Home-Cooked Roots - Learn How to Save Money on Groceries
As a grocery budgeting and meal planning expert, I'm on a mission to help you slash your grocery bills without sacrificing flavor or nutrition. My collection of plant-forward recipes, smart shopping tips, and weekly meal planning inspiration will revolutionize the way you approach cooking on a budget. Subscribe today for weekly tips and motivation to stick to your budget!
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What we ate this week for $63.77
Published 9 days ago • 5 min read
Introducing...Budget Eats and Receipts!
I'm so excited to share that I'm going back to my roots and starting a weekly series where I share what I eat in a week, plus what I spent.
This is something I used to do religiously back in 2016 when I was on my debt-free journey. At the time, I was sharing my weekly spending and cooking on Instagram to document what I ate while I paid off $70,000 of student loan debt in 27 months.
It helped keep me accountable and was honestly a lot of fun to challenge myself to eat well for as cheap as possible.
Sadly that account is now gone, but I'm looking forward to picking up the practice again to show you how my husband and I eat every week while living on one income in California.
So without further ado, let's get into this week's eats and receipts!
P.S. If you know someone who would love this weekly series, send them this link to sign up and get on the list! 👉🏻 https://homecookedroots.com/subscribe/
This week I spent $63.77 on groceries.
This week I shopped at my local health food store. I'm usually a Walmart or Grocery Outlet girl, but this week I had a pretty short grocery list and I wanted to buy lacinato kale - something I can only get here or Whole Foods.
This market's pricing is in-line with Whole Foods, so it's far from cheap. But I knew I'd come in well under my weekly budget of $100, so I didn't go to two stores this week.
Almost everything I bought this week! Prepping all of the produce ahead of time tremendously helps us prevent food waste and eat more fruits and veggies!
Breakfasts
We do breakfasts a little differently in our house in that I typically meal prep breakfast options once every 2-3 months and keep them in the freezer to easily grab and go (see photo above). I just spent $114.70 to refill our stash at the end of September and made:
24 breakfast sandwiches
22 breakfast burritos
90 pancakes (3 pancakes per serving)
20 smoothie packs
If you do the math, this works out to just $1.19 per serving! 🤯 Way cheaper than the $8 breakfast sandwich at our favorite local coffee shop.
Sometimes I will meal prep other favorites like overnight oats, oatmeal bakes, or a tofu scramble for the week. But for this particular week, we ate exclusively from the freezer stash!
The breakfast recipes in our freezer right now
Freezer Breakfast Burritos
I used this recipe as a guide and filled them with my tofu scramble instead of eggs!
I didn't follow any particular recipe for these smoothie packs, but I think it was 1/2 banana, plus 2 cups of mixed fruit in each bag. Then, when I make the smoothies in my Vitamix, I add orange juice, greens, chia seeds and flax.
The most important thing is to get yourself a good blender! I've had mine for nearly 10 years and I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.
To save money and time in the kitchen, dinners are also always the next day's lunch. So for example, we ate Sunday's Mongolian Beef and Broccoli for Sunday dinner and Monday lunch.
Sunday: Mongolian "Beef" and Broccoli
I'm currently recipe testing a crockpot version of Mongolian "beef" and broccoli. Tonight I made it with soy curls and while the flavor was good - the soy curls were a bit lacking in texture. I think I'll try it again in the future as an air fryer recipe or use a protein that's a bit heartier like chickpeas or tempeh...open to ideas!!!
Monday: Crockpot Enchilada Casserole
I'm really trying to work through my soy curls right now, so I made my Crockpot Beef Enchilada Casserole with my Homemade Vegetarian Ground Beef recipe! I also served it with a small side salad and my refried black beans. It was phenomenal!
It was 100 degrees today and we didn't want hot food for dinner so we made salads with the various produce I bought for the week and added a chopped up black bean burger we had in the freezer.
Wednesday: Red Beans and Rice
I had this meal fully prepped and ready to go in the freezer. All I bought for it was brown rice and we used up leftover green onion we had on hand to garnish!
Forgot to take a photo of the cooked version before I scarfed it, so here's the recipe in the freezer bag 😂
Once a month I do dinner with girlfriends and tonight was the night. I spent $11.96 on my meal. My husband was also out to dinner tonight with family from out of town for the wedding 😊 (see below!)
Friday/Saturday
This week and coming month will be pretty unusual for us as both my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are getting married in October. We were at the wedding festivities Friday night and all Saturday, but thanks to their good hospitality, well fed!
All we spent on food was $10.44 for three coffees.
If you've read my tips on Cooking for Two on a Budget, you'll know I cook a majority of dinner recipes as is, and freeze the leftovers if I need to. Most standard dinner recipes feed 6, so we'll typically eat 2 servings for dinner, 2 for lunch, and freeze the final 2 when possible.
This cuts down on food waste and ensures we always have a home-cooked meal on hand we can defrost in minutes.
Here's what made it into the freezer this week:
Tomato Paste
If a recipe calls for just a bit of tomato paste, I always freeze the rest of the can in my 2 Tablespoon Souper Cubes Tray. Then I'll add it to future recipes straight from frozen.
Whenever I cook my Instant Pot Brown Rice, I always 3x the recipe and freeze the excess in my 2-cup Souper Cube Trays so I don't have to cook rice multiple times a week. This week I was completely out, so I refilled my stash with 4 more meals worth.
To reheat, I put one 2-cup cube straight from frozen in a microwave safe dish and microwave for 5-7 minutes or until perfectly hot and fluffy again.
Overall total spent on food: $86.17
Ask me a question! 💬
Cooking on a budget can be really daunting if you're just getting started.
Hit reply and ask me any questions you may have and I'll answer them in next week's edition!
1500 Valley House Drive Suite 210 Rohnert Park, CA 94928
Home-Cooked Roots - Learn How to Save Money on Groceries
Easy Budget Recipes, Freezer Meals, and Meal Planning Tips
As a grocery budgeting and meal planning expert, I'm on a mission to help you slash your grocery bills without sacrificing flavor or nutrition. My collection of plant-forward recipes, smart shopping tips, and weekly meal planning inspiration will revolutionize the way you approach cooking on a budget. Subscribe today for weekly tips and motivation to stick to your budget!
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