menu planning (and staying under budget)

This is kind of like two posts in one, but I knew most some people really don’t care about our menu while most others don’t really care how we stay on or under budget.  

The menu: 
Sunday – Easter dinner with my family.
Monday – Chicken fajitas
Tuesday – Salad. Big salads.
Wednesday – Chili in the crockpot
Thursday – Grilled chicken and a vegetable (or salad, if there is still salad stuff left.)
Friday – Out. Or leftovers. (And then I was thinking of homemade pizza since I have crust in the freezer and we have ingredients ready to go.)
Saturday – Bison burgers. We still need to find a recipe for this. As a side, sweet potato fries.  

Shopping this week:

A week ago, we heard there was a farmers market (or tailgate market, rather) opening a half mile from our house. We weren’t in town the first weekend, so we hit it up on Friday evening. There were about four vendors, but we were really, really excited about it. (I went back on Saturday and there were about two dozen vendors.) They were selling everything from plants to baked goods to meat and eggs – all raised locally, as in, within 10 miles of where we live.

On Friday, I purchased eggs from one farmer and a pound of beef. This was before we knew what we were going to make for dinner. I paid $4 for a dozen eggs. A little steep compared to grocery store prices, but I was willing to make that sacrifice since they were SO local and knowing that the hens weren’t cooped up in cages and fed crazy things. The beef was $5.50/pound. Again, higher than your average pink-slime-filled meat from the store, but I generally buy the grass-fed beef at our store and pay about that much, if not a little more, for meat that is from Virginia or South Carolina (both just one state away).

On Saturday, I went back to the tailgate market with my mom and I needed another pound of beef (because the chili calls for 2 pounds) and after trying bison kabob meat, I was sold. The bison farm is 10 miles from my house and the girl selling the meat was grilling the kabob meat for people to try. They were sold out of the kabob meat, so I bought a pound of ground bison meat to make bison burgers. This meat wasn’t cheap. We’re talking $10 per pound. But I was so intrigued and thought this could be something interesting to make.

My grocery limit for the week was $120. I went to the grocery store on Saturday afternoon and bought everything else we needed – produce (I buy almost all organic produce, with the exception of bananas) made up the bulk of my shopping. I purchased any bread (and bagels) that we needed from a discount bread store that just happened to be in the same area as the tailgate market.

The rest of my groceries included a few canned items (kidney beans, diced tomatoes), a chili packet, some frozen vegetables to keep on hand for future dinners (they were on sale for $1 per pack) and salad toppings and snacks, like sunflower seeds. A week ago, I dehydrated bananas and apples, and I still had a bunch leftover for snacks. Oh, and on a whim I bought some italian ice for me, since I’m trying to steer clear of ice cream. I already had sweet potato fries in the freezer and we had some peppers and onion from last week for our fajitas. The produce that I did buy was lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, broccoli (all for salads) and apples, bananas and pineapple. I try to stick with what is in season and/or on sale.

My groceries came to under $65. The meat and eggs were $25 and the bread purchase was a whopping $4 for 3 packs of bagels. Total, my groceries were under $95 for the week – and some of the items are for future meals. I managed shop local, get organic foods and stay under budget – and I didn’t have coupons (sometimes, coupons are hard to come by for certain foods, like produce.) Staying within season and the sale items really helped this week.

What’s your weekly grocery budget? Ours seems a bit high for two adults and an infant who eats about a cube of food per day, but it’s a small percentage of my overall budget, so I haven’t changed it in quite some time.

Also, do you buy local food when possible? Any tips you can share?