Buy What You’ll Eat

In our household, we make dinner almost every night** & we live on a strict budget. We live on a strict budget because it’s smart. We’re saving for a house! If you haven’t checked lately, buying a house is no walk in the park financially. Sure, everyone splurges now & then, but when it comes to consistency I take pride in knowing we spend about $150/month in groceries (including our splurges – and treats for the dog). How do we do it? I’ll tell you: WE ONLY BUY FOOD WE WILL EAT.

Do you know the last time I threw something away we didn’t eat? Okay, okay, it was yesterday because that PILE of strawberries from Costco was a splurge I couldn’t resist and a family of 5 couldn’t have polished them off before the mold set in. HOWEVER, generally speaking it is extremely rare that we throw things away from not eating them. I am still adjusting to living with Bill and learning our eating habits so I will be the first to admit when things to get thrown away, it’s because I miscalculated the number of times we would REALLY pack sandwiches for lunch and we didn’t REALLY need to buy the TWO FOR ONE bread deal. I’m a young wife, I’m learning. I am flawed.  Let’s move on.

I found an amazing CSA online and while this month is sadly their last month of deliveries, I feel like these two months I have struck gold ordering from them. We are getting over 20lbs of produce & frozen meats for $35 (including tax & shipping). This delivery of meat has lasted us an entire month and the produce lasted us several weeks.

We are able to live on this strict budget and these foods by a few simple ideas: We don’t mind eating the same thing multiple times over a few weeks, we both love leftovers, we aren’t afraid to get creative, and we don’t make more than we will eat in a few servings. So simple!!

The breakdown:

Veggies: We buy what’s in season & what’s on sale. We cap our veggies to two per week. Yes, we have the same veggie multiple times per week, but living frugally tastes so good, it’s worth it.

Meat: We buy one whole (broken down) chicken, ground beef/turkey in bulk & freeze it, and pork chops. Eggs – a dozen typically lasts us a month. We will buy hot dogs/brats also in the summer.

Fish: Every other month we will buy a bag of frozen fish.

Fruit: I love to get the big bag of frozen berries at Costco; our evening dessert is always a smoothie with berries, yogurt & milk. For lunches we buy 3 or 4 servings of fruit per week, so it’s only a few dollars a time. We won’t eat them if we buy more – we have learned this the hard way too many times.

Dairy: Typically we drink a gallon of milk every-other week. We also buy yogurt twice a month for Princess and ourselves – in bulk :)  We buy cheese ends from the deli to have on sandwiches (and of course for Princess) because it’s much more affordable than getting sliced cheese & this way you’re still getting really good cheese!

Bread: two loaves a month usually does us fine, plus a bag of hot dog or hamburger buns.

Misc: You know how I feel about Chai, so that’s always included in the budget. We also like to splurge on things like bleu cheese, spices, snacks (rarely), and cookies (we’re only human).  We don’t really eat pasta, but when we do, we like to make it ourselves. It’s a fun way to spend an evening and it’s made out of things we have already purchased! Also in this section would be basic baking supplies , deli meat when we buy it (rare), mac & cheese (also rare) or canned veggies for sauces/stews. Condiments are not in short-supply at our house, but if we find something at the farmers’ market we CANNOT live without (another mustard to add to our collection of a thousand mustards, usually) that’s factored in here too.

There you have it! Easy. I shared my secret – please share yours! I’d love to hear from you on Twitter or in a comment below!

**We go out to dinner twice a week, and out to lunch once or twice per workweek. As I said, we’re only human. It’s a part of our budget and we’re proud of it!