This week is going to be a little odd for us with the Monday holiday, social gatherings, and Lent. We have dinner plans with family on Saturday, dinner plans with friends on Sunday, and two vegetarian meals for Ash Wednesday and the first Friday of lent. I’m only making four meals, and we are eating leftover vegetarian chili on Friday; Marc is fasting from lunch on Wednesday and Friday (for Lent, and I’m still pregnant, so not fasting), so making bigger meals all week to last through dinner and lunch, is not as big of a priority.

The Stores and their Deals
The Meal Plan
The Grocery List
The Final Cost

The Stores and their Deals

We just went to Safeway today, seems like most of everything we wanted was cheaper at Safeway. I stopped at Raley’s to buy milk, and that’s it.

The Meal Plan

Saturday: Dinner at in-laws
Sunday; Dinner date with friends
Monday: Chile Verde + extra veggies
Tuesday: Chicken Stew/Galinha Guisada
Wednesday: Vegetarian Chili
Thursday: Grilled chicken breast with veggies
Friday: Leftover Chili

The Grocery List

• Pork loin or shoulder
• Chicken legs
• chicken breasts
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 can black beans
• Green sauce (had leftover)
• Green chiles (had leftover)
• 1 small can tomato sauce
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• Chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (have)
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper (had leftover)
• Garlic cloves (had leftover)
• 3 onions
• 1 bag baby carrots
• Broccoli
• Asparagus
• Avocado
• Potatoes
• Chicken broth (have some leftover)
• Beer or beef broth for chili

Snacks and other stuff:

• Butter
• Coffee
• Oranges
• plums
• Eggs
• Yogurt
• Milk

The Final Cost

We did good today!
Cost for dinner and lunch: $37.98.
The cost for snacks and other items (including $10 worth of coffee): $29.36.
Total grocery cost: $67.34.
 Even though we aren’t cooking dinner during the weekend, we will still eat at our house for breakfast and some type of lunch, so that is less than $10 per day. Most of the produce we bought was organic, as well as our dairy.  You definitely can eat healthy for cheap! I’m so glad we started challenging ourselves to spend less on our grocery bill because in the last 3 weeks we have saved a ton of money, just by planning a little better and picking cheaper meat and veggie alternatives.  We don’t even shop at the discount grocery stores and we can still manage to successfully shop within our budget.