Saving Money on Groceries Update

It has been two weeks since I have updated this blog.  Since then I have been doing pretty well spending wise; managing to keep my groceries down to under $90 a week.  This isn’t where I want to be but I am proud of the fact that we have not been eating out, which has been a major downfall with the monthly food budget in the past.

Some meals that I have made over the last few weeks include spaghetti or rigatonis with meat sauce, breakfast for dinner and  homemade chicken noodle soup.  When I made the soup I made sure that I had enough for two days and I think it tasted even better the second day.  On the day I made rigatonis I browned a pound of ground turkey and froze half of the cooked meat for spaghetti and meat sauce the following week.  I used to make my own spaghetti sauce but have gotten away from that.  Now I stock up on the store brand jarred spaghetti sauce when it is on sale for 99 cents.  I always add a can of diced tomatoes to stretch it a little further, add a few spices and it tastes pretty close to homemade spaghetti sauce (although not nearly as good as my moms).

In the last two weeks we have had more than a few occasions that we had extra people here for dinner.  That alone has affected my budget.  Also, since we have been so busy in the evenings and weekends helping a family member prepare his home to sell I haven’t been doing any baking, which was part of my strategy to cut back on groceries.  Now that this project is nearly completed I am going to do my best to get the prepared foods off my grocery list.

I have a ways to go but am happy with the fact that we have significantly lowered our monthly food bill compared to last month.  And  with the hot days behind us and the cool crisp fall weather here it makes meal planning much easier.