Aldi: Grocery Shopping for under $50 a week

Matt and I are budgeting this year for the first time. I used to think I was budgeting by just spending "as little as possible", but now I realize there were hundreds of dollars slipping through our fingers in my carelessness. We've been going through Financial Peace University and living on a purposeful budget (budget forms here). This involves sitting down before each new month and talking about what we will need to spend money on this month that we didn't need to spend money on last month.

We are a family of two adults and one toddler. When we started budgeting we were having trouble staying under $150 for groceries every two weeks, but lately I've been grocery shopping for under $100 every two weeks! I accomplish this by shopping at Aldi, and shopping once a week for the week instead of once every two weeks.

Here's a list of my last grocery store trip.


Snacks
Pink Lady Apples (2) (E)
Light String Cheese (FP)
Peanuts (S)
Celery (FP)
Large Carrots (E)

Breakfast
Old Fashioned Rolled Oats (E)
Large Eggs (S)
Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (FP)

Lunch
Sprouted Bread (E)
Colby Jack Cheese (2) (S)
Roma Tomatoes (FP)
Iceberg Lettuce (FP)

Dinner
Fresh Green Beans (FP)
Frozen Cut Okra (2) (FP)
Frozen Broccoli Florets (FP)
Frozen Fancy Green Beans (FP)
Frozen Chicken Tenderloins (FP)

Extras
Coconut Oil (FP)
Butter (S)


That was my list (reading straight from the receipt) and the total was $43.29 (I had a $5 off coupon, so I actually spent less than $40 on this run).

For breakfast we eat a lot of eggs (with a side of veggies, or on toasted bread with butter (this is a crossover, since we are at goal weight), tomato, and lettuce) and oatmeal (either in almond milk microwaved and then add apple bits, or I always toast half of the oatmeal in coconut oil with vanilla(not purchased this week) and sweetener (not purchased this week) to make granola, which we eat like cereal with the almond milk poured over it.

For lunch most work days (5 or 6 days for my husband and 2 or 3 for me) we pack a sandwich with meat, lettuce, mayo, and tomato (meat and mayo not purchased this week), but some work days we bring leftovers from the night before to eat for lunch. We also take apples, carrots, string cheese, celery, peanuts etc. as snacks for work.

For dinners we're pretty easy going, meat and veggies with herbs and spices often. Our last dinner, I steamed broccoli, cooked chicken and then mixed up some mayo, cheese (which I shredded), onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Mixed it all together and baked for awhile, and it was yummy and satisfying. I only bought chicken this week because we already have fish, ground beef, and a full turkey in our freezer, so this week we can have a little of each of those to get through dinners, and I may not need to buy any meat at all next week. Matt gets in a rice mood sometimes, and we'll grab a bag of brown rice (E).

Next week I will have to get more vanilla, but we should have frozen veggies and some cheese left over, so I'll get less of those, etc. It's a give and take every week, but we're staying under $50.

I can totally understand if you're used to eating fancier than we do, but I'm talking about grocery shopping on a budget, spending less than $50 a week, while maintaining a no sugar/white flour/white rice/potato diet.

Good luck, happy budgeting, and if you're headed to Aldi don't forget to bring a quarter!

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