We failed a bit on the plastic front this week with a small stock up on case we get a lock down soon. Aiming to do a big stock up at the bulk store which will bump up costs too.
Groceries: 55.07
Eating out: 100.90 (I Don’t think I committed to tracking this but I’m not happy with how high this is so far so I’ll keep an eye on it)
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Tonight was leftovers from last night, so nothing else out of that freezer. There’s already some room in there, though, so I’m pretty excited about that. I’m planning spaghetti and meatballs with roast broccoli tomorrow so that’ll remove some meatballs and some broccoli from the freezer.
Still no grocery shopping this year, but I’m building up a pretty big order. It’s a little over $100 now. Some of that is cat toys, hand sanitizer, and such ephemera, but at least 90 bucks worth of groceries.Not sure when I’ll pick up, but maybe as soon as next week.
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Grocery spending so far is $34.90 (not including my stock-up on almond flour for this spring/summer at $77). I don’t think I’ll need to go to the grocery until Wednesday or so.
I have frozen Brussel sprouts in my freezer that I would like to use up. Can you roast them just as you would fresh? I usually cut them in halves to roast and these are whole…
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Totals thus far:
- Vegetables - 15.47
- Fruit - 55.57
- Vegan protein + eggs - 39.30
- Meat/cheese/dairy other than straight milk - 72.14
- Premade grain items (ex.: pasta, chips, bread) - 51.83
- Grain ingredients (ex.: flour, rice) - 6.98
- Milk - 3.99
- Vegan dairy substitutes - 14.65
- Treats - 50.69
- Beverages (coffee/tea/lemon juice) - 62.23
- Condiments/oils/spices - 43.65
I forgot that Hungry Harvest doesn’t show prices for each item in our box, so I just split the price of the box evenly between “fruit” and “veg.”
We… may need to work a bit on spending less money on treats. (This should be straightforward as two trips were made to the vegan coffee shop and we do not usually make that many trips.)
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I roast frozen brussels sprouts regularly, and I can only find them whole too. What I do is start them in the oven for 10 minutes, then pull them out and cut them, then finish. I tried doing them without cutting once but they were really too thick.
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I regret the cream cheese. There wasn’t any shelf tag, but the two products surrounding it were in the $5 range. Lesson learned.
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Thanks, that sounds easy enough.
No eating out this week and no grocery shop. We were tempted to get Papa John’s pizza tonight but didn’t. So grocery spending still at $224 for the month.
On food waste: two avocados went bad too quickly - from green to completely rotten in a week! I was very sad when I sat down to eat them for breakfast. Also, the pears went bad quickly. Two or so rotten from within but looked fine from the outside.
I also threw out the bottom 1/8 of greek yogurt and shouldn’t have. It was a brand I didn’t like as much and I wanted to open the brand I liked more.
I also have 1/2 of a can of Texas Pete hot dog chili that is sitting in the fridge from this week that I’m not sure what to do with before it goes bad. And the baby didn’t finish his oatmeal tonight - going to have to try to do something with that.
I keep wanting to start to learn to compost/get set up for composting - I want to start a garden this spring and so starting composting now would be great. That might help cut food waste as well.
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Weekly update!
New recipe: squash gnocchi (review and recipe here)
Spent: $54.91
This is more than I intended to spend due to a work-related cooking project that’s happening this weekend, and I needed to hit a $35 minimum for delivery. I guess it’s tax deductible?
Kale: shredded on top of baked potatoes and chili
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that is so frustrating when things look fine from the outside, but have gone on the inside (which is the avocado mode for me most of the time too).
We had a couple of tomatoes the other week where the seeds were sprouted and starting to mold. But looked completely fine on the outside. So weird
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Week 1 update:
I am printing off a sheet for Ponder tomorrow morning so he can record whether money spent on lunches was worthwhile each day.
I’ll figure out last week’s food but more or less, our kitchen was dusty from cutting part of our kitchen bench off, and therefore not safe to cook in. We ate a lot of takeaway. These were worthwhile for giving us energy to get through the week, but we’re not what I really wanted to eat all week. Then we were too tired to remember to order groceries, so the delay meant more takeaway.
Highlight was getting Malaysian for lunch today. We haven’t tried that restaurant much, because I have a low chili tolerance. It was amazingly delicious and too spicy. Trying new food was such a highlight that I can say that money was very well spent, most of the other stuff was necessary but not really fun. Oh and we tried a new bakery, which was also fun. Novelty is a positive factor in enjoyment of food.
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Your categories are amazing
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Oh, that’s annoying! I got burned that way on salad dressing once.
TWELVE DOLLAR salad dressing. It wasn’t even that good…
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So far:
Shockingly high (compared to other people, not for us lol) food spending below
Totals by category-
Meat/eggs: 83.92
Dairy: 107.52
Pantry: 69.48
Condiments: 8.99
Produce: 74.58
“Junk” or snacks: 45.23
Beverages: 12.46
Total: 401.41
This includes a large Costco trip
$0 dining out
$9.97 was Starbucks
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So far I’ve spent $33.90 on vegan specialty foods from the local vegan specialty food store and $19.47 (mostly on nicer baking supplies for an experiment) at the small independent grocery store near work. Not the most tactical use of funds, but they are both businesses I don’t feel icky shopping at. That puts me at just over half my non-Trader Joe’s budget for the month and I’m probably going to TJ’s on Thursday. Still need to get stuff for the emergency provisions: I will most likely do that the following week.
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Week 2 update
Cumlulative grocery spending so far with categories: $74.91 (so about $100 left this month to stay on goal)
I made something really delicious with orange lentils a few days ago. I’m basically playing with ideas to make a cheesy lentil dish that has the same comfort purpose of mac and cheese but healthier. I made some pickled red onions but I can’t get the jar open…
Kombucha is 8 days into brewing but it doesn’t taste strong enough yet. I did spend around $25 on 6 glass bottles to carbonate and store the kombucha in. Haven’t used my instant pot yet this year but I might make a batch of beans tonight. I have dry “field peas” that I had never heard of before but they are really good.
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Chickpea and rice flour are the two flours I have right now beside King Arthur baking flour. I’ve been experimenting with swapping out maybe 1/4 c of the blend and subbing in the chickpea and or rice to see what happens. I agree that oat flour doesn’t work in anything other than muffins. I tried a very small portion of oats in brownies and it was awful.
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Update so far
- $13.49 take away
- $10.60 coffee (for me and a friend)
- $76.75 food groceries
- $99 eating out
I went out to eat way too much this week!
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But I saw what you were eating and it did look delicious…
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It was!
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