The details: $400 January Food Budget

I’ve been taking a little blog vacation.  It gave me the reduced schedule I needed to start homeschooling my 4th grader.  I was really nervous about that extra responsibility on top of our crazy house remodel, my teaching part time up at the school, and writing the menus for GSP.  But we found our rhythm and Heather is super cooperative (until Friday when we are both just plain exhausted.)

It’s time to get back to blogging and I have a lot of stuff to show you.  First up is how in the world did the 8 of us eat this month for $400?  It’s getting harder, I tell you.  Food prices are up.

We are a breath away from getting an oven which will help a ton.  But the steps getting us closer to the oven have removed even the marginal functionality I had in the kitchen in the past. Basically I couldn’t even go in the room for a few days. In our other home I made up for a limited budget by baking and making nearly everything from scratch.  That hasn’t been possible for us for the last 9 months.  I keep telling myself to be grateful for a guilt-free break from the extra work. But I still feel the stress.  The pull from both sides–needing to be frugal more than ever, but without the familiar ways that I made it work in the past.

The extra budget challenges this month: Weekly bake sales at school.  My daughter is on the yearbook committee and was supposed to bring 4 dozen cookies every Thursday to school, bagged and ready to sell.  They were selling the treats for $1 a bag to help reduce the cost of yearbooks for the middle school. The first week it was fun but after that I felt the drain on my grocery budget big time.  Without an oven we were making chocolate no bakes, rice krispie treats; and peanut butter cheerio bars.  Flour baked cookies are by far more affordable to make.  It would have cost less for us to just pay for our yearbooks, but that wouldn’t have helped as many people I suppose.

The blessings this month:  My mother-in-law showed up with a huge box of food from the food pantry in her tiny town.  The residents there usually don’t take the fresh produce, preferring the pastries and boxed foods.  So instead of throwing it all away,  they sent me fresh lettuce, spinach, Halo Clementines, low carb pitas and flatbread, rotel tomatoes, pink lady apples, peanuts in the shell….and a few other things that we already ate so I can’t remember.  The thing about food from a pantry like this, is it has been donated because it is close to the end of it’s shelf life.  It needs to be used or frozen right away, or it will spoil within a day or two even in the fridge.  The next week my mother-in-law brought fried chicken over for our lunch.  That night my mother had us all over (in-laws too) for Heidi’s birthday dinner.  We had enough chicken leftover to pack for lunches.  My mom had us over another 3 times because I couldn’t get into my kitchen space.

One day this month, one of my former students came and spent the day helping Darren lay hardwood floor.  It was an honor to have him here! While they were working, I didn’t have access to my fridge or dishes, or anything. So I used a gift card to offset buying sandwiches for the kids at Wendy’s, and then used my blow money to buy Subway sandwiches for the adults for lunch.  It was an unusually warm day (it has been swinging between 50-60 degrees and 8 degrees (-11 windchill) here and we were blessed with a warm one this day.) So I bought deli pizzas and soda at Aldi and grilled them outside for dinner.  Yum!

So we are down to the last week of the month, and I have $12.30 left.  I plan to buy a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk and then use all my loose change to buy some fun stuff for a small party we’re having here on Friday.

And if you want to know exactly what I bought, when and where and for how much.  It’s below.

Jan 2014 budget aJan 2014 budget bJan 2014 food budget cJan 2014 Food budget dJan 2014 Food Budget eJan 2014 food budget f

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16 thoughts on “The details: $400 January Food Budget

  1. Meredith says:

    I’m glad you are back from your blogging vacation. I missed reading your new posts. Great job on your budget again. You inspire me!

  2. Emily says:

    What a loving and thoughtful family you have. 🙂 It is so awesome that you are doing well! I’m excited for you to make it through January on budget!!!

    Keep up the good work! 🙂

  3. Amanda Holly says:

    Glad to have you back and I appreciate sooo much your honesty. We are moving to a cash budget for groceries and its hard to tell yourself ” Yes we have money but its been earmarked for something else”. Its encouraging to hear that yes…its hard but worth it and sometimes God sends angels when we are at the end of our budgets and ropes. I am very happy about the soon to be stove .

    • Angela says:

      Thanks, Amanda. I agree with you. I definitely see the food basket (and my Mama) as God’s provision. Without being able to cook from scratch we would never make it within our budget without that extra help.

    • Angela says:

      Gladys! I’m glad you were checking up on me :). If you subscribe in the second field on the right hand side of the blog, you will get an email with the full blog post, so you never miss out again. (Though I hope it will be awhile before I need another blog vacation :).)

  4. Tiffany says:

    We are a family of 4- 2 growing toddlers and we are barely making it on $280/MO! We love Aldi and it’s like 2 minutes from our apartment so major convenience. How much do you save by making all of your breads, etc.? Could you explain or direct me to a past post of how you do this exactly, how much it saves, etc. We really can’t afford $280/MO and we get some from a food pantry (only gives some dry foods)…somehow God provides for us each month. Thanks!!! Tiffany 🙂

  5. Kris says:

    I’ve been keeping track of my grocery receipts too, but i’m wondering if keeping track of the size, weight, oz’s, etc. would be also a good idea to be able to “compare” prices in sales & know what we’re buying?

    Also, when you are without an oven…..BBQ grill 😉 I have cooked everything in it that i would in an oven, except for sandwich bread. Haven’t done that yet. But its fun (except for windy days)

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