Grocery Bill

Let's talk groceries.

This week at the grocery store I planned ahead with a shopping list and only purchased items we really needed for school lunches. Other than the fruit, most of these items will last longer than a week.

A week's worth of groceries from the store.

I spent a total of $43.68 on the items in this picture. Of this, only $22.72 was spent on actual food items! Admittedly, I will also be using some food from our pantry (ie raisins and peanut butter) to round out the school lunches. I find it amazing that I can reduce our overall food budget to such a small number, while still feeding my family healthy meals and snacks. 

In addition to the items purchased from a grocery store, I anticipate spending an additional $18 on 3 gallons of raw milk from our local dairy farmer. I will be using this to make yogurt, butter, and cheese, with one gallon leftover for our girls to drink throughout the week.

Raw milk from a local dairy farm.

Finding a source for local, raw dairy has proven to be a bit challenging. The farm I was using for milk has always been pricey. However, I was only buying one gallon a week so we were okay with the cost. Now that we are trying to make more products with raw farm milk, we need a source that is closer and more cost effective. We are lucky to have found a farmer in our own town who is willing to sell us some of his milk.

I can see lots of room for improvement in our food choices. I plan to work on a homemade version of hummus, which will likely be healthier and cheaper than the store-bought version. We have been working to reduce and eliminate processed meats from our kids' lunchboxes. I'm also hopeful that in the future, our fruit trees will produce more so that we don't need to buy any from the grocery store. As for the nuts, I'm still actively looking for some to forage. In the meantime, I'll have to stick to store-bought cashews and peanuts.

Once these ripen, I won't have to buy grapes from the store!

Summary:

Previous to this challenge, we were spending $175/week, on average, at the grocery store. This total includes non-food items as well. I think this is way too high for a family of 4 that has a garden, eggs, chicken and beef in the freezer. What were we spending our money on!?