How My Family of 5 Live Well on Less: July Week 1

At the beginning of the month of July, my husband took $375 out of the checking account in cash for our July groceries budget. That included $80 for fruit which he put in an envelope and wrote fruit on it, $95 for meat which went in meat envelope, and $200 for food that went in food envelope. Fruit budget is solely for fruit and meat budget is only for meat which includes eggs as well. Food budget originally was just for staples other than fruit and meat. Overtime I stretched my food budget to include consumables like toilet papers and the like. I also included gardening expenses, kids clothes, school supplies and more. It is a working progress but I am trying to purchase all our groceries within our food budget. In order to do that, I grow some vegetables and don’t purchase them anymore. That saves me few dollars. Some that I don’t grow I buy them when they are on sale and freeze them. I save a little every month and at the end of the year I purchase the majority of my food staples and consumables with 25% discount. The discount stretches my dollars and allows me to purchase the consumables items needed for the year. It is not easy to save from $200 budget every month. Some months I spend more than others especially, the first few months of the year when I build up my pantry staples and in the summer when I build up my freezer staples. Every month that I spend less is a month I save most of the food budget. Summer months is the period we spend most of the fruit budget as fruit goes on sale a lot. Winter time is the time we save most of the fruit budget. We save meat budget most months. In spring we stock up on eggs when on sale and serve eggs as protein instead of meat. In summer we stock up on chicken and in fall we stock up on pork.

Out of the $200 food budget for the month of July, I took $25 from the envelope and put aside for milk, bread, and steak rolls. We purchase steak rolls on sale for sandwich and the $25 includes $10 for that and $15 for milk and bread for the month. Usually I set aside $20 for milk and bread but because we have bread in the freezer from prior months, the $15 would be more for milk. I also took $15 out for cereals for breakfast. That left me $160 to spend on food and nonfood items for the month of July. My grocery list for food in July was as follow:

5 lbs. Unbleached Wheat Flour: 8 (We only found one in the store when we shopped.)

Milk, Bread, Steak Rolls: $25 budget (We purchased 1 gal milk at Aldi)

Breakfast Cereals (Walmart): $15 Budget (We went over by $1.)

Extra virgin Olive Oil 101 oz.: 1

Tostadas (Aldi): 4

32 oz. Frozen Sweet Peas (Walmart): 2 (not yet purchased)

Soft Corn Tortilla: 1

Chili Flakes: 1

Eggs: 8 dozens on sale for $0.59 a dozen (meat Budget)

3 Lbs. Hot Dog (Walmart): 1 (meat budget)

1 Lb. Hot Dog: (Aldi) 1 (meat Budget)

3 Lbs. Uncured Wieners: (Aldi) 1 (meat Budget)

4 Qt. Ice Cream (Aldi): 1

Underwear for my youngest child: 1 pack

Library Book Sales: 10 kids’ books for $10

Broom (Dollar Tree):1

Toilet Brush (Dollar tree): 1

Kids’ sun Glasses (Dollar Tree): 1

Game (dominoes and Rubik) (Walmart): 2

Watermelon (Walmart): 8 (fruit Budget)

That is all I needed for my food pantry this month. I would browse weekly ads to see if there is a vegetable on sale I could stock up on. I don’t have a lot of space in my vegetable freezer at the moment and in fall I would harvest more vegetables from my garden and I need to have space for them. Therefore, I need to be picky on what I would stock up on. I am cooking last year vegetables to free space for this year stock.

As you can see, I shop my food pantry and freezers to cook meals. What I purchase weekly or monthly is to replenish my stock. You can check my meals’ page to take a look at the meals I cook for my family. I cook every evening and have leftover for lunch the next day. For breakfast, my kids eat cereals most of the time. We have a fruit budget we spend weekly on sales to have enough fruit at home for snack. During the weekends I cook lunch and dinner. During the week day I cook quick meal dinners and the weekends I cook meals that take longer like wrap (egg roll) for instance, where I make the wrapper myself.

Flour: I have one full bag 5 lbs. flour in my pantry. I like to keep 8 on the shelf. Although I plan to purchase 8, we only purchased one bag so far, since the grocery store only have one on hand.

Soft Corn Tortillas: I would use it to make corn tortilla chips and season it with salt and chili pepper. That would be used for nachos. I have some meat fat saved to fry the corn tortilla. Nacho would be good for holidays. I don’t fry often anymore. I reserve it for holidays and celebrations.

Ice cream (Aldi): 1

3 Lbs. Hot Dogs and Uncured Hot Dog: for July 4^th and our coming anniversary, I would make sandwich and French fries for one of the two celebrations and nacho with the corn tortilla above for the other celebration. I serve ice cream during holidays and celebrations.

1 lb. Hot Dog: One of the kids asked if I could add hot dog to the pizza for lunch that day. So I purchase a small bag of it. We used half of the hot dog which I chopped and added cooked ground beef and cheese as topping on our sourdough pizza. The kids enjoyed it. I froze the rest of the hot dogs.

Eggs: I have half dozen egg left in the fridge. Egg was on sale at a grocery store from June 26 to July 2. I stocked up on it. On July 1^st, I cooked plain rice and served omelet on the side all topped with chili oil made with grated mild chili pepper, chopped green onion, and wild thyme all sauté for few minutes in extra virgin olive oil. It was a simple dinner easy for me to make late in the evening after getting home from the library book sale my family attended.

We purchased 2 games for the kids that we could all play together. I have downsized the kids’ toys and purchased few games few months ago. The games cost $31.51 of my food budget this months.

Cereals: If my family ran out of cereals before the end of the month, I would serve corn meal porridge to the kids some mornings. I have corn meal in my pantry for corn bread, I would serve them eggs, toast, and milk to drink as well.

Extra virgin olive oil: I use it to make lye soap. We use the lye soap to wash dishes, to shower, to wash hands, and to hand wash undergarments. I have a dishwasher but I don’t use it. My 2 girls washes their dishes by hands when they are done eating. They are 8 and 6 years old. By washing dirty dishes right after they have been used, I don’t need to sanitize them. We use the oil on our skin after shower. I cook with it as well. Extra virgin olive oil as multiple uses in my house.

Library Books: The public library has book sales on the 1^st of July. We went and I purchased 10 books for myself at $1 each using my allowance. I spent $10 of the food budget to purchased 10 books for the kids. My books are nonfiction including investment books, real estates, parenting, marriage, and business.

How My Family of 5 Live Well on Less: Last week of June

We spent $49.82 in food (including milk, cereal as well), $2.14 on non-food items (broom, toilet brush), and $41.51 on kids’ (games, glasses, and books) all from the food budget. The total food expense was $93.43. We also spent $11.22 on meat (eggs and hot dogs), and $18.83 on fruit. That is a total cost of $123.52 in July out of the $375 grocery budget. You can read about our June’s expenses and how much we spent from January to June.