October 2011, Week 4: Can I really feed a family of five for $450/month?

After 3 days of being homebound with a sick child, I finally made it out to run to the store. I've really been holding out for the health food store, as they carry the foods I do best with. They are open Monday nights, but somehow that didn't work out so I had to wait until today to go.

I decided to go ahead and use up the remainder of my $450 for the month. Some/much of this I will be using next month.

Here's what I got:

Health Food Store

3 dozen eggs $3.35/dozen

2 half-gallons Organic Valley milk $4.89 each

huge bag of gf oatmeal $9.51

Udi's bread (the kind with millet/chia) $5.49 (had a 1.50 coupon for this one!)

2 pkg of pastured ground beef $5.35 and $5.89

Total came to $44.56

Local Grocery

3 cheeses @ 2/$3

La Creme coffee creamer marked down to .79

package of whole wheat tortillas for the kids $2.69 (bummed that they don't carry ones w/o partially hydrogenated oils)

4 bags frozen broccoli $1/ea

1 bag frozen peas (son #1 will be thrilled) $1

Rice Chex $3.99

ground beef $3.05 and $3.16

2 heads lettuce $1.28 ea

bulb of garlic $.56

bag of onions $1.99

3# bag of tangelos $2.99

-2.50 store coupon

Total came to $28.78

So....from last shopping trip, I had $72.99 to work with. 


$72.99 - $44.56 - 28.78 = -$.35

Ok, I went over. Should have not gotten that impulse coffee creamer, huh?

But, it's pretty close, and I can almost say I did it! I don't plan on another trip to the store before the end of the month.

With my oats, I can now make next month's GF granola. With the Chex, I can make another batch or two of GF Chex mix (I still have some GF pretzels from earlier this month).  I suppose I could have waited until next month to get these things, but it's rainy today and I feel like turning on the oven and making something! :)