I have blogged in the past about how we save on groceries and how we stock up on food. I would like to walk you through the system that works for my family and our finances.

It has been a long process to get to this stage and our method may not work for everyone.

In general, I stocked up on staples at the end of the year and during the first few months of the year to the extent of what I saved for groceries. We shop sales every week to stock up our fridge, freezer, and pantry. I cook from my pantry, fridge, freezer, and garden. We stock up on meat when on sale or from my in-laws’ farm. I would be blogging about our groceries to give you an idea what works for us. It is the second week of May 2019 but I could summarized our shopping for the first week of May.

First Week

Food

During the first week of May, sweet corn was on sale 6 for $1. The ad ended on May 1st. We didn’t have anything left in food envelop from April to buy it. In fact Food went over its budget and we spent fruit money on food. A cookie that Aldi only sells around holiday was in store for Easter. It is a seasonal product and I like it. So I spent $55 of my monthly allowance to purchase a box of it. That is snack for the house. I like that German’s cookie because it is not too sweet. Cookie and milk can be good snack if needed. So we stocked up that.  Not having anything saved from groceries’ budget, we waited the first day of the month of May to withdraw money and my husband purchased the corn. The store have a limit on the purchase. So he went to the store with the kids. He gave them cash and each one of them purchased the corn.  They purchased $8 worth of corn. That is 48 sweet corns. After dinner, I prepped them, removed the corn off the cob and stored in freezer gallon bags. I made 8 bags of corn each bag for 6 corns and I stored in the freezer. I didn’t blanched the corn. I just removed the husks of 6 corns at a time, removed the corn of the cobs and put in a bag and deposited in the freezer and I repeated the process until I was done. I wanted to keep them fresh from the husk to the freezer in a short amount of time. It took me 2 hours to prep them. Few days later, I removed few layers of frozen vegetables that were from last year out of my smallest and first chest freezer to get to what I have being freezing this year and put the frozen corns to this year items. Them I placed back last year frozen vegetables on top. We have not finished last year vegetables before this spring. I still have frozen vegetables from last year harvest. Having last year vegetables on top allows me to get to them first for cooking. It is spring and my perennial vegetables are growing along with edible weeds. I started to harvest straight from the garden to the stove.

 

But when the weather doesn’t allow to go in the garden, I have the remaining of last year vegetables in the freezer to use.

For the month of May, we withdrew $280 for groceries including $200 for food which went in food envelop, and $80 for fruit put in fruit envelop. Meat usually get $95. However, in April my in-laws brought us one whole cows and we paid $200 for butcher fee. The cow was free. May God bless them. We have $75 in meat envelop from April. So we paid the $200 from our saving with the intention to pay back to saving for the next two months from the meat budget. So we didn’t get anything out for meat this month but left the $95 in saving instead. My in- laws bought us 15 dozen of eggs for $15. That came from April’s meat budget. The $75 from April – $15 should have $60 in the meat envelop. In spring we eat egg more. If egg is on sale, we should be able to buy that while we are paying back the $200.

Broccoli: Broccoli was on sale $0.77/lb. and one of our daughter has been asking for it for a while. So my husband purchased 3 lbs. of it. I rinsed them, cut the broccoli off the main stem, put loosely in gallon of freezer bags and stored in the freezer flat. During the processing time, my kids snack on it raw. I would be using them in stir fry. That how I stock up on vegetables I don’t grow. I buy them on sale and prep them before freezing. It make my cooking time shorter later. I have tried to cane vegetable and didn’t like it much. They were over processed in my opinion. I like to freeze them but it does requires some freezer space. In my experience, it is good to spend on one or few chest freezers. Last year I didn’t want to but a third freezer but I am glad we did. We received a lot of meat (beef and chicken) from my in-laws and there was no way I would have time to can them all. There were some cuts like steaks didn’t need to be canned. My garden produced an abundance of green beans and other vegetables that overflew my smallest freezer which is dedicated to vegetables only to my second freezer (a medium size). Some worry about food getting buried in the chest freezer. I don’t have that issue. I find them and use them. Chest freezer is less expensive than up right freezer and doesn’t lose cold as much as the latter. I think chest freezer can store more item as well. I understand it can be a little inconvenient as you have to bend to get item in it. I prefer small and medium freezers to big ones. A large chest freezer can take time to organize and clean.

I took $50 out of the food money as a payback for the cookies purchased in April. I intend to purchase some staples for $80 this month. I put $46 in a spare food envelop and stored in my manila brown envelop where I put all the money saved from each category every month. If something in our food list goes on sale, I would take money from that envelop to purchase it.

Cereals. Cereals went on sale at Hy-Vee grocery store for $1 with limit of 5. I intended to spend $15 on cereal this month at their regular price. So my husband purchased $25 worth of cereals some boxes are 10oz and some are over 20 oz.

 

 

My staples this month included: 5 unbleached flour, 1 corn meal, 1- 101 oz. extra virgin olive oil, 6 sweet and sour sauce(my husband uses it for homemade eggroll. We usually called it wrap.), 3 chili flakes. All that came from Walmart to the exception of sweet and sour that was purchased for Fair Way Grocery store. The staples cost me $42 sales items not included.

I kept $20 on the side for milk, bread, and sandwich bread. We buy sandwich bread when on sale.

Sandwich bread:

My husband purchased 4 bags of French steak rolls which he put in the second chest freezer.

Each bag has 24 steak rolls. They cost less than $2.50 a bag. When they are on sale, they are marked down 20 to 25% off. To use them, I preheat the oven at 400 degrees F, lay them in a cast iron baking pan and bake for 6 min. We use them for dinner like egg and fruit salad, avocado sandwich, ground meat sandwich (sloppy joe).

The sandwich bread cost about $10 and used half of the $20 milk budget.

Milk:

My husband purchase 2 gallons of milk from Aldi. That is the second week of May, and I opened the second gallon today for the kids’ breakfast. From the first gallon of milk, I used a quart to feed my Kefir cultures. I drained the old milk off, sweetened, and poured in cup jars for the kids to take to school along with their lunch. I stored my kefir cultures in the fridge in a gallon jar covered with a quart of milk and loosely closed. It ferments slowly and when there is excess milk or milk closed to expiration date, I feed kefir cultures with it and we drink the fermented milk.

 

Fruit:

Apple:

Apple was on sale for $0.77/lb. My husband purchased about 25.51 lbs. The total discount was $31.13. He paid $19.64.

I stored them in the crisper and made a big batch of apple pie on Sunday.

Out of $80 reserved for fruit in May, I took $20 and put in a fruit envelop in my manila envelope as a saving from fruit budget.

Here is the first week shopping for food and fruit. The new ad would be in our mail today Tuesday. We will see what is on sale for the next 8 days. As you can see, my food shopping list didn’t really include ingredients to make whole meals. They were things I was low in and replenished my pantry with.