I've been very careful with not wasting food, menu planning and shopping sensibly. (I threw out half a bowl of cooked white rice). However the prices seem to have increased as I struggle to keep at the $100 mark, and yet my food purchases have decreased in that I don't purchase as much produce anymore. I use my lovely grown produce as much as possible.
Yesterday I picked 4 eggplants, 3 types of spinach, one lebanese cucumber, some lemon balm, chocolate mint, coriander, ginger, 1 chilli and basil. All of these items are incorporated in my meals. I also saw a gorgeous tree snake.
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| Looking at You. |
My grocery shopping for the week was $96.57.
Here is what I got...
The cereal was on a special of $2 less then usual. The mince on special and then also marked down. The vinegar and bicarb for cleaning of course. I only wanted 2 packets of pasta but it on super special at only $1 so I grabbed 4 instead.
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| Weeks shopping |
This week our planned meals are:
Sunday: French omelet mixed with potato, spinach and fresh herbs. Cucumber, spinach and fresh herb salad.
Monday: Spag bol with eggplant, spinach and fresh herbs.
Tuesday: left over spag bol with spinach salad.
Wednesday: Italian sausage stew cooked with lentils, carrots, broccoli, spinach and herbs.
Thursday: Pasta with fresh herb and nut pesto.
Friday: Left overs from previous 2 nights.
Saturday: Veggie stir fry with rice.
Sunday: Fish cooked with ginger and herbs with side salad.
My neighbour also gave me a bunch of snake beans from the markets he purchased for $1.
As I haven't purchased my office lunch ingredients yet - I will try to do with what I have at home to keep my costs down. Egg and cheese sandwiches maybe :-)
Just curious--why did you throw out the rice? It is good you have your garden to help you with groceries. It seems you have a really healthy menu. Yes, I think you can find lunch out of things you have. You could dip/fix a lunch before you serve it. I did that. Serve yourself a lunch portion in a container before the food goes on the table. You can also make egg salad sandwich or a little quiche with the egg and bits of veg and meat. Great job.
ReplyDeleteWow Stephanie you do well shopping to $100 budget, i bet it feels good to be harvesting your own food - im really loving it at the minute, hoping this beautiful weather will be around for a bit longer!
ReplyDeleteIts crap isnt it? I battle with the same thing, a frugal shop compared to all the other mums hauling trolleys FULL of processed and ready made stuff...how can it be that basic food is so damn expensive........but anyway, we are doing the best, I think your shop was a good one...I too loaded up on $1.00 pasta, cant go wrong with that! Just for curiosity I would love to line up behind one of those giant trolley loads and see what the amount comes to when it goes through the check out....it would have to be $300 + surely? well done your menu sounds lovely for the week...
ReplyDeleteFantastic job!
ReplyDeleteAll the prices are slowing creeping up even though the big chains keep telling us they are going down. The weekly receipt tells the true story. Good job on keeping you grocery bill so low!!
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