Week 1:
$8.40 - my local tofu shop, for 2 pounds of tofu + 2 fried sesame balls
$7.98 - very overpriced half and half because I forgot to cancel or add to a recurring milk delivery
Total: .$16.38
I have an Azure Standard order and maybe a Costco run in the cards for this week
I have some tuna I canned back in 2019 that got lost in cupboards over the years. The seals are still good but texture would be meh now. Stuck in the fridge next to our dog food slot to remind us to use it for her next protein sources.
Husband brilliantly grabbed some dried fruit I forgot existed as hiking bribes, I mean snacks, for the children yesterday. Partial bags of apricots and mandarins gone, happy children, good hike.
ETA violated my planned no stock up though. Latte has wiggly teeth and Iāve been struggling to find a bar to send to school thatās tasty, meets my health priorities, but she can bite. She reminded me of one she likes that I buy through Thrive, and they were available and on a sale. I grabbed some other things I know weāll use (canned fish, canned pumpkin, some spices) to meet the shipping minimum. At least these are high turn over items, so it feels less off goal. And kids, man. Guaranteed to mess up arbitrary life goals 
ETAx2: using up a weird macademia/walnut butter I got on a good sale that isnāt very tasty by adding it to my morning SuperOats.
Pantry progress:
Iāve had a cold that includes the knives-in-throat/ lumps in throat feelings, but:
To work on:
This week we had the mystery OJ that husband bought, $10.61 for things Walmart told me were out of stock for my pickup that I went in and got, and a pickup at $106.84, of which $96 and change was for food. Looking up the OJ, it looks like it would have been about $4.15 with tax. So thatās $110.76 on groceries so far this month.
Eating out- husband had breakfast with a friend yesterday, then we both had late lunch with a group after the event he and friend went to. We had supper out after our monthly meeting on the first Friday of the month. We did not eat out for our anniversary, though. But we did eat out one other night when he worked late installing fog lights on my car and was too tired and frustrated to make cooking decisions.
He likely got lunch out while working, but I donāt know. He may instead have eaten beef jerky in the field, in which case there may have been a grocery stop I donāt know about. I canāt track all that. I just want him to not forget to eat - thereās a lot of physical to his job. Iāll just loosely track the things I know about. Three regular meals for two plus one breakfast for one, so weāre likely at $110-$120 on eating out.
I think weāll have reduced eating out when I go back to work, but I am planning to get the cafeteria salmon for lunch once a week. Iām supposed to have fish at least once a week, and I can stand theirs and it doesnāt stink up my house for 24 hours like cooking fish does. A lunch with faculty discount runs me $6.60, I think it is. First number is definitely 6.
Check in: this week (and so far this month) my food-related spending has totaled $79.00.
Also right now I am at the LIBRARY having some alone/writing time rather than in a coffee shop. Go me.
I am well on track to meet the $600 goal, but I do see a Costco trip in the future. Iāll have to work hard to only get the things we need there.
I donāt have yet the exact amount for the groceries, but itās around 120$. And this week I used up a frozen banana that was sitting in the freezer for a while! I also used up some vegetables.
Boyfriend went to Winn-Dixie to pick up āa fewā items that Aldi doesnāt carry, including his preferred brand of TP (heās very picky about that).
$68 laterā¦ good lord!
Like, what else did he get? Paper towels, rice crackers for me, OJ, a case of my emotional support LaCroix. Some meat, I think.
Weāre going to Aldi tonight but we needed some things to tide us over. He couldnāt go to Aldi last night because they close at 8 and he had a rehearsal until then. And we didnāt go earlier in the day because within blocks of our house was a community organizer fair AND a throw pickup at the Mardi Gras store, and people were, like, parking on grass because there was no place to put their cars. No way were we leaving during that.
Anyway, it drove home the cost of not going to Aldi. Tonightās run will be expensive as we need to get enough for 2 weeks.
Check in #1 - No food waste 
Weāve had 2 grocery store trips + a produce box so far this month. The produce box was free this time because we had filled up our card!
Spending per category:
| Category | SUM of Cost |
|---|---|
| $0.00 | |
| Breakfast | $14.97 |
| Carb | $7.48 |
| Condiment | $3.24 |
| Dairy | $26.95 |
| Fruit | $4.99 |
| Pantry | $11.66 |
| Processed Meat | $10.00 |
| Protein | $3.49 |
| Vegetable | $12.14 |
| Grand Total | $94.92 |
Company has provided supper for the last three days. Plus we have leftovers for lunch tomorrow and leftovers in the freezer. I doubt weāll spend $600 on groceries this month! Plus our own leftovers.
I may have to do some cooking tomorrow to process food for the freezerā¦before it goes bad.
A friend dropped off $200 in grocery store gift cards Iād ordered the beginning of the month. I suspect they will carry us through into next month. That will be about $350-400 by the end of the monthā¦if I estimate correctly.
$175 for a massive aldi run that should sustain us for a couple weeks!
oops, forgot to check in.
havenāt done the freezer inventory/cleanout yet. I think I just need to put it on the calendar and bribe myself somehow.
Iāve eaten a bunch of bread of out the freezer! this week I have 2 freezer meals on the plan, so that will help.
grocery spend so far: $230. trying to stay under $500, so right on track.
Forgot to update as well. As of now at $199 for food, but that breaks down to:
I still need to inventory the pantries, but for food this week I used up a package of gnocchi and a couple cubes of chicken stock (+vegetables) for gnocchi soup, and next weekās plan is chili since I have several random jars of dried beans in small quantities that can be/need to be combined and used up, plus some ground chicken-or-turkey in the freezer.
went out for lunch with a friend (in line with values as noted before), and bought a flashfood meal for the shadowy one since I expected I wouldnāt want to be cooking something once I got home.
I have one other planned meal out at the end of the month, and one friend coming over for dinner.
Being mindful of this commitment is very helpful on the low energy days
Putting together a pickup order with a bunch of easy, low sodium, low fat convenience foods for after surgery. This is not going to be cheap.
Found some more pantry things to use up- a chicken sauce that was expiring this month was moved to the fridge and is getting used. There were a couple other things I forget.
Definitely some fails too though. I simply cannot help but buy things on discount I know Iāll use. (In this case, it was organic grass fed ground beef on managers special). Even though I want to do a monthā¦ like I rotate it okay, itāll get used, I have the freezer drawer, the price was GOOD. But Iām still annoyed because I had planned to just not for a month. Ugh. I guess when itās high use items itās pretty justified so maybe I just need to clarify my goal. Like anything that gets used up less often (ie condiments), no stock ups this month even if theyāre on sale, but the dietary staples with high turn over I still can?
Even if Iām not succeeding on that part of the goal, at least I am succeeding a bit at the pantry clean out. I need to wrap my head more around the freezer clean out.
I would never pass up a good deal on a much-used item.
Made a chicken broccoli cream soup last nightā¦only I modified the recipe too much. Normally I freeze some chicken in the bottom of my hm chicken broth. But I guess I skipped that part on one batch! Last night I pulled out 3 -750 ml tubs of broth and none of them had chicken in the bottom. I decided to add more broth. Guess whatā¦itās too salty and doesnāt taste like chicken. So today Iām cooking up some shredded chicken in the instant pot.
I cooked the chicken breasts in the Instant Pot with smoked paprika and garlic powder, a dash of salt and pepper. Shredded it, and added about 1 c of it to 3 cups of the day old soup. The results were wonderful! Mind blowing how such a small change can make a soup!
Ope forgot to check in.
*Brought lunches for all in office days except the one where my boss bought me lunch bc we were doing my annual review
*Found some mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing from Thanksgiving 
in the way back of the fridge and some soupy cilantro. So those got trashed but no waste of food that was purchased or prepared during Jan.
*Have spent $29.44 on breakfast before work. Have decided I am not sticking to the budget bc all my snack spending is at immigrant-owned small businesses that are really struggling right now. Instead goal will be snacks only bought at immigrant owned places.
*Made stuffed zuchini from multiple recipes cobbled together. Cookbooks include a vegetarian Italian one and one by Marcella Hazanās son.
