Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Menus - Planning and Pricing

We are getting ready to move out of a rental property and into our very own home! We are thankful, excited, and blessed! I always try to do a good job on our grocery budget but have lately felt the need to tighten things up a bit more so we have a little more wiggle room as we make the transition to being homeowners. I have been reading online a lot lately and here are some of my favorite websites I have found. I have really benefited from mygrocerydeals.com, $5 dinners, The Hillbilly Housewife, and Money Saving Mom. I honestly still do not understand all the ins and outs of couponing, but I am trying.

I am a HUGE fan of Aldi and shop there every two weeks! You can get tortillas for 99 cents and tomato soup for 49 cents! Anyway, you can in South Central Pennsylvania! I can just about tell you what everything in the store costs (well at least the items I buy regularly).

After reading over at the $5 dinner website, I really was curious to know how our dinners figured up. Today I went shopping with all the three children, and took the time to write down the cost of absolutely EVERYTHING I purchased today!

Here a few of the meals we will be enjoying over the next couple of weeks:

Chicken and Dumplings
1/2 chicken ($2.40)
1 can cream of chicken soup (.59)
flour (.28)
1 tsp. salt (pennies)
* I will make my own chicken stock by "stewing" the chicken in the crock pot overnight with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic).
This dinner will cost approximately $3.27 (plus whatever few cents in seasonings I will use).
This is my 7-year-old daughter's absolute FAVORITE meal!

Chicken Tortilla Casserole
1/2 Chicken ($2.40)
1/2 bag tortilla chips ($1.00)
Cream of Chicken Soup (.59)
Taco Seasoning (.33)
Green Chiles ($1.19)
This dinner will cost approximately $4.51
* I will also serve this with carrot sticks, broccoli and ranch dressing (I am guessing this will cost another .75-$1.00

Ham and Beans
Ham $1.65
Beans .99
Cornbread Muffins .95
Total Cost: $3.59

Homemade Pizza - I was very curious to figure this up. I make it every Saturday night for our family and we have it for leftovers on Sunday when we get home from church. I'm not crazy about pizza, but my family absolutely loves it!
Flour - .95 (I use King Arthur Flour, so this would be less if you used cheaper flour)
Cheese - ~$5.00
Pepperoni - $1.00
Sauce - $1.00
I honestly do not know how to figure in the cost of yeast, salt, and oil, but I believe it's safe to say we're talking about a few cents here (Okay, I do KNOW how to figure it up, but I'm just not willing). I buy my yeast in bulk for about $3 and it lasts me for MONTHS and I make homemade bread and pizza dough A LOT!
So, I'm estimating that I spend approximately $7.95 for 2 meals for my family, and my husband usually takes a couple slices with him to work on Monday morning! That's some cheap pizza!

I'll spare you all the rest of my boring figures, but it was very exciting, encouraging, and motivating to make my little list of prices today and figure up what each dinner costs for our family! I am certain that many of the dinners will have leftovers for lunch the next day, or at least enough for my husband to take leftovers to work with him. The children and I usually eat soup and/or sandwiches for lunch.

5 comments:

Totallyscrappy said...

Oh, how I miss Aldi. It was so cheap and I loved their baking supplies.

Nikki said...

I know! Every time we've moved I've gone online to see where the closest Aldi is! It would be very hard for me to adjust my shopping to a different store.

Jessica said...

oh I love how you broke the prices down! No Aldi out here, but I will be close to one soon!

Stephanie said...

We have an Aldi and I don't shop there. Shame on me. I keep telling myself I need to go. I'm setting up a new grocery routine and I think I'll add that in. I have been before and the milk alone would save us a ton. And above all the grocery talk... YAY for the new house. I'm so excited for you.

Loving learning at Home said...

I love these kind of posts. What a great way to see how much you are spending on meals.