All You Grocery Challenge

I have entered this year's All You Grocery Challenge and am looking forward to the challenge of lowering our already-incredibly-small grocery budget and shooting for a chance at the $1000 prize.

According to the rules of the challenge, I need to keep my grocery spending below $25 per week per person, which would be $175 ~ NO PROBLEM!  Ha ha, I haven't had this much to spend in a while.  Things have been really tight, as we are trying to pay off my midwife, pay off hubby's dentist, and pay for a bunch of vehicle repairs.

I did my grocery shopping for the first week this past weekend.  I spent a total of $129.25 at Aldi & WalMart, and that should *almost* get us through two weeks, I think, with a quick run next weekend for produce, milk, and bread.

The official challenge started yesterday.  We had Special K with Strawberries and bananas for breakfast (the cereal was snagged at Walgreens for $1/box after sale, coupons, and Register Rewards).  We had a Father's Day lunch at my in-laws ~ I pitched in the baked beans and potato salad, and MIL grilled chicken tenders and burgers.  For supper we had Totino's frozen pizzas, bought with a coupon, and a whole watermelon.  Yes, my crew at a *whole watermelon*!  That meal right there was $7, but it was really fun and sort of out of character for us.  My kids never get to eat frozen pizza, so they thought it was quite a treat.

For breakfast this morning we had steel cut oats with maple flavoring and brown sugar added.  The lunch plan is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with grapes or bananas; and supper is spaghetti, corn, and garlic bread.  I cooked a huge package of extra lean ground beef that I pick up reduced-for-quick-sale at WalMart the other morning.  I made two meatloaves out of it and froze them, and I browned the rest with onion.  I used a little bit of it in yesterday's baked beans; and the rest will go toward tonight's spaghetti sauce, Mexican Meatza, and bbq muffin cups.

I will be keeping the chronicles of our grocery challenge here, so bear with me for a few weeks while I post about little more than grocery budgets and really cheap meals!