Best Budget Blog Series: Intro and Week 1 Meal Plan

The next few posts will be a series on my mission to cut our grocery bill.  Last week, we spent more than $150 on groceries for just the two of us.  I had been justifying what felt like an outrageous amount of money before The Girl was born as a casualty of pregnancy and living in Hawaii, where the cost of living is about 150% what it is in the southern US.  Since her birth, I've considered it a casualty of breastfeeding.  I can't do that anymore-- it just doesn't make sense to this Cheapskate to spend more on anything than absolutely necessary! 

As with many of my blog entries, the first few steps of my writing process were unrelated to the eventual result:  I sang You are my Sunshine and few times, changed a diaper, and laid my baby down for a nap.

Then I walked into my kitchen to quietly take inventory.  I think the best way to get started here is to use what I have and discover what meals I can make with what we have now, to see what we actually enjoy eating.  I decided not to include the price of those items in a grocery bill, because they're kind of just what everyone has some of at all times. When I run out of any of these things, I will absolutely include the cost of replacing it (a bag of rice, for example) when the time comes.

My Inventory:

Beans and Grains
brown rice
white rice
quinoa
egg noodles (1/2 bag)
elbow noodles (1/2 box)
mini farfalle (1/2 box)
oats
black beans (dry, 1 pound)
lentils (1/4 bag, about 1 cup, dried)
kidney beans (1 can)
small bag of raw almonds
small box of mixed nuts

Canned
corn (1 can)
coconut milk (1 can)
soup (3 cans)
green beans (4 cans)
pizza sauce

Misc (that will still be edible next week)
ground beef (1 pound)
Italian sausage (1/2 pound)
pizza dough (for 1 pizza)
tomato sauce (2 mason jars)
chicken stock (2 mason jars and 3 packets that make 8 cups each)
frozen broccoli
frozen broccoli, carrot, cauliflower mix
a few cups of flour
4.5 lbs sugar
oils and sauces needed for many Asian dishes
standard oils and vinegars
standard spices/dry goods for baking and cooking
standard condiments
garlic

Finally, I'm getting a mixed basket of produce that I spent $34.50 on, and it will absolutely last the entire week.

Doing inventory showed me that I buy canned veggies pasta and forget about them.  Noted!

I also have +/-9 meals in my freezer, but I'm not 100% certain they're all still good (though my intentions were!) so I'm not going to include them.  I'm just going to save them for lazy nights.

Without even really thinking about it I can see a few meals there.  Red beans and rice, black beans and rice, pasta with tomato sauce and Italian sausage, tomato soup and grilled cheese, and super-easy soup night.  That's all before the produce even gets here! After I get my Bountiful Basket, I'll have everything I need for yellow curry, fried rice, and a vegetarian stir fry.

I just listed eight dinners I can make without going to the grocery store at all.  My lunches will mostly consist of produce, a quinoa salad I plan to make this weekend and turkey-and-cheese sandwiches. Anthony will eat leftovers from the previous night's dinners. 

My biggest concerns going into this are the astronomical amounts of fat and protein that breastfeeding women need.  My husband can benefit from the same amount of protein that I require, but his carbohydrate needs exceed my own.  I'm trying to make sure I don't "waste calories" by eating many things without much nutritional value, so this budgeting effort is going to force us to eat better.  That's always a good thing!

Compulsive Planner that I am, I put together this Meal Plan for the upcoming week.  If there's one thing I have learned from previous budgeting endeavors, it is very powerful to have a plan from which you refuse to deviate.  Another really helpful thing is accountability, which is one of the many reasons I'm going to blog about this.

We do our grocery shopping on Saturdays, so my plans always start with Saturday's dinner. An asterisk will denote something I have to buy, and I will make a complete list below.

Saturday
Breakfast: bacon, eggs, toast*
Lunch: sandwiches, veggies
Snacks: veggies w/ hummus, cheese, nuts
Dinner: pizza*

Sunday
Breakfast: pancakes
Lunch: salads
Snacks: veggies w/ hummus, cheese, nuts
Dinner: stir fry (meat optional!*)

For the rest of the week, breakfast, snacks and lunch will be the same every day.  We will have fruit and muffins/something baked for breakfast.  Lunch will be leftovers for Anthony and a salad or sandwich with veggies for me.  Snacks will be the same as they were on the weekends!

Monday
Red beans and rice (meat optional!*)

Tuesday
Pasta w/ Italian sausage and tomato sauce with a side salad

Wednesday
Tomato soup and grilled cheese

Thursday
Curry (meat optional!*)

Friday
Pasta with garlic and olive oil, a not-green veggie and a side salad

I try to set myself up for success by making easier dinners during the week and the more complicated ones on the weekend.  That way, Anthony can do the majority of the cooking and let me play sous chef while I hang out with The Girl.  The "meat optional" asterisks are all honest.  Curry, red beans and rice, and stir fry can all be wonderful without chicken, sausage, beef, whatever.  We are including meat because of Anthony's protein needs for daily physical training and my protein needs to feed the little one.

All that said, here is my grocery list:
My staples:
flour (usually every other week, but I'll get the biggest bag I can buy within my budget this time!)
milk
eggs
hummus (which is technically cheaper to make at home, but for the purposes of this experiment I'm not going to buy tahini and the olive oil I'd need to make up what I'd use on hummus alone. Also, my food processor kind of really sucks a lot.)

For dinners:
mozzarella cheese (for pizza)
1 package of chicken (for curry)
and if I manage to make it under budget I will also get
1 package of some kind of steak (for stir fry)
1 package Andouille sausage (for red beans and rice)
1 can of peas (for stir fry)

Depending what's in our produce basket, I might end up buying carrots and onions.

Since we've already spent $34.50, it is my goal to purchase the 8 items on my grocery list for under $40.50.  If I succeed, we will have spent less than 50% of what we spent last week! 

This weekend, I'll post about what we get in our Bountiful Basket and what I spend at the grocery store.  Honestly, I have high hopes.

If  you have any questions, see any glaring nutritional deficits in my meal plans, would like a specific recipe or just want to cheer us on, please comment below!

Admittedly, this series was inspired by a very sudden $1500 cost.  While we can do some money-shifting to make it happen, the plans we had for those bucks aren't something I'm willing to sacrifice altogether.  Instead, those plans are just on hold until we save $1250 in groceries.  My hope is to save that much in 4 months.