Happy New Year, everyone. Sorry we’ve been away for so long. I won’t bore you with the excuses, but it boils down to life stuff getting in front of everything we’d really like to be doing.
When we first launched it was easier to post things because we had taken 3 months to stockpile posts. All we did was edit and schedule. Once we started to run low, the crappiness of life set in and suddenly we couldn’t keep up.
Hopefully you’ll forgive us and keep on reading.
K and A
A couple of weeks ago, Katie responded to a post that I had made on my Facebook page about my ability to stick to a $60 food budget. I sent her a novel of an email explaining how we do it.
No, we’re not extreme couponers and no, we don’t live on Ramen.
Truth be told, we buy just what we need and forego everything else. If we know we aren’t going to eat it, we don’t buy it. We also plan our meals.
Every Sunday, Chuck and I sit down and create a dinner list. We figure out what we’re going to eat for the week and create our shopping list accordingly. This way, we’re not buying things we don’t need and we’re not sucombing to impulse buys.
Here’s what’s on the menu for this week in no particular order:
- Leftover meatball heroes
- Pot roast
- Stew made from leftover pot roast
- Tuscan Bean Soup
- Pizza
- Sesame chicken and fried rice (rice will be purchased from a local chinese food place because we have yet to learn how to make it)
We’ll see what’s on sale for the 7th day, or go out because it’s our anniversary.
We purchase just what we need to make those items and then anything else we are running low on. This weeks it’s salt, butter and grated parm cheese. We also buy what we need for lunch or breakfast.
I either eat cereal or yogurt for breakfast. Chuck drinks coffee. For lunch I’ll have a piece of toasted bread with cheese, onions, peppers or any other veggie I have laying around. Chuck drinks a protein shake.
I guess they aren’t really the most healthy meals, but we’re on a $60 budget for a reason so we do the best that we can.
Because no week ever really turns out like it should, we often have left over from the prior week. Sometimes we’ll make a change or eat out for one reason or another (admittedly, eating out does skew our budget).
Eating Seasonally
Everyone has heard that if you buy out of season produce you’ll pay a premium for it. If you buy in season you’ll save a ton of money.
Chuck and I take this one step further. We buy the majority of our groceries at the farmer’s market. As the season changes so does our meal plan. We buy very little out of season produce at the grocery store.
The farmer’s market is often comparably priced or lower than the grocery store. It has the added benefit of supporting local farms. Local farms provide local jobs and keep the money in the local economy. Come back later for another post about eating locally.
We save money and eat fresher produce buy purchasing it directly from the farm.
This amazing meal was created uses foods from local North Carolina farms. Pasture raised eight-ounce sirloin steak, “white batus” sweet potatoes and spinach with tomatoes, garlic and grass fed goat’s milk feta. In total, this meal cost about $15 for two people. I dare you to find the same meal for $7.50 per person at a local steak house.
Stretching Dinner
We try to get as many uses as we can out of one thing.
This week we’re making pot roast for dinner. The next night we’ll make stew from the pot roast left overs.
Last week I made meatballs. One night we ate them with spaghetti, the next was meatball heroes.
This week I’ll use chicken breast meat for sesame chicken and the bones will be used for soup.
We also try doing this with our meat. Last week we bought 1.04 lbs of ground beef patties. Two were used for burgers and two were used for meatballs. We also bought chicken sausage which was on sale buy one get one half off. We got four meals out of two packages of sausage costing about $2.25 a meal.
If we could spend more on our food, we definitely would, but right now we need to stick with a budget. I think we do pretty well, wouldn’t ya say?
Do you have tips for eating well on a budget? Share them in the comments.
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