use of left over carrots, celery, and dill from last week’s Matzo Ball Soup to make a delicious Dilly Vegetable Dip with crudités. These crunchy fresh vegetables were an awesome snack throughout the week and now I want to keep them on hand more often. I was also just super psyched to have been able to use the sour cream in THREE different dishes this week (chili topper, cornbread, and vegetable dip). Not a drop of that tub went to waste.
I also ate one or two smoothies using frozen fruit that I had tucked in the back of the freezer from a couple months ago (not the fruit pictured above, but that’s a good visual representation). I’m sure I would have been craving fruit HARD had I not been lucky enough to have that stash in the freezer. I’m almost out of my big bag of frozen berries that I got at Target for $10 and I want to buy more. I need to figure out how to work that into one of my weeks, despite it being 1/3 of my usual budget.
I ate out twice again this week: date night on Friday and brunch with friends. Two “eat outs” per week is one more than I’d like, but I’m still figuring out how to manage dating and social time without it involving food, especially in such a food-centric city like New Orleans!
Summary
I’m very happy with how this week turned out. I felt well fed and my menu had plenty of vegetables and protein. I did feel bad throwing away a chunk of that pasta salad, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s still probably far less than the average household (we’re always our harshest critics!).
I’ve also noticed how this $30/week limit has broken me of my dairy addiction. I’m addicted to cheese and addicted to yogurt. Yogurt probably isn’t a terrible thing to be addicted to, but it IS expensive and I used to eat it every day. This week did have a decent amount of dairy with the sour cream, cheese, and milk (that goes in my coffee), but it’s still a major reduction in my cheese consumption. Now that it’s a luxury, I realize just how much I was eating before. Yikes!
I’m still learning and discovering new things every week! That’s a win!
Wow, you put sour cream, cheese and milk in your coffee? Lol, you see what I did there…
Don’t knock it till you try it! ;) (j/k, of course)
I can’t thank you enough for this amazing blog!!! I find SOOOO many easy but delicious meals that my hubby and I love and that saves us money. Please, never stop! lol.
Totally unrelated, but I noticed you freeze small portions of things often. I love to do this for easy and varied lunches and I just discovered that it works for slices of leftover pizza! Blew my mind. Straight from freezer to oven they weren’t quite like fresh, but still great. And it saved them from my trash can.
You can always “refresh” leftover pizza by adding some extra toppings–a little lightly sauteed pepper, mushroom, onion, minced garlic, a couple of sliced olives, a crumble of leftover bacon from breakfast, a bit of crumbled feta or a tad of Parmesan are just a few ideas. Left over broccoli tastes good on pizza, too, so let your imagination soar.
Dude you rule so hard! I have no idea how I even found your blog but I’ve been a reader for a few years now. I’ve never had one of your recipes not turn out well. I really appreciate your approach to creating recipes that are delicious but still nutritious. You seem to be mindful of what you put into your food without freaking out over it, and I think you set a good example of balance. Some of the other food blogs I read are too militant about the nutrition aspect, and that kinda takes the fun out of it.
I also LOVE the weekly recaps and the SNAP/weekly spending challenge months. Have you thought about adding a section for those? Like a section where one can go to see all of your cheap cheap recipes and the weekly recaps? That would be cool to be able to access those on the same page (like the sections you have for vegetarian, or pasta, or rice, etc). I try to stick to a $25-$30 budget each week, so I personally reference those posts a lot.
Anyway….I really just came here to tell you that you’re awesome. Thanks for all the great content week after week!!
Awww, thank you! :D I have a category for the SNAP challenge posts and will probably create one for the weekly roundups, but for now they’re just under the “Updates” category. :)
I have been sort of amazed at what things cost for you sometimes. 2.49 for a half gallon of milk?? I never pay more than 2.79 for a full gallon and if I time it right I can sometimes get two half gallons for .49 each. I drink a lot of milk, so I am not usually worried by the sell/use by date
Lucky! Amazing how much price can vary from region to region, right?
At the moment, we’re on a full protein-and-veggies-only diet to finally lose those extra pounds from last xmas before this xmas (don’t ask …), but I cannot wait to slowly add some fibres back to our meals so I can try everything you made AND save money!
I’ve been using your recipes for a month now, and they’re delicious–I had fallen into a serious dinner rut and couldn’t get out. Thanks for a great blog. I love saving money and making stuff my kids will actually eat :)
You are seriously such an inspiration! Thanks so much for continuing to share these posts!!
You should try making yogurt in your slow cooker. Its fun and easy.
I’m going to echo the above commentor talking about making your own yogurt. I was facing the cost of yogurt I was eating for breakfast myself recently when I discovered that yogurt is actually fairly easy to make at home, which makes it very cheap! (I was spoiling myself with Greek yogurt as well, and I started wanting full fat, which I couldn’t even buy in bulk at CostCo since they only sell nonfat Greek yogurt.) You can turn a gallon or half gallon of milk into an equivalent amount of plain yogurt (or a smaller amount of greek yogurt). There’s a lot of how-tos on the net, but this is how I’ve been doing it.
You will need:
* Milk, it can be homogenized and pasteurized but NOT ultra pasteurized. A gallon or half gallon, any less and I think the labor vs how much you get would be annoying.
* Starter — this can be a smaller plain yogurt cup from your grocery that is labelled as containing live cultures, or alternatively some yogurt from some you previously made (just save a few tablespoons)
* If you want to strain your yogurt to make it thicker, you’ll need some cheese cloth or muslin
* A cooking thermometer
* I use a large slow cooker crock to do my setting, but anything that will keep the milk close 110* for hours will do.
The process:
* Before I start, I turn on the crock pot to low and set the oven to warm. This sets the stage for when I want to incubate.
* Bring the milk to 180 degrees in a pot on the stove on lower heat. The lower heat will help reduce the amount of milk that ends up coating the bottom and getting stirred up into clumps.
* After the milk hits 180 degrees, use a sink full of ice water to bring the temperature of the milk almost down to 110 degrees.
* take the warm crock pot part from the slow cooker and pour the milk from the pot into it through a wire mesh. The mesh will catch any clumps made from cooking the milk.
* Take some of your starter yogurt and stir it into a measuring cup with some of your 110 milk until it dissolves. Then, stir that cup of milk into the slow cooker full of milk.
* Turn off the oven heat, wrap the slow cooker in a towel, and put it into your warm oven overnight or for around eight hours. In the morning when you take it out, it should be cultured yogurt!
Bonus instructions: if you want greek yogurt’s thickness, use something to tie your cheesecloth/muslin over a large bowl. Pour the yogurt into there and let it drain for several hours or until you like the thickness. I’ve been able to wash the dirty cheesecloth in a washing machine on delicate and it hasn’t been degrading very fast and that’s easier than washing it by hand. I’ve been able to get at least 64 ounces of thick Greek style yogurt out of a gallon of milk. You’ll also end up with whey, which theoretically people use for cooking in various ways, but I haven’t found something I like doing with it quite yet.
There are fancy yogurt makers out there but I like the above method because besides making a lot of cheap yogurt, it’s only using materials and appliances that already have a use in a budget-minded kitchen, instead of adding yet another single use item to clutter up the place.
Costwise: I can make yogurt using a gallon of milk from CostCo that cost around $3, so assuming I get 64 ounces (I might get even more to be honest), that’s around 25 cents for 5.3 ounces (the normal serving size of single yogurt cups), which leaves plenty of budgetary room to add in some jam or something for flavor and still have a very cheap and filling source of protein. (If you need to use a plain yogurt cup for starter, then it would be closer to 33 to 37 cents a serving for the first round, and your costs go down afterwards .) And 64 ounces can pretty much be 2 weeks worth of yogurt.
You’re paying around $2.50 for half a gallon of milk, so I’ll estimate $4 for a full gallon and add $1 for your starter. That gives you a cost of about $2.50 a week for yogurt every day for breakfast, which feels very doable on your goal budget!
I feel you on the food waste. Sometimes it’s so hard to eat everything before it goes bad when you’re just a single person. They need to sell fresh herbs in tiny packets so I don’t have to buy way too much for just me!
I didn’t realize you lived in New Orleans. Do you know Joy the Baker? :P
I haven’t met her but I do know that she’s here in the same city. :) I’m sure we’ll run into each other at some point!
I love the website totallytarget.com for maximizing target sales! Many weeks I get free stuff. Not affiliated with them in any way, just want to help others save money : )
I love these summaries so much! You are so inspiring. I need to eat down my pantry and stick to a food budget. It’s hard with food blogging because I need to splurge for recipes (maple syrup, gelatin, etc.), but I keep it separate in the grocery cart and ring it up separately (tax write-off, lol). Thanks for inspiring me so much :)
I agree! Food blogging does make it difficult, especially if you need to repeat a recipe or are doing freelance on the side. Luckily, I’ve been able to work my freelance recipes into my weekly menu so far… :D
what a shame about the pasta salad. I wonder if you could have salvaged it by adding a white sauce and baking it like mac-and-cheese. . . ? I’ve never tried it but I think I should next time I have lingering pasta salad.
Well, with food like that you don’t really want to eat it past five or six days, even if it’s recooked into something else (for food safety reasons).
Do you have any suggestions for budget friendly & healthy snacks to keep on hand? We do a lot of carrots, celery, humus, apples, etc. Not as many hardboiled eggs now that prices have gone up so much!
I like to do popcorn, the kind that you make on the stove. It’s super cheap, makes a ton, and is easy to flavor with so many different things. Pretzels are often pretty cheap, too, and with a batch of homemade hummus you’re all set! :)
For frozen fruit, I go to the dollar store. Some have freezer sections and one near me regularly offers $1 lb bags of various berries, peaches, or mangos.
Also, +1 for making your own yogurt… I do milk kefir for smoothies, myself… And also water kefir for cheap and healthy carbonated ‘pop’.
I loooooove kefir!
I used to find good deals on frozen strawberries at the 99 cent store too. My favorite places to get froze fruit are Smart & Final (huge bags of various mixes for cheap), Trader Joes (cheap frozen mango and pineapple) and surprisingly Whole Foods has the store brand frozen fruit for about $3/lb which is often cheaper than anyone else. The one place I won’t buy it is the regular grocery store – for some reason it’s crazy expensive and hard to find there.
When you cook beans from scratch, what do you do to make up for the starchy bean liquid from the cans in the soup– I feel like that thickens up the chili so well!
I always thought the liquid from canned beans was full of salt. I drain and rinse them before using and then if I want the soup to be thicker I just take out some soup, mash it up and add it back.
I use the cooking liquid from my beans! If you have a pressure cooker, it’s amazing for cooking beans. (I also recommend the slow cooker method.)
I just used the liquid that the beans cooked in. It’s fairly starchy, too. :)
So, if this makes you feel any better, once I requested $40 back at CVS, at one of those automated checkout stations, and it spit the $40 out…and then I accidentally left it sitting there in the cash dispensary thingie. And didn’t realize it until about 12 hours later. Yup.
Thanks for posting this update! I too eat probably more dairy than necessary, and it can be expensive. :/
Ouch! That would have made me cry. Hahahah
I’m also a major dairy addict. I don’t early a lot of meat, outside of fish and occasionally chicken. Have you tried making yogurt yourself? I make it in my crockpot overnight. I like Greek style (thick!) yogurts, so I culture mine for about 10-12 hrs, and then strain for 10-12 hrs in the fridge. Some small lumps, but delicious and all for the cost of the milk and some time on the stove.
I, too, was going to suggest making yogurt. For the cost of some milk, a small pot of some great bio yogurt (for your first batch only) and a bit of effort, you can have an unlimited supply of fresh healthy bio yogurt. I have a yogurt maker and leave mine in for 8 hrs and even use organic milk so I get organic bio for pennies, in comparison to the high prices, they charge in the shops!
Have you ever tried making your own yogurt? It’s super easy.
We are trying to cut down on eating out as well; we were doing really well with just once a week, but now it’s having to go up to twice due to the lateness of a night class and work the next day (it’s just faster to grab takeout when you’re having to go from noon to 8:30pm with no food and have to be in bed by 10!). But I’ve been trying to freeze more each week, with the goal of using it up the following week, and that might make it possible to cut back to just one meal out again! Thank you for these recaps, it really helps with planning out how to get in good variety when you are only cooking 2-3 fresh meals (outside of breakfast) a week!
I love your records and your weekly spending info! We are a family of four but I haven’t worked my food budget down as far as is like yet and you inspire me!
I wanted to say, yogurt is super healthy and you might consider making your own to get it back in your diet! You’d have to buy one more small container of active yogurt but after that it’s just the price of milk! For us, milk is $5.79/ga but plain yogurt is $4.99/32oz. We eat it with homemade jam stirred in. It’s a big savings! There are tutorials on the web how to do it, give it a shot!
Recipes! Not records… Sorry for the typo!
Thank you for continuing to share your weekly summaries and reflections. Your budgeting process has helped me to save money and repurpose food items. And it has made me rethink proper portions!
I really like how honest you are during these reports. It seems like you use the freezer a lot! How do you keep track of everything in your freezer? I usually try to label foods with a date, but I often forget to do so.
Well, I try not to let it build up and I look through what’s in there fairly often to make sure nothing gets “lost”. But, speaking of that, I thought of a great chart that I want to make and offer as a free downloadable pdf that helps you track what’s in your freezer… Hopefully I’ll have that finished soon! :)
“According to the NRDC, the average American family of four ends up tossing the equivalent of $2,275 of food into the trash annually.”
That’s an insane amount of food. I really think planning meals and only buying the food you need for the next week or so is the single best way to reduce food waste. The most I ever throw out is the last slice or two of bread that got moldy, or a few leaves of wilty lettuce.
I love these summaries. They are perfect. Maybe next time you have extra pasta & veggies, invite your date to your house for that. Part of your date could be making a dessert together or playing a two person board game.
What a great idea! I’ve found that people love to come over for a homecooked meal.
I think what has been so appealing about going out is simply just getting OUT of the house. Since I work from home now and cook for a living, the last thing I want to do on a Friday night is stay in and cook. Hahaha. Other than that, I do agree that cooking together is a FANTASTIC date… unless you’re a food blogger. :D