Food Friday

Well, somehow I managed to do it. Our food expenses this week were $244 - and that includes the 2 days that I stayed with Sarah in the hospital. (Hospital food is not cheap.) I don't know that I will always be able to get my food budget down to this number as I had some frozen meat from Trader Joe's that I used, but I am hoping that I can at least come close.

Here are a couple of key things that I did:

1.) I planned the dickens out of our meals. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were planned every single day. I made a conscious decision about every meal we were eating, and believe it or not this took a lot of work.

2.) I made a lot of our food from scratch. With the exception of 1 morning (in which we had eggs, bacon, and english muffins) I made everything out of the basic ingredients that I have in my kitchen. Lunches and dinners were that way as well (kinda).

3.) I included the kids in our food decisions. On Friday of last week I sat everyone down and asked them what they liked to have for each of the meals that we eat and also asked them what kind of snacks they would like to have on hand. Their input was invaluable because it gave me some new dinner ideas, but also got them involved and interested in what we were having. I did not hear anything negative this week about what we were eating because they all new before hand what our menu included because they picked it out!

4.) I only went to the grocery store twice. Once for a big trip and a second time for a couple of items I forgot to get.

So, what did we eat this week? Take a look:

Breakfast

French Toast

Pancakes

Muffins

Bacon, Eggs, English Muffins

Waffles

Cereal 

(One day only when Sarah was hospitalized and I was not home to make something.)

*We ate waffles twice. 

*All of the above items were made from scratch (except for the bacon, eggs, and english muffins).

*Eggs were organic

*Bacon was no nitrate, nitrate, no preservatives, sustainably raised, blah, blah, blah - you get the point.

Lunch

Left over dinner items

Peanut Butter / Jelly

Grilled Cheese

Veggies

Fruit

(We repeated these as the kids wanted.)

*Jelly was organic

*Bread was homemade for sandwiches

Dinners

Tacos

Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Corn, Salad

Homemade Pizza

Chicken Parmigiana with Spaghetti, Salad, Broccoli

Hot Dogs and Jojos (Bob made this dinner for the kids the night I stayed with Sarah in the hospital.)

Lasagna, Salad, Cauliflower

*All of the dinners that I made were made from meat that is organic and sustainably raised (except for the turkey)

*All pasta was organic/whole wheat

*Pizza cheese was a chunk of mozzarella that I grated myself. 

*Almost all dairy used was organic (except for mozzarella and butter).

My point in telling you what was organic and what was not is for no other reason than to show you (and myself) that I was able to reach my budget goal and still buy healthy foods for my family. Not every item that I bought was organic, but a lot of them were. I try to buy all corn, wheat, and soy products organically because such a high percentage of those crops are genetically modified. Once my garden is producing veggies then my food budget should go down even lower.

So, I would say with certainty that even though this week was a lot of work. It was completely worth it. I do need to work on snack items for the kids as that seemed to be my only down fall. I bought (organic) tortilla chips and salsa for them, but other than that they did not have very many snacks besides fruits and veggies. They didn't seem too upset though as their bellies were full from their meals.