Super used some of the chicken breast from the freezer. Also I took the extra gallon of milk I accidentally bought last time out of the deep freezer and set it in the fridge to thaw because we’re going to need it in a couple of days. That made some space.
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Weekly check-in: $199.13 on groceries (including tax), with $12 toward laundry detergent included. I did have to make several substitutions - button mushrooms instead of baby bella, green peppers instead of the rainbow pack, frozen meat in tubes vs. the packaged meat in meat section.
I also estimated the total price as I went by adding up everything as I shopped on my calculator to stay in budget, and I had to put a few things back. Hoping this trip will last 2-3 weeks.
On food waste: I had to throw out deli meat that had been opened on 12/18, but I did make garbage/kitchen sink tacos with all of the leftover veggies. I also threw away a few grape tomatoes that had gone bad, but rescued the rest by washing them and setting them out to dry.
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I came here to post a “planned meal” but realized that it’s for Feb. That’s good? That’s definitely a planned meal (for Valentine’s Day).
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The situation, if I’m being honest with myself, is that we don’t eat leftovers unless they’re planned for, like if we make chili and plan to eat it two nights of the week. We plan out what we’re going to eat for the week, but not when we’ll make each meal, and then do a shop for those ingredients. This yields 7 days of planned dinners most of which end up making 0.5-1.5 servings of leftovers of distinct meals. Because everything is already planned out, the leftovers never get eaten.
Eating weirdness
I assume most people would deal with this by eating the leftovers for lunch or even breakfast, but I am mostly a piece of toast or bowl of cereal in the morning, nothing else till dinner eater. Occasionally (like once or twice a month) I will eat lunch. Eating lunch would probably be good for me and would certainly decrease the feral hangriness I feel right before dinner, but years of consciously restricting my eating during the day have engrained themselves on me.
1/1 Ordered pizza - Leftovers = pizza and breadsticks
1/2 Freezer stuff - Leftovers = handful of tater tots, 3 fake mini corndogs, and a fake chicken nugget 
1/3 Ate leftover pizza, still breadsticks left
1/4 Breakfast bowls including freezer stuff leftovers - Leftovers = .5 can black beans, 1 serving of mixed bowl of stuff
1/5 Mapo eggplant - Leftovers = 1.5 c brown rice, 1 serving of rice and eggplant
So far 5 meals eaten, 4 had leftovers, 1 day of leftovers eaten, 3 days of leftovers left, 0 leftovers thrown away.
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Another order, stocked up at Vitacost on some cleaning supplies and other things that I cannot get from Imperfect Foods. (I’m including stuff I can get at the grocery store in my food budget even if it is inedible, like cleaning supplies.)
Except for the sponges, these prices are pretty good compared to what I find in local stores. Particularly the unscented soap and cleaner - that stuff is easily double the price at Whole Foods where i usually get it, since I can’t tolerate most chemical smells.
The brown rice pasta, which Boyfriend eats a lot of, is close to $5 at Jewel, which has average prices here (cheaper than Whole Foods but pricier than Aldi). This is a good price so I got him a bunch.
In the Before Times I would’ve bought only 1 of each item unless a blizzard or polar vortex was on the way.
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Week 1 update (well, weekend 1, really)
New recipe: queso for our New Year’s nachos (technically made in December, but leftovers were eaten through the weekend)
Spent: $0
Kale: none
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First Update - We came home from the hospital on 1/2 and discovered that our fridge was essentially empty and we were out of lots of Costco staples. So, I paid $$$ to instacart from both Costco and King Soopers. I’ve finally had a chance to get everything categorized. Total spending 1/1 - 1/6: $279.49, which includes service fees, large tips (25%) and one eating out delivery from Chipotle. I’ve also discovered through this that it can be difficult to decide which categories some items go in!
| Category | SUM of Cost |
|---|---|
| Breakfast | $9.64 |
| Canned Fruit | $7.49 |
| Condiment | $15.76 |
| Dairy | $27.25 |
| Dining Out / Delivery | $32.00 |
| Drinks | $9.50 |
| Fees | $43.19 |
| Healthy Snack | $29.47 |
| Junk Food | $1.49 |
| Pantry Item | $9.77 |
| Prepared Food | $20.87 |
| Produce - Fresh | $22.31 |
| Produce - Frozen | $5.58 |
| Protein | $34.18 |
| Spices | $10.99 |
| Grand Total | $279.49 |
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what if you planned 6 days total instead of the 7? Or is that challenging given other background info?
I used to have a habit of fully planning the week, but it turns out there is at least one day a week where I am too tired to do the full prep. So I generally have/had one or two items that would roll over to the next week and we’d have a leftovers or toast/eggs meal.
Another idea could be that you drop the freezable items into the freezer (with labels) immediately after they are generated, and plan for a monthly ‘check the freezer for ingredients’. That’s what I’d do with the half can of black beans.
For the chicken nugget I probably would have cut it up and put it in with the eggplant.
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That is what I was thinking too. It was pretty obvious once I wrote it all out that they won’t ever get eaten unless they get put in the plan. Thanks for helping me work through this.
The nugget got heated up and eaten with the breakfast bowl. 
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Week 1 complete, goals achieved/on track.
Total spend on food was $117. This is for two adults and one bunny (fresh greens and herbs for the resident lagomorph).This includes the $20 Thai takeout previously mentioned.
Wins:
one alcohol drink (yesterday), no alcohol spending, no take away coffee.
Roasted (cubed) leftover sweet potatoes were added to chili and tacos.
Salads, smoothies and oatmeal targets achieved.
Easy Button Bonus: We had prepared food gifted to hubs by a neighbor and to me by my parents. We also ate some previously home prepared and frozen foods. We’ve also been enjoying Christmas chocolate (gifts) so neither of us have really had much desire to buy additional sweets.
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Okee dokee first grocery shop of the month at $84.80 (and that includes some staples I won’t need to buy the rest of the month).
It also includes prodigious amounts of goat cheese, because goat cheese was buy 1 get 1 free YEAH BABY
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Forgot yesterday, but it was a quick and easy pantry meal yesterday anyway because I was definitely too distracted by the coup attempt to do anything that requires much thought. I told husband I needed to not be responsible for anything that created electric resistance heat and did not turn itself off, so Instantpot it was.
But today I used up I smoked sausage, some broccoli and, not on my list, but three potatoes that we desperately need to be eatenIn a sheet pan dinner. Oh, and a half bag of frozen of brown rice to put all the roasted yummyness over.
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Checking in having visited no coffee shops or fast food places this week! It was hard to start the week and start the daycare drop-off again without getting a treat, and this weekend will probably be harder (baby and I go get a fancy coffee every Saturday or Sunday), but I can persevere with the boundaries of total prohibition.
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Goals:
My Goals:
- Stay with weekly vegetables delivery
- Reduce fruit delivery to every other week (fruit box is to big)
- Buying one additional fruit item in between is ok
- One meat order per month
- One trip to supermarket in the month (for items not be delivered) including sparkling water
- Tracking expenses by category
As of today:
09.01.21
Veggies/Fruit 31,20 €
Dairy 3,67 €
Cheese/Deli 22,62 €
Meat/Fish/Eggs 55,70 €
Bakery 12,10 €
Dry Goods 9,97 €
Sweet/ Salty 4,49 €
Beverage 4,27 €
Eating Out/Ordering 12,00 €
TOTAL FOOD € 156,02
I did the supermarket run for the month, the meat order will be delivered on Tuesday, this will me more than enough for the month.
I bought one veggie item in the supermarket but this is okay.
I had one takeout dinner (burger with fries) it was good but I had some stomach problems afterwards, do not no why but will we observe in the future.
So far so good for January.
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Used more peppers and onions in supper last night, low enough in adding to the next grocery order. I need to dig around in that deep freezer for inspiration for tonight.
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7.3? On mcdonald’s egg mcmuffin no egg, tea and a hash brown as a reward for the early and long dentist
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I think I actually need to back out of this challenge. There are a lot of moving parts right now, and I might update more in my journal, but I’m cheering you all on!
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163.20 so far
includes ~40 for our anniversary dinner splurge
If that is our running average, it is much higher than I anticipated
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$42/$100 spent as of today so I should be good on fresh stuff for a couple weeks since I tend to go for fruit-type-meals at breakfast and then have batch-cooked main meals. This week will be turkey pot pie, and then maybe spaghetti squash and sauce next week. This reminds me that I need to re-inventory the freezers since I moved stuff around over the holidays and didn’t do a very good job of tracking what ended up where, though.
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We are currently at 26.09/300.00, which is way better than I expected. My husband works at a grocery store so just picks up things here and there, so I can’t really remember what we’ve purchased. Half and half and limes are all I can remember…
I’ve made some big pasta batches and just made a chickpea/spinach/coconut milk soup. Also made some chicken and artichokes in a cream sauce which I put over wild rice we had in the pantry. We still have pasta for months in the pantry.
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