Grocery bills and lists
A post over on Customers Suck prompted me to post this simply because it would take the thread off topic - as if it's not off topic as it already is.
I have six children, my mother, my husband and myself to grocery shop for every month. That's nine people. I budget myself to $600 a month in food and how I keep to this budget is simply. I have a master grocery list (which I actually need to update), a planned dinner menu (kids eat at school on week days) and a weekend lunch menu. Breakfast is simple for my kids - every day but Sunday they eat cereal. They love cereal. I have to lock up the cereal otherwise they can go through the cereal like it was water. AND most importantly, I shop only at grocery stores that are inexpensive AND shop only on sale days. I'm not on welfare but I'm on a tight budget. $600 a month for a family of NINE breaks down to roughly $2.22 a day, per person.
To keep on budget I buy myself a gift card from the grocery store and put $600 on the card. I know those on welfare get an EBT card that they use to buy their food with and frankly, it did give me the idea of using a gift card to keep my budget on track. Most grocery stores now offer gift cards. They're free to load money onto the card and frankly, it's easy to keep track of how much you have left on the card, how much goes on it and not have to worry about not having money to buy food.
Now I also use coupons and know my grocery store price matches with competitor ads. I take full advantage of that. Now, I've never been able to save hundreds of dollars at a time but I can knock off anywhere from $15 to $30 off my grocery bill. My final bill, is roughly around $150 a week on groceries. I don't buy beef often unless it's ground beef and tend to cook more chicken then anything else. When it's not a meat day, it's pasta but you know what, we still manage to eat healthy compared to most people and all on $600 a month to feed NINE people. No it's not 100% healthy as I do give the kids Kool-Aid or lemonaid but they also drink lots of milk, apple juice and orange juice through out the month. AND I supplement their diets with vitamins just in case they are missing something from their diet that day.
I don't find it difficult to feed my family in a healthy manner. I use the MyPyramid.gov site to figure out what I need to buy. I use their school menu to figure out a meal schedule for them and I their likes and dislikes. I use MS Word to create a menu for us and I figure out what I'm going to need off the master list. Yes, it takes work to plan menus for them but you know what, in the long run it's CHEAPER to do this instead of going to the store and buying whatever.
I have six children, my mother, my husband and myself to grocery shop for every month. That's nine people. I budget myself to $600 a month in food and how I keep to this budget is simply. I have a master grocery list (which I actually need to update), a planned dinner menu (kids eat at school on week days) and a weekend lunch menu. Breakfast is simple for my kids - every day but Sunday they eat cereal. They love cereal. I have to lock up the cereal otherwise they can go through the cereal like it was water. AND most importantly, I shop only at grocery stores that are inexpensive AND shop only on sale days. I'm not on welfare but I'm on a tight budget. $600 a month for a family of NINE breaks down to roughly $2.22 a day, per person.
To keep on budget I buy myself a gift card from the grocery store and put $600 on the card. I know those on welfare get an EBT card that they use to buy their food with and frankly, it did give me the idea of using a gift card to keep my budget on track. Most grocery stores now offer gift cards. They're free to load money onto the card and frankly, it's easy to keep track of how much you have left on the card, how much goes on it and not have to worry about not having money to buy food.
Now I also use coupons and know my grocery store price matches with competitor ads. I take full advantage of that. Now, I've never been able to save hundreds of dollars at a time but I can knock off anywhere from $15 to $30 off my grocery bill. My final bill, is roughly around $150 a week on groceries. I don't buy beef often unless it's ground beef and tend to cook more chicken then anything else. When it's not a meat day, it's pasta but you know what, we still manage to eat healthy compared to most people and all on $600 a month to feed NINE people. No it's not 100% healthy as I do give the kids Kool-Aid or lemonaid but they also drink lots of milk, apple juice and orange juice through out the month. AND I supplement their diets with vitamins just in case they are missing something from their diet that day.
I don't find it difficult to feed my family in a healthy manner. I use the MyPyramid.gov site to figure out what I need to buy. I use their school menu to figure out a meal schedule for them and I their likes and dislikes. I use MS Word to create a menu for us and I figure out what I'm going to need off the master list. Yes, it takes work to plan menus for them but you know what, in the long run it's CHEAPER to do this instead of going to the store and buying whatever.