$200 a week all organic grocery bill? Bring it!

Quiet everyone!  Quiet now.  I have an announcement to make.  For the third week in a row, I have stayed within my $200 a week grocery budget and have only bought organic.  I repeat.  I have only spent $200 a week on groceries for my entire family and have only bought organic food.  Yes indeed.  I will pause here for a while as I imagine the applause that is occurring at this moment.

I have only stayed in a budget that tight once and that was last year when I was only spending $100 a week for groceries so I could have more money to spend in Puerto Rico.  (priorities people!) I emptied out my pantry and made some very creative things and going organic was not on my list. But once I came back, I went right back to my old habits and just bought what I felt like eating. Here's my trick.  Get ready!  It is magic!  .......Hold on.....I only buy the food I need.  Yeah.  I know....craziness!  

Okay, it is a little more than that....kind of.  My husband is the kind of man who will eat whatever I make and will never complain.  You will never hear him say, "There ain't no meat in this.  This ain't no meal!  I need meat." So making vegetable based meals isn't an issue.  Which if you have looked at the prices of organic meat, you will see why that matters.  He also is never here, so I really don't include him in my meal planning.  I buy him almond milk and make sure that there is something for him to eat, but I pretty much get to plan the weekly menu without any comments from the peanut gallery.  I have this rule for the girls about food.....suck it up if you don't like it.  I don't care.  Makes my life pretty simple when it comes to meal planning.

I buy for three meals that will be big enough for leftovers for my lunch and dinner the next night. We make a loaf of bread every night. And I do buy those Peter Rabbit Organic fruit and veggie squeezes.  The girls love them.  I don't buy juice boxes.  Why?  Sugar in a box.  They can drink water and eat the fruit.  I have limited the girls to one gallon of milk a week and now buy almond milk and coconut milk.  I never buy cereal.  The girls will make themselves some scrabbled eggs or banana pancakes for breakfast. And we do not have meat with every meal.  

That was the sticker price that shocked me the most.  I buy one thing of chicken and one thing of frozen fish and that is our meat for the week.  I did splurge a little bit this week and got Zoe some ham for her sandwiches.  

I figured that even though the organic peanut butter is almost $10 for a big jar, it will last a little over 2 weeks using it for dips for apples and sandwiches every day.  That is feeding my babies for less that $1 a day.  I can live with that. 

I actually only spent $170 for this week's groceries.  I like to give myself a little wiggle room just in case I forgot or run out of something.  I make it into a game and always ask the checker if they think I will come in under $200.  This serves two purposes.  It makes me accountable and if I go over, I won't feel so stupid asking them to take things off.  I make it into a game.  A couple of the checkers now follow the blog to see how I am doing on my endeavor and ask me if I am in my budget.  

Last week, we ate like royalty.  We had baked chicken thighs with rice, red bell peppers, and asparagus cooked in a dutch oven, (that I love almost as much as my steam cleaner) That meal fed me, my daughters, my eldest daughter's 3 overnight guests, and gave me a nice little meal to soak up last night's vodka.  I made this amazing soup with orzo, spinach, garlic, ginger, and avocados.  Fed myself and my husband two servings each that night and I had a nice little lunch.  And of course the butternut squash coconut curry with rice.  We still have some of that leftover.  That went nicely with some pan seared halibut. Oh and I cannot forget the bananas in sweet coconut milk for dessert.  Yummy!

This week our meal plan is Nicoise Salad, chicken salad lettuce wraps, chicken vegetable soup, pan seared dover sole with rice and vegies.  I made the Nicoise Salad tonite and will sever it over spinach for my lunches for the next two days.  I baked all the chicken breast tonight and that will make the chicken salad and chicken vegetable soup.  I splurged and got some smoked salmon too and feta cheese for our eggs in the morning or a salad I may be craving.  And if we need more food, I do still have $30 to spend for the week.  If all else fails, we can have banana pancakes for dinner.  Who doesn't like breakfast for dinner?

I like eating all the food I buy.  I like feeding my family food that is good for them and kind to the environment.  And I really like my grocery bill.  Buy simple.  Buy basic.  Be healthy.  Save money.  Holler!

Recipe of the week

The orzo soup I made last week was so delicious.  I looked in the pot and was surprised to see that what was in my pot looked just like the picture from the recipe.  Because I am on a budget, I used ginger for a jar I already had and I didn't use the mustard seeds or any of the fresh herbs.  It was still fabulous.  Try it this week.  http://marcussamuelsson.com/news/recipe-my-veggie-soup

Hotmamalolo is alive and in budget!

Many of my peeps have been asking where hotmamlolo has been.  She has been getting her ass kicked, but in a good way.  I had wanted to give a detailed update on my grocery endeavor of a $100 a week budget for the month of April, but since the husband has taken the receipts with him to enter into his little budget thingy, I can't give the details.  I can tell you that I only went $20 over for the entire month and that is with having a party, going on vacation, and having the in-laws in town over Easter weekend.  Technically, the food for the party should have come out of my business account which would have kept me in budget....but we can just keep that on the down low for the time being.  Yep, I think it can be said that I pretty much rocked it.  As soon as I get my hands on those receipts to help me jog my memory, I will give you the details.  I can tell you that I made bread almost every day, did not buy processed foods, used what I had in my pantry to plan meals, and bought frozen vegetables where it wouldn't drive me crazy to not have fresh like onions and peppers.  My pantry and freezer are completely empty and I will be making a Costco trip this week to stock back up and am interested in seeing how I can make that balance out.  My mind set has shifted a little and it isn't only about what I am in the mood for.  The husband is very happy and has almost given me a compliment about it.
Oh, and I was just given a yogurt maker (thank you gym kittens!) so I am very excited about that!

yummy recipe of the week
Make some quinoa according to directions. Make a lot.
This makes a yummy breakfast!
I make a cereal out of this and put coconut milk, pecans, coconut, banana, and a little brown rice syrup on it. yummy!  It is so good for you and sticks to your guts.  Also, this is a great meal if you are on a detox.  You can always change it up and use real milk and brown sugar if you want, but the coconut milk on it is AWESOMENESS!
You can use the leftovers to make a lunch or dinner too.  Toss the quinoa with prawns, tomatoes, basil, pistachios, red onion, juice of 1 lime, and cumin and you have a quinoa tabbouli.  It is so good and has a low glycemic index so it will sustain your blood sugar for a long period of time.

Homemade Microwave Popcorn

I had a sweet tooth and was craving something sweet and savory.  I wanted popcorn balls, but all I have is microwave popcorn.  This is my relationship with microwave popcorn; I love it! The buttery the better.  One time I bought some light microwave popcorn and ended up melting butter and pouring it over the popcorn anyway.  Here is the thing with microwave popcorn...it is really bad for you!  The lining in the bag and the chemicals that make it taste so good....BAD< BAD<BAD!  And even though microwave popcorn is not that expensive, it is way more expensive than it needs to be.  Then I had an epiphany.  What if I made microwave popcorn with the big jug of kernels I have in my pantry?  So I tried it.  I put 9 tablespoons of popcorn in a paper bag, rolled it up and microwaved it for around 3 minutes.  It worked!  Holy shit!  Usually my little experiments don't work, but this one did.  Now I can melt all the butter I want to pour on it guilt free....well kind of guilt free. I am trying to trim down a little bit before I am expected to bare my glow in the dark white body in a bikini on the beaches of Puerto Rico.  I also have an amazing recipe for Kettle Corn, but that would require actually getting a pan out, so I will post that later.
Countdown to my $100 a week Grocery challenge.  It begins the first of April.  This Friday.   Scary!
Wish me luck!
xoxoxo
LB

$100 a week grocery bill

Okay, my husband and I fight all the time over money.  We have very different approaches to creating and maintaining a budget.  We also have very different ideas about what is the most important thing to spend our money on.  We come  from the complete opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to our concepts of money.  For him, I believe, spending money is actually physically painful.  I read an article once in the NY Times about the difference between cheap skates and the rest of us.  To cheap skates spending money releases a chemical in the brain that actually makes it painful for them.  They can't help it.  It is part of their physiology.  Now, I am exaggerating a wee bit.  My husband just feels that it is VERY important not to be in debt and to have 3 months pay saved up in the bank.  I think that is a great idea and theoretically I agree.  However, I like to LIVE while I live.  To me, while it is important to stay within your means, money is money.  It comes.  It goes.  But it is never worth the heartache we allow it to cause.  See now the formula for some knock down, drag out fights on the money front.
Through our almost 8 years of marriage, we have both floated a little more towards the middle.  I realize that because of my husband, I will most likely have a retirement.  And I try to tell him, that because of me, he should have some sweet ass memories to think back on.  He quite hasn't seen that point yet.  Go figure!  Just to give an idea about how different we are I will tell you about our grocery battle when we first got married.
Selah was 2 months old.  Zoe was 2 years old.  And Robert had just found out that he had been let go of his teaching job (the circumstances of which I will delve into later because it is a sinister tale of deceit, betrayal, and the untimely death of the boss....okay the last part is not true, but I did wish it for awhile).  He had found a job that he was supposed to be making good money at in sales, but ended up only making $1300 a month.  We had some money in the bank, but that didn't matter to Robert.  He said that needed to be saved for an emergency.  In my head I was thinking, isn't this the emergency?  So he gave me a budget of $100 a week for groceries and that was to include diapers, toilet paper, and other household products.  OMG!   Okay is anyone else there thinking what I was thinking?  WTH!?  So needless to say, I ignored the budget.
So thus our first arguments over money started.  Being sleep deprived, I suggested that he take over the grocery shopping.  ummmm...yeah.  My man came home with the biggest can of beans I had ever seen and a huge bag of rice.  I laughed so hard until I realized that he was dead serious and that is what he expected us to eat for the week. I was and am still very adamant about fresh fruits and vegies being plentiful in our house.  Can you see where this might cause a conflict of interest?
It is now 8 years later and we are still having the same argument. I keep thinking that the fact that I am a good cook and hook him up on a daily basis should sink in at some point, but then I remember the research and that he can't help it.  I have gotten a little bit more sophisticated and I make our bread and have very little processed food in our house.  I am venturing out and trying making homemade yogurt.  It is right now, at this moment, incubating and I will let you know how it turns out. I am seeing how making things from scratch is not only better for you and tastes better, but is a lot cheaper.  So now that he has chilled out ......a little...about the grocery bill (mainly because I am staying in a reasonable budget) I have decided to challenge myself and see if I can feed my family food that is nourishing for both the body and soul for $100 a week.  I will blog about it and let you know how it is going.
ps  I just made a flaxseed sunflower seed bread that is pretty awesome.  I will post the recipe later.
xoxox