Meals & Groceries: Week 1
Little Moments is all about budget travel that is affordable but still enjoyable! There are many ways that people can prepare financially for vacations, but one way that I find to be the most effective is by controlling your grocery spend. For me, this means planning out my meals, making a grocery list, and walking out of the store with only the items that were on my list.
Groceries make up the third largest part of my budget after my mortgage and dining. That means it’s a part of my budget that I want to closely monitor to make sure I’m not overbuying or purchasing items that I don’t need or won’t actually eat. I have a pretty good routine in this area now and since it’s been super helpful for me in keeping my budget tight so I have extra savings for traveling, I thought that I could start sharing my weekly meals & groceries with you all!
I’ll start with some background information, so you have an idea of my situation and can modify it to your life!
- I grocery shop for two people – myself and my husband
- I have a Costco membership where I usually bulk buy meat and a few other items once a month or so
- My husband and I almost always go out to eat one night of the week, so I don’t meal plan for that night
- I try to pick pretty healthy, easy to make meals since we like to cook a homemade meal most nights
When it come to meal planning, I usually start by looking at an outline of my week to see what’s going on and what plans I need to account for. I thought it would be kind of helpful to provide a “template” that I use as a starting point for planning out what meals my husband and I will eat throughout the week. Maybe you can use this as a guide for your mela planning too!
- Sunday – Dinner #1
- Monday – Dinner #2
- Tuesday – Dinner #3
- Wednesday – Dinner #4
- Thursday – Girls Night: Charcuterie Board Theme
- Friday – Dinner #5
- Saturday – Eating Out
Once I have an outline of my plans for the week, I know how many dinners I need to pick meals for. For this upcoming week, I need to have five dinners planned out. It’s worth mentioning that my meal planning is usually focused on dinner. I prefer to make a little extra of each dinner to have leftovers for lunch the next day, but in the case that we don’t have leftovers we’ll usually eat something that I keep on hand. I’ll have some lunch idea suggestions below!
Now it’s time to actually pick the meals. This used to be a difficult task for me because I would get a little overwhelmed with all the recipes I have saved on my phone and all the delicious Instagram reels of dinners, but I have a good list of go-to recipes that I cook often that are tried and true for Samuel and me. Don’t get me wrong though, I still love to experiment with cooking and trying new recipes, so I usually do a mix of my go-to recipes and some new recipes I’ve been wanting to try!
The below “meats” template has also been super helpful for guiding me towards what recipes to pick for the week to make sure I’m eating a variety of protein sources. I usually try to include a vegetable with every dinner to make it a more balanced meal, too.
- Meal #1: Chicken
- Meal #2: Fish
- Meal #3: Beef
- Meal #4: Pork
- Meal #5: Chicken/Fish/Beef
- Meal #6: Chicken/Fish/Beef
So for this week, here are the dinner meals I have picked along with the recipes where applicable!
- Sunday – Breaded Tilapia with Broccoli
- Monday – Apricot Chicken with Asparagus
- Tuesday – Ground Beef Smashburgers with Bell Peppers
- No recipe! We just shape ground beef into a ball, smash it in a pan, and top it with caramelized onions & jalapenos. Feel free to dress it up however you like!
- Wednesday – Honey Glazed Salmon with Broccoli
- Thursday – Trader Joe’s Kung Pao Chicken for Samuel
- Friday – Steak with Peas & Onions
- No recipe! We prefer to pan sear our steaks and baste them in sage butter.
- Saturday – Eating Out
For lunches where we don’t have leftovers we usually eat one the below meals. I make sure to have these items on hand.
- Eggs & English Muffin
- Chicken Tenders
- Chicken Wings
- Dumplings
- Tuna Salad
Now here are ALL the groceries required for to cook these meals, except for seasonings and some pantry staples shown below this list. See what you already have on hand and then make a list of the rest.
- Tilapia Fillets – 1 lb
- Panko Breadcrumbs – 1/2 cup
- Parmesan Cheese – 1/2 cup
- Parsley
- Broccoli – 3 crowns
- Chicken Breast – 1.5 lbs
- Eggs
- Apricot Preserves – 3/4 cup
- Garlic – 8 cloves
- Asparagus
- Basil
- Ground Beef – 2 lbs
- Cheese Slices
- White Onion
- Jalapeno
- Bell Peppers – 2
- Salmon – 1 lb or a little more
- Lemons – 2
- Cilantro
- TJs Kung Pao Chicken Frozen Meal
- Steak – 1-2 lbs
- Sage
- Frozen Peas
- English Muffins
- Chicken Tenders
- Milk
Pantry Staples:
- Olive Oil
- Flour
- Soy Sauce
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Butter
- Honey
- Sriracha
For this week, I made two grocery store trips. I did my normal grocery shopping at Aldi’s and then I made my monthly Costco trip for some bulk groceries and gas!
Aldi’s ended up costing me $58.71! Below is my receipt with all the groceries I needed after checking what was in my pantry and fridge to see what I already had.
My Costco trip was quite a hefty purchase this month at $252.21 as I needed to restock on a couple high dollar items. It’s usually not this high, but we ran out of both our chocolate and vanilla protein powders this month, each of which are $50+. The new york strip steaks, group beef, and chicken fillets should last me for about 4-5 weeks though!
