What we eat and spend on food in a month - Week 2 of 4

Week 1 here

I typically have a routine of getting most of my grocery shopping for the week done on Monday, with pit stops later in the week if necessary. I like to avoid leaving the house to run errands as much as possible. More trips to the store = more money spent, not to mention time wasted. This week, I went to the store even less than usual, due to ingredients left from the previous week, and just generally not wanting to make more shopping runs. 

Here is what we ate during the week of Apr. 22-28 (lots of carry-over from the previous week due to extra leftovers that week):

Breakfasts

Mon - leftovers (cinnamon rolls, scones)

Tue - Apple Walnut granola on yogurt w/ fresh strawberries

Wed - Poached eggs on avocado toast, banana milk

Thu - French Toast Bake w/ maple syrup

Fri - Chocolate Oatmeal

Sat - Puff Oven Pancake with jam

Sun - Buttermilk Pancakes with fresh berries

Dinners 

(I cook double and serve the leftovers for lunch the following day)

Mon - Easter dinner (ham and the usual sides)

Tue - Brioche bread sandwiches

Wed - Steaks, mashed potatoes, green beans

Thu - Mac & Cheese

Fri - Molasses oat bread sandwiches

Sat - leftover mac and cheese

Sun - Mongolian BBQ

Other

  Cinnamon walnut ice cream

Mayonnaise

Chicken broth

strawberry kombucha

Brioche dinner rolls

Brioche bread

molasses oat bread

Monday: Costco - $86.68

(ciabatta rolls, 2 pints blackberries, 2 pints raspberries, 4 lbs strawberries, 2 loaves sourdough bread, tortilla chips, 4 dozen eggs, 10 lbs bananas, 4 lbs baby carrots, 1 watermelon [the organic ones are finally in season - YAY!!!!], 1 pineapple, 10 lbs tangerines, 2 lbs string cheese)

Tuesday (delivered): Dairy - $40

3 gallons milk, 2 quarts cream. We typically go through 5 gallons of milk of milk each week, but my husband has been drinking less than usual so there was some left from the previous week.

Wednesday: Trader Joe's - $16.85

6 lbs onions, 4 bottles ginger ale (Boaz was feeling sick that day), 1 bag powdered sugar, 1 bag turbinado sugar (I use it in place of brown)

Sunday: Whole Foods and Sprouts - $28.54

There were originally two pints of blackberries, twice as many apples, and 5 bags of grapes. By the time I went to take a picture in the evening, they had disappeared. Also 2 bags of PB Chocolate Love Crunch granola that I forgot to include in the picture. 

Total spent for the week: $172.07

My target grocery budget is $500 per week. So while week 1 was almost $100 over, this week I was considerably under by using freezer/fridge/pantry staples rather than going to the store, and serving simpler meals of sandwiches for dinner.

I am currently working on another cookbook - "The Everyday Einkorn Baking Book". In the process, I am experimenting with a lot of recipes, so there is a lot of bread to consume in the process. My family doesn't mind - they call it "German dinner" when I serve platters of cold cuts, cheeses, veggies, and hardboiled eggs alongside freshly baked bread. Works for me!

And some pictures of our meals:

 Easter dinner - ham, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, peas and carrots, Hawaiian rolls. We had the Easter dinner the day after Easter

Puff oven pancake

Buttermilk Pancakes

Brioche dinner rolls

Affording Organic - Part I - PRIORITIES

This is a blog post I first started in October 2009. When I was almost done writing it, Blogger had a glitch and deleted the entire post without saving it! In June of 2010, I once again sat down and started writing this post, which I am finally finishing up now in honor of the new year. Maybe someone will make it their goal to switch their family to a more wholesome diet this year after reading this.


I think my great aversion to writing on this subject is due to the fact that there is no easy answer. I would love to give you tips on how to switch to eating 100% organic on your existing grocery budget, but for most people, that is simply not the case. Unless you are currently spending a fortune on eating out and buying processed foods and snacks/sweets/sodas, and are willing to stop all that cold-turkey and start making everything from scratch, you likely will need to increase the amount of money you spend on food if you want to switch to eating all organic. I think that most of my readers already cook many/most things from scratch, and live frugally in general. For these families, short of switching to eating rice and beans, eating organically will mean spending more money. That's the bad news.