Grocery Shopping with a Plan

Sunday night I went on my weekly grocery shopping trip, I had about $40 to spend. I went through the store with my shopping buddy and made it to the cash register with a good amount of stuff in my cart, grand totaling about $38. Nice work. So I check out and I head home and as I'm driving home I'm thinking to myself, what the heck did I just buy? And how is it going to feed me all week? Before I left for work yesterday I stood in the kitchen sadly trying to figure out what to eat. I ended up buying my lunch, which means I'm now over my budget. Today I pulled out the receipt from the grocery store and wrote down everything I bought, put the items into categories, and figured out where I went wrong. Week after week I go to the grocery store without any plan or ideas about what I'll eat for the week and then I end up buying my lunch all week long because I have no food. I spend a fortune on food. I know, I've already said this. Well I'm working through it now. Here is what I bought this weekend:

Drinks:
Bottled Water
OJ
Cranberry Juice

Proteins:
3 cans of tuna
a dozen eggs

Snacks:
Family Size bag of Tostitos (on sale for cheaper than the smaller size)
Bag of cheesy corn puffs

Breakfast Foods:
Van's Waffles
Rice Chex

Fruits:
5 apples
3 bananas

Vegetables:
2 tomatoes
a 5lb bag of potatoes
brussel sprouts

I do have some staples, various flours, starches, some rice, tinkyada pasta. I do not have any other proteins, no frozen meats to speak of. What on earth will I feed myself? I've already had tuna for lunch today, a girl can only eat so much tuna. I ate the bag of cheesy puffs in 2 sittings. I do not need two different types of snack foods, nor do I need two different types of fruit juice, especially when I have fresh fruits. I had been using a re-usable water bottle but found it a pain in the neck to wash all the time so I went back to buying bottles. I just had a genius idea, why not have 2 or 3 water bottles so that I don't have to wash the same one every day? Duh. Instead of spending a fortune ($156/year) on bottled water, shouldn't be wasting the plastic anyway! (I do recycle them of course)
Sorry to keep posting about money, I'm just trying to work it all out!

Any creative meal ideas from my list here?

Comments

Good Eatah said…
It's great you're writing all of this down and facing it head-on. I really need to do that to get my finances in check. Ugh.

Anyway, I have a couple of ideas for the eggs and potatoes. A Spanish Tortilla is super simple to put together and travels well once it's cooled:
http://thegoodeatah.blogspot.com/2008/05/spanish-tortilla.html

And if you have a food processor and wanted to make kugeli, here's my grandma's recipe:
http://thegoodeatah.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-new-niece-and-grandmas-kugeli.html
Jen said…
Oh yeah I forgot about that Kugeli recipe that I drooled over!! Thanks Liz!!
Allie said…
You're so good!

I need to do that... especially now that we have a wedding coming that i need to help pay for!! i need to seriously budget!!!!

in fact - you'll be seeing me soon for printing save-the-dates ;) as soon as we have a date.
Allie said…
You're so good!

I need to do that... especially now that we have a wedding coming that i need to help pay for!! i need to seriously budget!!!!

in fact - you'll be seeing me soon for printing save-the-dates ;) as soon as we have a date.
Jen said…
Awesome!!! I can't wait! I'm so excited to help!
Marlow said…
I love that you're so aware of how much you're spending. I need to be more aware! That's smart putting it in categories. I love egg with potatoes and tomato. Do you have any cheese?

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