What a crazy week, ammiright? Holiday insanity is in full swing and I was still getting over the tail end of a nasty cold last week. Both of those factors combined created a grocery shopping disaster. But you know what? I learned a hard lesson and I already did much better when shopping for this week. So, let’s take a look at the weekly recap and see what happened.
Because I was so exhausted from my cold, I had a really hard time picking recipes for the week. I just didn’t feel like eating (or cooking) anything! The only thing I knew that I wanted was Slow Cooker Tikka Masala and some Homemade Naan to go with it. So, I finally decided to just shop for those ingredients plus my weekly staples and decide what else I wanted to cook later in the week (hopefully using the remainder of my budget for that second shopping trip). Here is what my grocery list looked like with just my weekly staples and the Tikka Masala:
Oh, I also figured I’d pick up a bag of dry chickpeas so I could have them on hand to make hummus or if I wanted to make chana saag to go along side the tikka masala. Staples that I needed to replenish included: jasmine rice (I usually buy a 5 lb. bag that lasts me a few months), eggs, milk, onions, garam masala, and flour.
Mistake #1: I didn’t check my staples very well. I actually had another half bag of flour in my pantry. Arg. AND I had a half bottle of garam masala, although it’s getting really old at this point, so it wasn’t a total loss to buy more.
Mistake #2: I didn’t check the online circulars before going to the store. As I was walking around the store I saw sales that definitely would have changed my game plan if I had known about them ahead of time. Lesson learned.
Despite my grocery list being really short, my grocery bill ended up being pretty high. Here’s what happened:
As I mentioned in the last couple of weekly recaps, I’m trying to be a more responsible consumer and buy responsibly produced food from stores whose business practices I support. That does come at a higher price, though. Especially when it comes to meat. The least expensive chicken I could find at Whole Foods was a family pack of chicken thighs at $2.49/lb. That’s really not a bad price, but it was a large pack, so it still totaled almost $10 or roughly 1/4 of my total budget. The price of milk also went up $0.50 since last week, so that was another small hit. The fact that I bought flour when I didn’t quite need it yet cost me over $3. All the little dings added up and I ended up spending the entire $40 budget on just one recipe worth of food, plus my staples. OUCH. My budget got spent so fast that I couldn’t afford to get my regular 5lb. bag of jasmine rice, so I had to buy a small amount from the bulk bin and rely some leftover cooked rice that I had stashed in the freezer (thank goodness that was there!).
What was I going to do with only one recipe worth of groceries? I started scanning my memory to see what else I had on hand that I could possibly make something out of. I knew I had a few “half bags” of random pasta in my pantry, so that definitely helped. I also had an entire bag of frozen broccoli that I hadn’t yet broken into. So, when I saw the block of cheese on sale at Whole Foods, I grabbed that and decided I would attempt a broccoli mac and cheese. Mac and cheese is simple and uses staples that I already have on hand, like butter, flour, milk, and pasta.
So that was my plan. Tikka Masala, Naan, Hummus, and Broccoli Mac and Cheese. That’s still not really enough food to cover two-ish people for a week, but I figured I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
And here’s what my $40 looked like this week. Pretty sparse:
(Sorry the photos are so dark and blurry. It was a dark rainy day.)
What Did I Eat?
This Slow Cooker Tikka Masala was definitely the highlight of the week! I got six good sized servings out of this, so it fed Boyfriend and I for three days. I was truly sad when I ate the last serving.
I also made a batch of Homemade Naan to go with the Tikka Masala. This stuff is just so good. I not only ate it with the Tikka Masala, but I also ate it for breakfast one morning…
That’s naan, hummus, a fried egg, and sriracha. ❤️ HEAVEN ❤️
Speaking of hummus, I took the dry chickpeas that I bought at Whole Foods, cooked them in my Instant Pot (only 45 minutes from dry to cooked, no soaking!), and used 1/3 of that to make hummus. The rest of the chickpeas got packed into a container with the cooking liquid and frozen for future use. One pound of dry beans usually makes about the same amount as three 15oz. cans, so I basically have two cans worth of chickpeas in my freezer.
I also attempted a baked broccoli mac and cheese this week, but I regret to inform you that it didn’t live up to the rigid Budget Bytes criteria, so I didn’t post it. Instead of using the tried and true béchamel cheese sauce method, I decided to experiment with a “mix and dump” baking method, and it was a FAIL. Hahhaha. It was still edible though (because cheese makes just about anything edible) and we ended up finishing off this entire casserole in just a couple of days.
We had a Christmas party to attend on Saturday night and I decided to bring a vegetable platter. I didn’t consider the cost of this to be part of my regular weekly groceries, since it was for a party and not “at home” eating. I’ll admit that I almost bought a pre-made vegetable platter, but after seeing that it was $25 and didn’t come with dip, I decided to make my own. I was able to make a HUGE platter with dip (store bought, not homemade) for $15 and still had a good amount of leftover vegetables that I snacked on the rest of the week (with my hummus!). So, that helped fill in the gap a bit.
We didn’t go out to eat at all this week, but because I didn’t cook enough to cover both of us, we ended up going to the store one night and splurging a bit. I say splurge, but in the end it fed us for three nights and was still far less than going out to eat, so maybe it’s not as big of a fail as I thought. What did we get? One frozen pizza (I had a craving for frozen pizza in particular), a few vegetables from the salad bar to top the pizza, a rotisserie chicken, and two ginger beers (our favorite, Gosling’s). The pizza lasted us one night (we killed that thing) and then we made two nights worth of meals out of the chicken using the rest of the frozen broccoli that I had on hand and a box of stove top stuffing that was found in the back of the pantry. I have to admit, that was a really tasty meal for being pieced together last minute!
I almost forgot! We also made cookies! One evening Boyfriend says, “Hey, we should make Christmas cookies together or something.” After spending five minutes in shock that a man actually said that (how awesome is that?!), I started looking for recipes that we could make with what I already have on hand. We ended up making these awesome Cardamom Shortbread Cookies from Ginger & Toasted Sesame. They were AWESOME and only required a few ingredients. We enjoyed them with coffee for the rest of the week. Yay cookies!
What Didn’t I Eat?
I still didn’t finish those $*#& apples! Hahaha… and I didn’t make it very far with the oranges I bought this week. Next week I’m switching to a different fruit for sure. And hopefully I’ll finish off the apples and oranges before they go bad.
Reflection
At first I was disappointed that I didn’t make my $40 go very far, but I think the emergency decisions we made in the wake of that were pretty decent. Instead of going out to eat, we bought extras at the store and had three meals that felt just as splurgy as going out to eat, but cost much less. Oh hey! I just went and found the receipt in the bottom of my purse. $22.19 for the splurgy grocery store run, which fed us for three nights (Oh! and it included boyfriend’s almond milk that he likes on his cereal, so only about $19 for the dinner stuff). Compare that to eating out once, which probably would have cost us $30-$40 for one meal and maybe leftovers. I don’t feel so bad anymore. :)
Takeaways for next week: check and double check my pantry staples and recipe ingredients before going to the store to make sure I don’t already have them, check all store circulars before making my final list/recipe plan, and try not to recipe plan when I’m sick and tired because I won’t take the time or energy to do number 1 or 2. :P I’ve got this!
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I am not a great budget shopper, with that said it is my 2016 goal to SAVE. I happened to be in the Dollar Store last month for preparations for the holidays and walked all the isles. I was shocked to find that so many of the staple items I keep in the house were there for less than half the price. My favorite instant mashed potato’s that are $3.00+ at the market were $1.00 each. Large boxes of pasta that are always $2-$4 were $1.00 each. Even the pizza sauce I use to make my pizza dip that I take everywhere…the sauce is $3.97 at my local market and yep, $1.00 there. That day they also had 5lb bags of flour for $1.00 which is a great deal. Your local dollar store might be a great resource for loading up on some of those staples. (They also had a HUGE variety of spices and seasonings – which are all between $2-$5 each).
Maybe trying a broccoli mac n cheese recipe in the instant pot could be in your future. :)
Agreed! :)
Hi Beth! Thanks for making and mentioning my Cardamom Shortbread Cookies! Those chocolate drizzled stars look beautiful :) I love how you show people the process of you creating a meal plan and budgeting! I try to do the same but it’s difficult!
Thanks for posting such a simple but delicious recipe! Your photos are gorgeous! :)
My favorite method of using up less than delightful apples, is to peel, core, and quarter them. Bake covered at 350 for 35 to 40 minites. They are done when you lift the lid and they are puffed up but quickly fall when the cold air hits. They caramelized around the edges and when stirred, turn into applesauce. They don’t need any spices or add-ins.
So good with pork dishes or yogurt or sour cream. Thanks for all the work you do.
You’re amazing and inspirational, and the weeks that you “mess up” are sometimes even more helpful/educational than the weeks where things go perfectly well, at least to me. So, like others have said, remember that you’ve come in under budget as well, and averaging those with weeks where you go a little over will still have you coming out ahead in the end.
Have you tried “no cook” applesauce? It is E-A-S-Y. I got it from the Clean Eating Cookbook (Tosca Reno) originally.
Ingredients
5ish apples (core them and cut them into quarters, don’t peel them)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Instructions:
Put all the ingredients together in a large Ziploc bag and toss well to distribute evenly. Place the bag in in freezer for at least 4 hours. Remove from the freezer and allow to thaw for at least an hour. Gently rub skin from the apples and place apple pulp into a glass serving bowl. Mash with a fork or potato masher.
It’s SOOOO yummy!
That’s such an interesting technique!! Thanks for sharing that. :)
Just have to say – I loved your chicken tikka masala. It was super easy and really delicious.
Also, I didn’t realize that you could cook dried chickpeas without doing an overnight soak! This is fantastic news since I have a bag of dried chickpeas that I haven’t cooked because I’m too lazy to do the soaking!
Yep! In the Instant Pot (pressure cooker) it’s super fast, but I used to do it in my slow cooker as well. 4-5 hours on high does the trick!
For fool proof cheese sauce or mac and cheese on a budget make the modernist cuisine version. All you need is water or milk, sodium citrate and cheese. The sodium citrate is about $10 on amazon for about 100 servings worth. Also tastes wa more like cheese tham the watered down milk and flour method.
Awesome! I want to try that.
Beth,
I hope you are feeling better soon. This is the worst time of the year to be ill.
I really don’t think that you should beat yourself up over this past weeks shopping experience. Sometimes these things happen to all of us. Remember all those times when you were able to proudly post that you had come in under budget for the week? Well, those under-budget weeks more than make up for this.
Thank you so much for all the hard work you do putting this blog out there for all of us. The recipes you’ve shared have made a difference in my life and I’m sure that they have helped many others.
Thank you, Gina! :)
Have you considered getting a juicer? I find it comes in very handy with getting me to consume the produce I don’t so much like eating raw (apples and carrots in particular).
As for the oranges, I tend to use mine for marinades.
Those cookies look great! Love the chocolate drizzle idea.
I usually make apple crisp with my apples for a quick dessert (in the toaster oven). There’s usually a variety of fruit in my freezer that I toss in as well. The sugar in the recipe gets cut back by at least 1/3 as regular recipes are usually too sweet for my taste. Any leftovers get mixed up with yogurt or regular oatmeal for easy breakfast.
I have been following this blog quite closely since a friend gave me the name about 2 yrs ago, and i kinda feel like i know you Beth. What i am wondering, is, am i the only one who is stoked that Beth has a Boyfriend now? New development, he has rad tattoos! Im happy for you Beth, I hope your holiday season is wonderful :) Warm wishes from Halifax Nova Scotia.
Hahahaha thank you. :) I’m pretty stoked about it too!
I’m so sorry about your cold, and I hope you’re feeling better. If you’re afraid the apples will go bad, you can always freeze them or make them into applesauce.
I was always buying pantry item I already had too. One day my boyfriend and I pulled all of the items out of the pantry and listed them on an Excel spreadsheet along with the quantity of each item. We left room for quantity changes. Now whenever I take something out or put something in I just change the quantity. Then before I go shopping I can look at the list and see what I need. We did the same for everything in the freezer but there we also included the date the item goes in so I can see what’s old and needs to get used up. When the lists get to messy or run out of room we just take them off the fridge, update them and print out a new list.
I love this idea SO MUCH! So stealing it! Thanks Sandy!
(This is my first post! I think. Maybe. Haha.) I’m sorry you were so sick! So cut yourself some slack in the budget department. :-) That said, I think you shop at extremely expensive stores. Whole Foods? Too pricey. And with all the pre-holiday baking bargains going on, why would you pay $3.29 for a bag of flour??? I don’t know Rouse’s, since I don’t live where you live, but its prices seem high to me too. I recently paid $1.49 for a 3-pound bag of yellow onions, and no, it wasn’t at Walmart. I’m betting you can find better prices on staples at other stores. Maybe that could be a New Year’s project for you. (With 4 kids, that’s my project for the entire year!) Happy holidays!
I applaud the desire to buy responsibly sourced food, but Whole Foods is a store I avoid. Not only are they expensive, but they don’t treat their employees terribly well. And in the run up to the Affordable Care Act a few years ago, the owner of the company said he would shift the bulk of his work force to part time in order to avoid the need to provide them with health coverage mandated under the new law. I don’t know if he ever did that, but the fact that he said it soured me towards him and his company, and I’ve boycotted the store ever since.
I worked for Whole Foods for a little over three years and really appreciated how they treated and valued their employees. Their prices are hit and miss, which is why I am shopping between two stores. For produce they often have better prices and higher quality than my local grocery store chain.