The first week of our plan has gone very well, except for the fact that we didn’t eat everything on our menu.  We still had some leftover roast beef in our refrigerator, so I turned that into chimichangas.  We also had leftovers from some of the meals, so we will be carrying over a few of the menu items for this week.

What we have spent this week.

There were two items for which I misplaced the receipt.

I purchased a five pound bag of Jasmine rice for $2.99.  I thought I bought a bag of rice shortly before we started this challenge, but I can’t find it anywhere, so I bought another one.  $0.60 per pound is a good price for jasmine rice.

I also ran into Costco while I was in the area and purchased two gallons of milk for $3.69.

The 99 Cents Only store:

I went looking for artisan lettuce, but they didn’t have any, so I bought a huge cauliflower.  As I bought it, I mentally removed carrots from my shopping list.  I still have some carrots left from last week.   The cauliflower cost $1.00 which is what the carrots would have cost, so it was an even trade.  (I lost this receipt, too.)

Vallarta Market:

This store has a big produce sale every Wednesday, and a meat sale on Thursday.  I studied the sale paper and discovered that they had good prices on several produce items that we needed, and an excellent price on chicken.    There isn’t one in my town, but I was in the neighborhood, so after I finished my work on Wednesday, I ran into the store.

I bought the bulk of my fresh produce at Vallarta.    I brought home cucumbers, celery, avocados, tomatoes, mangoes, green onions, and boneless skinless chicken thighs.  The total for this store was $10.15.

On Thursday, my usual shopping day, I visited two other stores.

The other 99 Cents Only store:

I was still hoping to find my artisan lettuce, but none of the desired lettuce was in the store.  I picked up a 24 ounce carton of cottage cheese, and a 10 ounce jar of creamy peanut butter.   I keep a small jar of peanut butter and some crackers in my desk at work to help keep me from visiting vending machines when I have to work late.  Total spent here was $2.00

WinCo

By the time I got to WinCo, I was getting nervous about staying under budget.  I had already spent $19.83 of my allotted money before I entered this store.  That left me with only $5.17 from this weeks budget and the $0.78 left from last week’s budget, a total of $5.95 to spend.

At this store, I was finishing up by buying what I needed  to round out our menu plan, and I was nervous about being able to stick to the $25 budget.  I purchased shredded cheddar cheese, cream cheese, whole wheat pita pocket bread, and a loaf of potato bread.  Many items tempted me, but I stuck to my list.

When the items were totaled, I found that I had spent $6.90.  Total spent for groceries this week was $26.73.  That put me over budget by $0.95.  It’s only about a dollar, but I failed to stick to my budget.  If I had been paying with cash, I would have put something back, but I was using my debit card.   Maybe, Dave Ramsey is right about paying cash for everything.   Hopefully, next week will go better.

Dinner Menu Plan for the Coming Week

We still have some leftover Zorba Meat

Chicken and Vegetable Stir Fry with rice

Linguine with White Clam Sauce

Pulled  Pork Sliders and coleslaw

Chicken Enchiladas

I’m hoping that we follow the menu plan this next week better than last week.

Check back next week to see how things work out with our groceries.  I don’t think anyone is going to feel deprived.  We have more than enough of everything.

Thanks for visiting Patty Cake’s Pantry.

To learn how things went during our first week, check out this post.

If you want to learn how things went this week, read our post about the second week in review.