Welcome to week 2 of Grocery Confessions. Check out our first post for more background. This week I’m going to write about how we’re planning on feeding our family of 5 from our $75 weekly grocery shopping trip. I’ll also recap our last week of meals (we spent $77 last weekend).
Recently Mrs. GovWorker stumbled upon this “Aldi Nerd” Facebook group and has been super excited about communicating with fellow Aldi shoppers.
Background on Grocery Confessions
I write a lot about our grocery budget. In fact, the Plutus Awards Weekly Roundup featured our post about how we feed our family of five for $1.25 per person per meal! But I never go into a lot of details about what we eat, or the groceries we buy. That changes this week with my first grocery confessions post.
Mrs. GovWorker and I have been big fans of MoneySavingMom, PrudentHomemaker, and FishMama for years. These women put our grocery budget to shame (For example, Prudent Homemaker will feed her family of 9 on $0.40 per day. For Everyone!!) They have bigger families than we do. And they spend less money that we do. A big part of these bloggers blogs is documenting every grocery shopping trip and every meal they plan. (i.e. “the grocery game”).
A note about Mrs. GovWorker
Before we can share our grocery confession, I want to share my grocery confession. Mrs. GovWorker conceives, plans, and executes our entire meal strategy. This is *a lot* of work. And she cooks a lot and spends a lot of mental energy “thinking” about groceries. I am eternally grateful for that. Occasionally, I’ll try to meal plan or go grocery shopping and it ends in disaster. A $200 grocery trip with key missing ingredients. Or I’ll have everything accounted for except school lunches. So, for the record, I just want to fully disclose that Mrs. GovWorker is awesome. Moreover, I know I don’t help in this area. I help out in lots of other areas around the house. But I know that this is an area where Mrs. GovWorker walks alone. (She is amazing).
A few notes about our grocery confessions
I have celiac disease and need to eat an entirely gluten free diet. We make all of our food gluten free. Occasionally, we’ll buy non GF food to send in the kids’ lunches.
In 2019, GovTween convinced us to become vegetarians. (Thanks to Greta Thunberg’s quest to save the planet). Mrs. GovWorker cooks entirely vegetarian. The younger 2 kids will still eat meat when they are with their grandparents. Also, Mrs. GovWorker bought some lunch meat for the younger 2 this month as a special treat.
Grocery Confessions- 2nd week of February $75 shopping trip
Only a few items over $3 this week. Here they are.
- Quart of Greek yogurt $3.45
- 2 lbs of shredded cheese $5.19
- Apples $3.69
- Oranges $3.49
Grocery Confessions- What we ate last week
Here’s a rundown of our dinners and other major meals for the second week of February
- Sunday, Feb 9- lunch, black bean pasta salad. Dinner, “chick nuggets” and fries. (“chick nuggets” breaded chickpeas like chicken nuggets)
- Monday, Feb 10- sandwiches and leftovers
- Tuesday, Feb 11- taco Tuesday, cilantro lime rice, golden beans
- Wednesday, Feb 12- tortilla soup
- Thursday, February 13- baked potatoes with chili
- Friday, February 14- chili over noodles
- Saturday, February 15- lunch: homemade pizza, dinner “vegetarian charcuterie board” with fruit, almonds, hummus, and crackers
What’s the meal plan for next week
Here’s what the meal plan looks like for our upcoming week.