menu this week.

Well, it’s back to the grind. No more vacation. Sad day. 🙂 Not really, though we miss the amazing weather that San Francisco has (I’ll be blogging more about that in the next couple of days).

And getting back to the swing of things means meal-planning and grocery time! Thankfully, I had an extra day off work (I just got back into the office yesterday) so I was able to come up with this week’s menu and go grocery shopping. Let me tell you, while we had a wonderful time in SF, eating in that city did a number on our budget! Sheeesh. Super expensive. That being said, I’m trying to keep our grocery budget in check, for the rest of this week and the upcoming month of July. But I shop weekly and I’ve found that this method works for us – saves us money in the long run and I’m sort of forced to buy fresh things as opposed to pre-packaged stuff, which we try to stay away from. Lunches are usually easy as my husband and I are okay eating whatever we have on hand at home and our snacking consists of fruit or granola or our homemade “trail mix” of semi-sweet chocolate chips, nuts & raisins. Mealtimes at night can be something else, though. So what are we eating for dinner this week?

Monday night – tomato & basil pasta

Tuesday night – scrambled eggs for the hubby and a salmon & dill quiche for me (purchased and enjoyed at a coffee shop when I hung out with some of my girlfriends from church)

Wednesday night – pancit (I hope to finally blog about this great Filipino dish!)

Thursday night – penne with goat cheese & asparagus

Friday night – leftovers for the husband (he’s a great sport) as I am meeting up with old high school girlfriends for dinner (to save money, I’ve already looked at the menu & picked out cheap options to order that night)

Saturday lunch/dinner – homemade pizza & falafels

Sunday lunch/dinner – leftovers & black bean burrito

The menu is not so rigid that I won’t switch things around – most likely, I will. But I like having a game plan and an idea of what I’ll cook when.

Things purchased at the grocery store:

1. pint of yogurt – $1.79
2. Sunkist soda – $1.49 (a splurge for me as I hardly ever drink this stuff and soda in general)
3. Diet Dr. Pepper – $1.49 (for the hubby)
4. 3 0z pkg sliced pepperoni (I consider this one a splurge, too) – $1.67
5. pita bread – $1.00
6. goat cheese – $1.99 (it was on sale! I was so happy)
7. baby carrots – $1.25
8. frozen spinach – $0.88
9. 1.13 lb asparagus – $3.72
10. bananas – $1.02
11. fresh spinach – $1.49
12. cabbage – $1.35
13. frozen chicken tenderloins – $7.19
14. two bags of tortilla chips – $1.00 each bag
15. tomatoes (5) on the vine – $3.00
16. Cape Cod potato chips – $2.00 (another splurge!)
17. paper towels – $3.18
18. 2 1/2 dozen eggs – $3.72
19. cucumber – $0.67
20. yellow onion – $0.41

total – $41.82

Not a bad total at all! It was lower this week because I had a few of the necessary food items already in my pantry like glass noodles for the pancit, angel hair pasta, falafel mix, penne and black beans. I hope to keep each week’s total to just $50 for food items.

What about you? Do you shop each week? Or bi-monthly? Or do you do one big shopping trip each month?