Around here I do a 2 week menu rotation and buy groceries every 2 weeks or so. I have been able to limit my trips to the grocery store, which saves us money in the long run and also helps me stay of the “I can’t think of anything for dinner so let’s go out” trap. I can only fit 4 gallons of milk on our fridge at a time without it freezing everything, so we do have to make weekly trips to the store for milk. We have 2 deep freezers, one for our meat and one for everything else.
For our family of 6, I have a food budget of about $500-550 per month. Our family does buy a cow each summer, well, this year we bought 3/4 of a cow. Most of my recipes use “usual” ingredients and nothing terribly exotic. We do try to buy organic or local produce when possible. Gardening here poses some challenges that we didn’t have when we lived in Kansas, although we do grow some things. I try to use a little processed stuff as possible, but occasionally I do. I have a busy schedule the first week of May, so I have a lot of crock pot meals or “easy” stuff for my husband to fix on the nights I’m not here. So here it is for the next two weeks.
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
| Ribs, corn, biscuits | French Dip sandwiches (made with roast from freezer), peas | Black bean and salsa soup, tortillas and corn | Church (we alternate bringing meals with another family from our church on Wednesday night) | Left overs (every family has to have a left over night). 🙂 | Pancakes, eggs or pork side (bacon that we got from my in-laws pig, it doesn’t have the salt or preservatives that store bought bacon does) | Grill steak, baked potatoes, salad |
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
| Left overs or Steak Caesar salad, steak quesadillas | Roast, potatoes and carrots | Spaghetti, Corn and garlic bread | Church | Roast chicken, broccoli (I will usually roast 2 or 3 chickens at a time and then debone them and freeze for later use) | Meat loaf, corn or mashed potatoes | Chicken enchiladas (made with left over chicken from Thursday) |
I bought groceries this morning. I had many of the veggies on hand, because we either froze them this summer or bought them on sale a few weeks ago. My grocery bill this morning was $110. I had to stock up on eggs (we go through about 5 dozen every 2-3 weeks), milk (again 4 gallons a week here), bread and fruit.
I don’t usually make anything fancy for lunch around here. We either have left overs, sandwiches, or mac and cheese with tuna and peas. Breakfast usually consists of cereal, toast, oatmeal or eggs. Supper is definitely our “big” meal of the day. We do eat quite a bit of fruit during the week for morning and afternoon snacks. I share some of our favorite recipes on Mondays with my “new recipe Monday” posts.