I posted on Sunday, March 22 in Facebook that I had only spent just over $15 on groceries for this week. I'm happy for the positive feedback, and the amazement some of you have expressed on how I am doing that. What's even more amazing, folks, is that although there are a two quick meals at Carls' Jr. and one at IHOP, and three Tuesday nights of skipped meals, I have now made this $15+ in groceries stretch into enough meals to last me for almost three weeks.
And that's led me to pop back onto this poorly neglected blog to share my grocery shopping strategy. It's key to how I've made my food good, and cheap. And some of that $15 in groceries was fresh too.
But I start with what I have. And that may not be fresh, It may instead be a pantry staple, something from the freezer or something sealed in a jar or other container.
I have many of these items listed on my computer. For instance, when I started menu planning the other day, I had brown sugar, ground turkey, kalmata olives and pepperoncinis on the list, among other things. Three items I did not have on the list, but had in the pantry anyhow, were pasta, rice and beans. I also have a whole spice rack full of spices.
So, I then looked through my extensive collection of cookbooks to come up with some recipes. You probably could do this even quicker with some menu planning websites where you type in one or more of these ingredients and it recommends a bunch of recipes using them. Or, if, like me, you pinned a bunch of recipes to Pinterest, you can find something fairly quick that uses your ingredients on hand, I would bet. But I invested in cookbooks, so cookbooks it is for me.
Here's what I came up with:
Two-pepper stew (My planned meal for Sunday)
Salmon burgers with kalamata olives (My planned meal for Monday)
Swedish meatballs (My planned meal for Wednesday)
Brown sugar beans (My planned meal for Thursday)
I don't plan meals on Tuesdays because they are just too busy with Don at school and me in Real Healing at Sandals Church, and I don't plan meals on Saturdays because we eat dinner at church. This did leave Friday to plan for though, and my cookbooks weren't inspiring things with the ingredients on hand. So I turned to my coupons, found one close to expiring for Asian noodles, and came up with a recipe called Far Eastern Ginger Noodles.
To make these recipes, I had to purchase the bell peppers, beef chuck and tomatoes the stew required, a can of salmon for the salmon burgers, and just about everything I'll need for the Far Eastern Ginger Noodles. I ended up not using the coupon, because the brands at the store where I shop weren't the same.
In addition, my grocery purchase included one of my staples, Diet Dr. Pepper. Staple or vice? Gotta have it though.
I put my "save money" radar out on one recipe. The recipe for the salmon burgers I'm following calls for fresh salmon and fresh dill. The thing is, it also calls for both of these ingredients to be put in the food processor and ground together along with the olives. I just can't see paying $9 or $10 for a filet of salmon vs. $2.25 for a can of ground salmon on this. I also don't know if my grocery store had fresh dill, but I don't have any idea why the dill in my spice rack wouldn't work for these burgers.
I discovered an interesting thing on this grocery store trip though. There are two kinds of canned salmon, red and pink. Red salmon is the Alaskan salmon, and it costs more than twice as much, about $6.50 a can. I REALLY don't know why you need to pay that much for a CAN of salmon, but if you are curious, give it a try. I'm sticking with pink.
That's why my whole bill was under $16.
I should also issue a disclaimer or two: The day before I bought these groceries, Don bought eggs, olive oil, peanut butter and bread, which would have added about $12 to my breakfast/lunch grocery bill otherwise. Also, we have a lot of cereal and juice on hand, so we saw no need to buy more the first week. Milk, more bread and more eggs did also have to get purchased for breakfast and lunch meals as time went on, but the total grocery bill for March was only $80.
The two-pepper stew lasted two nights. I served it on rice one night and pasta the other. The next night was Tuesday, so as planned, I had a fiber bar for dinner. Then after determining that Friday night, for a variety of reasons, had to be a night of dining out, I made the meatballs on Sunday instead, and they're lasting for three meals.
We had meatballs on Sunday, March 30 and Monday, March 31, and will now finish them up on Wednesday, since Tuesday is the night we skip dinner all together. We'll move onto the beans this coming Thursday, and I suspect they too will also produce at least one night of left overs. Which means I won't have to go grocery shopping again until next week! Technically, not until next Thursday, as the ginger noodles won't be needed until Monday, April 7, Tuesday, April 8 is a skip meal day, and Wednesday, April 9 is a Carls' Jr. day.
I don't know if I'll be able to pull off $16 for another three weeks of groceries then, but I am looking forward to telling you what's next.
