Budget // Groceries + Meal Plan // Week Two

I am really excited to share our most recent grocery trip! I seriously can’t believe that we came UNDER budget! Despite last week being an off week due to sickness and well just being bad at our “one grocery day” rule we still managed to make out well.

After checking out the sales flyers for our local grocery stores we decided that this week we were going to try Fred Meyer. This would be our first grocery trip ever to Fred Meyers and well we were a little nervous. Fred Meyer is a more conventional grocery store and I would compare it to Loblaws/Superstore for my Canadian friends or Shaws or Price Chopper for my East Coast friends (unfortunately I’m not familiar with any other regional grocery stores). Anyways as things go with a conventional grocery store you have to be a little more picky, keep yourself focused on your list and sometimes you just have to search a little harder until you become familiar with the store.

Upon first walking into the store I was immediately impressed with how clearly laid out and marked the organic produce was. The best part? The organic produce looked good and it was in some cases significantly cheaper than Whole Foods. Now I know the true test will be in the taste but for now I’m just loving that it’s less expensive. Also because I did check the flyers before going I knew that there were a number of organic items on sale. Also another thing I love about bigger grocery chains is that they mark down their produce when they are a day or two from the best buy date and they mark down spotty bananas aka the best bananas for freezing!

Once we left the produce area that’s when the panic started to set in; I mean where to next?? I headed straight to the ‘natural’ food section to check out what they had and while they have their own organic brand that was reasonably prices most everything else was around the same or often more than Whole Foods. I didn’t really need a ton of pantry items but I did pick up some of their organic tofu.

The only things left on my list to find were organic canned beans that weren’t $3.00 per can and I had to do some searching but finally I found them! I also located an extra large bottle of Frank’s hot sauce for Neil.

Overall it was a good experience and assuming everything taste good and holds up well for the week I think we will be making a Fred Meyer trip more often! Continue on to see what we bought and our meal plan…

Bulk Pecans $3.20
Bulk Nutritional Yeast $4.27
Bulk Lundberg Short Grain Brown Rice $1.36
Mushrooms (14oz) $3.69
Yellow Onions (3lbs) $1.58
Organic Tofu $1.79

Frank’s $4.53
Organic Chickpeas x4 $4.00
Organic Great Northern Beans x2 $2.00

Organic Red Leaf Lettuce $2.29
Organic Zucchini $1.31
Organic Romaine $1.79
Asparagus $1.78

Banana Almond Baked Oatmeal Cups

Organic Avocado x2 $2.50
Organic Green Onions $0.89
Organic Cauliflower $3.72
Organic Red Pepper $2.03
Fresno Chili Pepper $0.25
Organic Garlic (not pictured) $0.77
Organic Red Cabbage $2.55
Organic Cherry Tomatoes $2.50

Organic Bananas $1.75
Organic Extra Ripe Bananas $1.82
Organic Kiwi x4 $2.00
Medjool Dates $6.49
Tangelos $2.55

Target:
Granola $2.99
Applesauce Packets $2.99
Organic Raisin Boxes $1.99

Total: $71.38

Week 1: $90.92
Random Purchases: $40.84
Grand Total for Weeks 1&2 (February 27-March 14): $203.14

Menu Plan:
Thursday: Homemade Lentil Soup
Friday: Homemade Pizza
Saturday: Lentil Pasta
Sunday: Lunch: Vegan Caesar Salad; Dinner: Cashew Tofu
Monday: Quinoa Bowls with Creamy White Beans & Zucchini
Tuesday: Brown Rice Bowls with Veggies and Caesar Sauce
Wednesday: Roasted Cauliflower & Chickpea Bowls (inspired by this recipe)
Thursday: Brown Rice Bowls with Veggies with Tofu

Breakfasts:
Smoothies
Vegan Banana Almond Baked Oatmeal Cups

Lunches: Leftovers

Snacks:
Oatmeal Raisin Bites
Nutty Date Balls
Veggies w/Hummus
Popcorn
Tangelos
Bananas
Kiwi
Smoothies