Yesterday on the All You Grocery Challenge blog they announced that a winner has been selected. Unfortunately for those of us who can’t stand suspense, they won’t be announcing who the winner is until close to December. The winner will be featured in the December issue of All You and will also be appearing on CBS News’ The Early Show. I’m looking forward to finding out who won and to hearing what tips she (or he) has to share!
I enjoyed participating in the Grocery Challenge although I didn’t officially enroll, and I’ve discovered some great tips for saving on groceries in the comments on the Grocery Challenge blog. If you are looking for some great ideas on how to save, I encourage you to check it out.
You know the great deal we’ve advertised on All You subscriptions? Well, sad but true, the great offer will come to an end at then end of the month.
If you haven’t purchased a subscription yet or you love the magazine and want to make sure you keep getting the fabulous savings in your mail box, place another order by 7/30 or you’ll be paying double the money for a two year subscription on August 1st.
Read about the deal here and get yours (or extend it) today!
It’s week two of the All You Grocery Challenge which means the challenge is already a quarter over! Just three more weeks to go. I hope you all are enjoying the challenge of coming up with creative, healthy meals while keeping your bils under budget.
If you haven’t already checked it out, there’s a blog here where you can learn from hundreds of other participants. Make sure to read all the helpful comments, and you can check out this post, too, where I give you 10 tips to save on groceries. Even if you’re not participating, I encourage to to check the Grocery Challenge blog out. You might learn a thing or two that could help you cut your grocery bill even more.
As I mentioned last week, I’ve found that the best strategy for meal planning is to first take stock of what I already have on hand and then check the weekly grocery store circulars to find sale items to supplement. I always check the Grocery Gathering for links to blogs that cover the local stores where I shop to see if there are coupon matches on sale items. If there are, oftentimes I will stock up.
This week, when I looked through my freezer and pantry, I realized we had more than enough food to get us through the week. We’re planning to move to a different house about ten minutes down the road in just a few weeks, so I’m motivated to clean out the freezer a little. Plus, with a baby coming in about two months, I need to start making room to freeze some meals to eat those first few weeks after the baby is born. Other than milk, there’s very little we need to buy this week, so it should be easy to stay under budget–another bonus of eating from the stockpile!
Here’s what’s on our menu:
Breakfast
Homemade granola and yogurt Eggs and whole wheat toast, strawberries Cereal with milk and banana x 2 Kashi waffles, cherries x 2 Homemade pancakes
Lunch
Peanut butter and strawberry-rhubarb preserves sandwiches, blueberries or canned fruit x 2 Snacky lunch Noodles & Company BOGO lunch with hubby on house closing day! Yay! Lunch at a friend’s house (we’ll bring zucchini bread) Egg salad sandwich, canned fruit Leftovers
Dinner Chicken spaghetti (freezer–enough to serve 4 adults), spinach salad Grilled chicken, cole slaw, pasta salad Taco bar with the neighbors (we’ll bring homemade refried beans and tomatoes from the garden) Ethiopian curry (freezer) with rice and mixed veggies Beef stew (freezer) over mashed potatoes Italian mini meatloafs (freezer), pasta, mixed veggies
How are those of you participating in the All You Grocery Challenge doing so far? As it is only day two, perhaps it is too soon to tell.
According to a poll on the All You Grocery Challenge blog, the two biggest challenges participants anticipate facing are driving past the drive-through and not over-buying. Although we don’t eat out frequently, we also typically don’t count our eating out total in our monthly food budget, so I imagine this will also be the biggest challenge for us. Creating a weekly menu plan and sticking to a budget helps us to avoid over-buying. If we do have excess, we freeze leftovers in meal-sized portions for a quick lunch, and we use these tips I wrote about here for avoiding throwing away produce. For more tips on freezing produce, you can read Kristin’s post here. You can see my weekly menu plan here.
If you took the time to carefully compare the photo above with our menu plan, you likely would notice that we didn’t purchase several items we’re planning on eating this week. This is because in any given week, we eat food from our pantry, food from the freezer and food purchased from the store. All You allows the Challenge participants to create meals using stockpiled items to help keep grocery costs low. I imagine it would be much more difficult to eat well-rounded meals on a budget if all ingredients had to be purchased each week! All we really needed this week was fresh produce so the only coupon I used was a rain check on the chicken.
At the end of the week, I anticipate we will have half a cabbage, a tub of yogurt and most of the bag of chicken, the carton oats and one carton of yogurt leftover for next week. This week’s groceries cost me a total of $34.60.
Today kicks off the beginning of the four week All You Grocery Challenge. Are you participating? I already can’t wait to hear who wins! Although I’m not participating officially, I am playing along in spirit. I plan to share my weekly menus and shopping trips here on the blog as well as frugal recipes and tips for saving on groceries.
I appreciate that the All You Challenge allows you to use items from your pantry and freezer when creating meals for the week because that is the way I always plan our menus. First I consider what we have on hand and then I scan the sales flyers and I put our menu together based on what’s on sale and what we purchased in past. This strategy combined with other savings tactics allows me to keep our grocery budget around $40 for our family of three and one on the way.
Here’s what’s on our menu this week:
Breakfast Homemade granola and yogurt x 2 Fruit smoothies and cinnamon toast x 2 Cheerios with milk and fruit x 2 Homemade pancakes or waffles (a Saturday morning tradition)
Lunch Leftover pasta from the weekend (enough to feed 3 adults and 1 child), edamame Lunch at play date (we’re bringing Keebler cookies–on sale at Target again this week–and grapes) Asian chicken salad Peanut butter and banana sandwiches, blueberries Leftovers x 3
Snacks Graham crackers and peanut butter Pumpkin bars Fruit salad Carrot Sticks Cheese and crackers
Dinner Beef stroganoff with egg noddles, cauliflower popcorn Taco salad Pasta with ground buffalo and red sauce, broccoli Pork fried rice, cantaloupe slices Candy chicken, rice, mixed vegetables Baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese Grilled hamburgers, green salad, homemade fries
Just a quick reminder that the All You Grocery Challenge begins tomorrow! Since I helped spread the word about the contest, I am not officially participating, but I will be participating in spirit here on the blog by sharing our menu plans, sharing a few tips for saving on groceries and tracking our spending on food each week.
Also, congratulations to the two winners of the All You magazine giveaway. Amy and Patti each won a two-year subscription to All You. All You is packed with coupons and great tips on thrifty living to help you save. Best wishes to all of you participating in the challenge!
This work by BeCentsAble is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You are free to use any information found on this site as long as proper credit is given to BeCentsAble and a link back is provided.
If you have any questions, please contact us.
