Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

December Groceries and Meals We Ate

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I took a few pictures of our December groceries and meals we ate to share with you!

I didn’t go grocery shopping in December until part-way through the month, so we had run out of almost all of our staples and then some! :) Therefore, my shopping day in Lincoln that month was a big one!

I loaded my extra large cart so full at Sam’s I could hardly push it. Silly me, I should have gone through check-out, unloaded, then started over.

See those Corn Dogs? That was Malachi’s birthday meal request, haha.

This particular shopping day, I also picked up several cases of fun items for the kids to put together gifts to hand out to friends at church. Since Christmas was on a Sunday this year, we wanted to be sure all the people at church who didn’t have family in town felt loved and cared for. Here, I snuck in a couple of pictures of the kids working on this project plus a picture of our wagon full of gifts to share at church Christmas morning.

Now back to my shopping day:

After Sam’s, I loaded two carts at Costco. My second cart looked like this after I filled it with produce, then it got buried by frozen food. Note to Self: Shop the other way around next time so that the produce doesn’t get smashed and bruised. Silly girl.

Next stop: Aldi.

I hadn’t been to Aldi for a few months, and now I’m regretting that I don’t shop there more often. I found so many good prices there and got several flats of canned fruit, beans, salsa, and corn. I got an entire case of cream cheese because the price there is the best. I got bagels, butter, applesauce, raisins, and all kinds of odds and ends. So much fun and such great savings!

Total cost for groceries that day was $1,125. Our van was completely full, and that’s saying something because our van is very big. :)

When I got home, everyone helped unload the van, even most of our littles. Our house was covered in groceries and it was pretty much chaos for about an hour and a half as we tried to get food put away.

The day after my huge shopping trip, here are some of the meals we ate:

I slow cooked a pork roast for us to eat after church on a Sunday. I served it with Crock Pot Party Potatoes, green beans, corn, pumpkin bread, and cookies.

We fed 6 adults and 6 kids that day and still had this much meat leftover. Hopefully you’ve already signed up to join us for our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners series so you can learn how to stretch one pork roast into 5 meals!

Malachi is in our local homeschool melodrama this winter, and parents get to send “snacks” for the kids after rehearsals. I say “snacks” because as it turns out, these kids are starving teens and eat heartily after a three-hour rehearsal! When it was my turn to send food in December, I sent a crock pot full of chip dip loosely based off this burrito filling mixture, chips, fruit, pickles, olives, and rice krispie treats.

One day I made a double batch of White Chicken Chili. We ate half one day and reheated leftovers another day. I love getting a two-for-one on my meal prep!

One evening, I used some of the leftover shredded pork roast to make this Creamy Salsa Enchiliada recipe. It was super good!

I found some pork loins marked down to $3.75 each when I hit our local grocery store so I baked one and served it with Honey’d Carrots, Baked Beans, fresh spinach, and Pumpkin Muffins. We all got full since I’d made so many side dishes, but all of us wished there was a second pork loin that night because it was so good!

We celebrated Malachi’s 18th birthday in December. I decided to be normal that day and NOT put spinach in his birthday cake. You’re welcome, Malachi.

After that, I kind of fell apart when it came to taking pictures of our meals. All six of our littles somehow got head lice just a few days before Christmas. UGH. So we spent hours of our days working on heads and doing about a thousand loads of laundry trying to knock out the problem. It was kind of awful, ha, even while we tried to keep a healthy perspective on the situation.

Somehow we survived. :) :) :) I took exactly one picture of our food on Christmas day, our breakfast of Easy Breakfast Casserole and Pumpkin French Toast Casserole.

After Christmas, I found myself playing catch-up on everything I had to put on hold during our lice debacle. Hopefully, I’ll get more pictures of our meals during the month of January!!

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November 2022 Groceries and Meals We Ate

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Ready to see our November groceries and some of the meals we ate last month? Spoiler: We ate a turkey.

Early in the month, I had a huge stock-up day in Lincoln at Sam’s and Costco. Why not just one or the other? Here are reasons I love both. :)

I completely forgot to take a picture of my Sam’s groceries. :/  I got stocked up on grass-fed ground beef and a few other meat items, peanut butter, honey, chicken broth, tomato soup, mac and cheese, canned corn, cheese sticks, gogo squeeze applesauce, chips, brown sugar, ketchup, and cheese slices.

Later in the day at Costco, I loaded up on boneless chicken thighs, fresh fruits and veggies, frozen veggies, sour cream, shredded cheese, coffee, baked beans, beef hotdogs, ground turkey, granola bars, chocolate chips, frozen pizza, butter, half-and-half, and a variety of breads. And I remembered a picture this time!

When I got home to my dearest husband – who had held down the fort all day long without me (a huge feat with this many littles!!) – the babes were all in bed and the bigs were all out. So Matt took twenty-eleven trips back and forth from the van to bring in groceries while I worked to put everything away. Here’s just part of our haul:

I spent $957 on food that day. Oy!
$1,300 total for the month.

Meals We Ate in November

Here are some highlights from our kitchen last month!

I’d put in an Azure Standard order for a case of frozen hashbrowns. I didn’t realize I’d ordered the 30-pound box, and that all 30 pounds of hashbrowns would come in one enormous bag. Here’s what 30-pounds of frozen hashbrown potatoes looks like:

I spent time one morning dividing them all into gallon freezer bags. While I was at it, I put together several meals.

Hashbrown meal #1: Easy Breakfast Casserole. I made a great big one to put into the freezer and serve to company.

Hashbrown Meal #2: I made a big Ham and Cheesy Potato Casserole for the freezer. While I was at it, I made a tiny one to share with a friend who had surgery.

Hashbrown Meal #3: I made a big pot of Spicy Ham and Potato Soup to warm up and eat the next day after church. Then I put the rest of the potatoes into the freezer. :)

We celebrated Matt’s birthday early in the month, so of course, I made a Fruit Cobbler. This one had blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries in it because that’s what I had in the fridge and freezer. :)

For one of Matt’s special birthday meals, I made “Super Mama Waffles.” None of us can remember why our older boys started calling them that. :) Probably because they top them with fruit and whipped cream – so they are more than “just waffles??” Either way, I made sausage, bacon, fruit, and this waffle recipe x5 to have enough to feed our army. This is what we had left.

THEN, we had one more birthday meal for him with a few more of our kids joining. Apparently he likes breakfast for dinner! We had Biscuits and Gravy, cheesy eggs, sausage (for those who didn’t want sausage gravy), blackberries, blueberries, applesauce, and cuties. In case you’re curious, I think we went through 24 eggs for the 12 of us that night – I couldn’t keep up!


I had picked up several pounds of ground turkey at Costco in an effort to cut some costs since ground turkey is cheaper than ground beef. One morning, I cooked all of it and made it all into Sloppy Joe Meat. I froze the prepped meat in meal-sized portions for the freezer. Then for lunch that day, I made Sloppy Cornbread.

I’d never made this dish before for all of our littles, and I was glad that it went over so well!

One evening for company, I made a huge pan of pasta. I boiled two pounds of noodles, made a double batch of Alfredo Sauce, cut and cooked two pounds of chicken in olive oil with spices, then stirred it all together with a jar of spaghetti sauce. IT WAS SO GOOD.

I had bananas turning brown, so I made three loaves of Banana Bread one morning. It was all gone by that night. :)

A friend of mine reminded me of the joy of “Eggs in the Nest.” Somehow I’d forgotten about these! I started making them for my kids before they leave for school and they are loving it! (Side note: Our elementary kids have to leave the house for the bus stop at 7:01 so I let them sleep in as long as possible. This month I started waking them up just 5-minutes earlier than I had been so that they could get more good food in their bellies before they leave. This has been VERY good for them! And since we do the “get dressed the night before” trick, they still get enough rest.)

I had to be gone for three days when I went out of state for my Nana’s funeral. Before I left, I made a big pot of Chili for my family to eat while I was gone.

Here’s a simple meal I made on a cold day in November: Smoked Beef Sausages, peas, fruit, and this homemade bread. The bread baked while we ate the rest of our meal. Then we enjoyed “dessert” of fresh hot bread with butter and honey!

I’ve been experimenting with thermoses that I got from Costco to send a hot lunch with my elementary kids to school. I made a pan of Beanie Weanies one evening, warmed it up the next morning while the kids ate breakfast, then sent them on their way. The thermoses kept their food hot and they loved their lunch!

Another evening, I made a double batch of this Warm Chocolate Soother while I was making that night’s dinner. I let the soother cool, then refrigerated it. The next morning, I re-warmed it for my kids to drink for breakfast. It was perfect! They were warm and filled with nourishment as they headed to the bus stop!

Our little pre-school pumpkin thought it was a huge privilege to drink his Warm Chocolate Soother out of a “glass cup.” :) :) :)

Fun fact: If you make Warm Chocolate Soother for your kids but serve it with something else that is sweet, they may not like this delicious drink. The first time I served it to them, I had simply made some sausage links to eat alongside it. The next time I made it, I got out the cereal. The kids ate their cereal first (Cinnamon Chex) and then didn’t like the Soother. The third time around, I went back to serving a hearty protein with it and they liked it again. Phew, parenting is so easy.

One Saturday before Thanksgiving, I made Pumpkin Breadx4 (this recipe but without the chocolate chips), and I attempted to make a Cheesecake Swirl on top. The swirl didn’t really work, but it did taste good!

Shall we pause a moment to take a look at what my kitchen looks like on a regular basis:

Most days, I run my very full dishwasher three times, ha! It’s kind of nuts. And I kind of love it. My two two-year-olds think it’s great fun to help me unload the dishwasher (whether the dishes or clean or dirty, mmmhmm). But just think, in a few years I will have worked myself out of that job!

See that glass of Green Goodness up there in the picture? That’s what I sip (or chug, depending on how much time I have) each morning.

I decided to embarrass myself by showing you how full I stuff my blender while making these smoothies for the kids. Never try this at home, friends. Shoot, I hadn’t even added the milk yet.

It all works out ok though because while there is a lot of spinach in there, it blends down very quickly and doesn’t blow the lid off the top while it’s blending (as long as I stand there and hold the lid on with all my might).

Here’s a look at my Walmart Pickup grocery haul a few days before Thanksgiving. Turkeys were on sale for $0.98/pound so I ordered three of them. THIS IS WHY. Wow, doing this saves so much money.

Our eight, seven, and four-year-olds are becoming good helpers and they took multiple trips out to our van with Malachi (17) to bring everything in. Every time I go to the store I think, “Well, this should take care of us for a while!” And it does. For about a week. Then suddenly I need to shop again. How great that they are all becoming such good eaters!

When the van gets unloaded, everyone just drops the bags on the floor. This time, I was very impressed by how well Brayden and Bonus Girl (7) did with putting away groceries where they go. They might have been motivated to get the job done because I’d told them that if everyone worked together we could put the Christmas tree up that night. :)

The day before Thanksgiving, Kelsey (Justus’ wife) and I made Pumpkin Pies and a Chocolate Fudge Pie. Eva (Asa’s wife) was still in their home and she made a Pecan Pie to bring when they came. Meanwhile, we had a bunch of hungry kids who needed regular meals. For breakfast that morning I served Instant Oatmeal, Pumpkin Bread, and pears. I also made a huge batch of Mudballs for snacks.

Thanksgiving day was amazing, with 20 of us here. Justus smoked our turkey, which turned out amazing.

When we were cleaning up leftovers, we made a couple of plates to deliver to some sick friends.

The day after Thanksgiving, I made a huge batch of turkey broth like this. It turned out delicious! I used some that night to make turkey and potato soup.

I used four cups of the broth to make Stick of Butter Rice. Then I stirred it together with some leftover turkey and burrito fixins’ to make 24 burritos for the freezer. Our older boys ate a bunch while watching the World Cup one afternoon!

Our final “leftover turkey” meal was an experiment. I baked some potatoes, then smashed them along with sour cream, cheese, ranch dressing mix, turkey, and bacon. It was delicious!

I still have some broth that should give us three more meals also!

How was your November? Did you eat anything fun you want to tell us about?

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Our October Groceries and Meals We Ate

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After my “eat from the freezers and pantry” challenge in September (which saved us $480, woot!), I was ready to stock up again. Here’s a fun post sharing a lot of our October groceries and meals we ate!

My first big shopping trip of the month was at Sam’s, where I spent $571 getting lots of fruits, veggies, dairy products, and meat. Here are my two carts:

Throughout October, I either did Walmart pickup orders or headed to our local grocery stores for our girls’ WIC items. I’m trying to be more intentional about taking kids with me for one-on-one outings like this. Truly, I prefer to run to the store alone so that I can save time and have a little break. But I know having individual time with each kid is important. So taking kids on WIC runs has become a goal. :) As you can see, I ended up two-on-one. Close enough, right?

Mid-way through the month, we were in Lincoln as a family to hear Justus preach at church. After church, we treated the kids to the Costco Hotdog and Pizza Special (they thought it was the best lunch ever) and grabbed more groceries we needed.

There were 12 of us eating that day but no matter what angle I tried, I could not get all of us in the picture. Also, I put a heart over Malachi’s face because he wouldn’t have wanted you to see the face he was making at me. :) :) :)

I ended up spending $435 on groceries at Costco.

Total grocery spending for October: $1,532

Eeeek, I went way over. (Our monthly budget for our family of 10 at home is $1,200.) But, as you’ll see below, we had a lot of company this month, plus we had a few fun family outings. Spending extra on groceries so that we can enjoy our outings and guests is 100% worth it. Also…

Here’s I’ve been contemplating: Remember how I challenged myself in September to eat from our freezers and pantry, therefore avoiding the store? I saved $480 in September, but is it worth it? After all, I ran us out of most of our staples and had to stock up more than normal in October.

Conclusion:

Well, I’m not sure I’ve come to a conclusion, ha. But here’s a little math:

  • Saved $480 in September
  • Went over by $332 in October
  • This is still a $148 savings over two months.

Also, if I feed the 10 of us for $1,200/month, that equals $4/person/day. And that doesn’t count the food we share with others. I feel really good about this.

I recently talked with a friend of mine who also has a large family. I asked if her grocery budget was nuts like mine. Her answer? “I don’t even keep track. I just buy food and we eat it.”

Brilliant. Maybe that’s what I need to do. We can still be frugal and make good choices, but no matter what, we have to eat. Keeping track of spending may be more stressful than it’s worth. And this, my friends, is much of what has been going through my head during the past weeks as I’ve grocery shopped and fed people and considered what’s best for our budget.

Obviously, my conclusions are inconclusive.

Now let’s take a look at many of the meals we ate this month!!!

Meals we ate in October

One Sunday morning I put a big container of chicken thighs into the crock pot with a jar of salsa. We came home from church, shredded the chicken, and had a Chicken Burrito Bar with college students.

I forgot to take a picture until after half the leftovers were put away. ;)

But speaking of leftovers, Matt suggested that I use some of the chicken in its natural broth to make soup. I spooned in some of the leftover rice and beans in with chicken and broth and it made a fantastic soup for a lunch that week!

With some of the other leftovers (I had made a huge amount on purpose!), I made a big batch of burritos for our freezer.

When I ran out of tortillas, I put the remaining burrito mixture into a small casserole dish. We ate that for dinner a few nights later as a tortilla chip dip. I love how many meals we got out of this one small effort!

I had bought a huge tub of pretzels at Sam’s, so Keith and I made Chex Mix for snacks.

He also helped me put pretzels into baggies for church snacks. I love making a bunch of these baggies and then just grabbing them for our babies to snack on in the pew.

Early in October, our elementary-aged kids had a four-day weekend so Matt and I took them to the Pumpkin Patch one of those days. It was beautiful, sunny, and fun. I made tuna salad to eat with crackers, plus packed applesauce, yogurt, and Capri sun.

Another day that weekend, we went to Lincoln to enjoy time with Asa and Eva. We actually managed to get all 14 of us together that day, plus Eva’s parents joined us for lunch. We took sandwich fixin’s to the park.

At the mall for another meal while we were visiting Asa and Eva, we sat in the food court and ate beef jerky, cheese sticks, applesauce, and chips with dips. It was a super fun weekend, and while I spent a little extra on fun foods at the store for us to eat on our outings, we still saved a huge chunk of money compared to eating out all of those meals! (Something I had to remind myself about when I saw how much I spent on groceries this month!)

Back at home, I pulled out a casserole that had been in the freezer for a few weeks. I had followed this casserole recipe but switched the ham with leftover pulled pork. The picture doesn’t make the food look very good, but trust me, this was tasty! It was a great way to use leftover meat and leftover cheesy potatoes.

Oh look, another unapetizing-looking picture of food. :) I had stew meat in the freezer plus a couple bags of frozen stew veggies that I’d acquired for free. I threw them into the crock pot one day to create a simple stew for dinner. I made biscuits to go with them because stew and biscuits are the bomb.

This next picture shows what a typical Saturday morning breakfast looks like. I scrambled a dozen eggs, cooked some sausage, then got out pumpkin muffins, apple muffins, and peanut butter rice krispie bars.

One evening, I had several pounds of potatoes that needed to be used, so I cut them up and made a huge batch of these Ranch Potato Wedges. Wow, these are so good!

For all of the company we were planning to have, I wanted to make soup to go with our meals. So one morning, I made a big batch of broth using soup bones and veggies. I added 5-pounds of carrots to this pot, because why not??

This Simple Ham and Potato Soup is my absolute favorite soup right now. It has a little kick to it. SO GOOD. Here’s the pot of leftover soup I warmed up for lunch one day.

We celebrated a birthday girl this month! Her birthday dinner choice was Sloppy Joes and pickles, which I served with watermelon, grapes, tomatoes, and chips with guacamole.

Several of our bigs were able to come over to celebrate, plus my niece and her boyfriend. There were 14 of us partying that night! (Look at Brayden’s sweet face as he sings “happy birthday!” to his sister!!!!!)

The Saturday after her birthday, I pulled out all the random bits of meat from the fridge and used the leftover sloppy joe buns to make cheesy melts. Some were sloppy joe meat, some ham, some turkey, and some chicken salad. It was fun for everyone to take their pick!

The third weekend in October, our house was filled with company. It was awesome! The first night we had two families over, and they both have a lot of kids as we do. (Between our three families, we have a total of 23 kids! Only 17 of them were at our house that night though, hahaha.) Thankfully, it was a gorgeous evening and all the kids could play outside. Then they came in starving – twice! :) We moms had each made a crock pot of soup and muffins or apple crisp. It was an incredible dinner and even better fellowship.

We ate: Potato Soup, Bacon Cheeseburger Soup, Chicken Taco Soup, Flourless Pumpkin Muffins, Berry Muffins, Apple Crisp, Frosted Brownies, plus a wonderful assortment of fruits, veggies, crackers, and chips.

As the night wound down and our first round of company left, several out-of-state guests arrived for YU Homecoming. I didn’t get any pictures of our meals for the next three days because we were too busy having fun. We ate a huge pan of Lasagna, sandwiches, Beef and Noodle Soup, and leftover Chicken Taco Soup throughout the weekend. Then Saturday night before bed I put a roast in the crockpot to make this easy meal. After church, we ate the roast with Party Potatoes and veggies.

Later in the month, we had another family over. I made a big, but simple, pot of Chili which we ate with fritos, cheese, Pumpkin Muffins, and Flourless Monster Cookie Bars.

One evening we invited new friends in town that we wanted to get to know better. It was wonderful to visit – we ate a Nacho Bar – and I didn’t get any pictures. :)

Late in the month, I started to challenge myself to use up random items in my pantry, fridge, and freezers again, so I started getting creative. I haven’t made my Ranch Dressing Mix in years – which is ridiculous because it’s so easy. I’ve really been missing it so I took five minutes and made a big jar full! Now I have these 24 great meal options I can make!

 

I had bought a lot of milk to prepare for our company and found that I’d over-bought. So I used a half gallon of milk to make this Vanilla Pudding. The kids loved this!

The last Sunday of October, I made a large pan of Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole to enjoy with guests after church. We were so blessed by all of the people who joined us for meals this month. When I was prepping the large casserole, I also made a small one for my freezer. We have a single lady friend who is having her knee replaced in November. So I’m making some meals for her freezer so that she can have easy meals to eat while she recovers.

Hope your October was as great as ours was! Want me to take pictures of our November food too?

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Big Family Food: Using Leftovers Creatively

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One of my favorite things to do is to clean out the fridge and put together a meal by using leftovers creatively!

With so many little ones now, I am finding that it is very easy to use up leftovers (if we have any at all). At lunch or dinner, we often pull out several containers filled with leftover peas, green beans, corn, or pasta from the day before. We warm them up and that’s our meal. Nothing is wasted and I haven’t had to spend extra time cooking.

Using Leftovers Creatively

But often, I find that I can create a brand new meal from leftovers found in the fridge. Here are some examples:

Cheesy Potatoes

One day, I dug two containers of cheese dips (variations of this recipe) from the fridge. Add added it to frozen hashbrowns and slow-cooked it all afternoon. It turned into a super delicious cheesy potato side dish! I served it with Sloppy Joes, green beans, and fruit.

Burritos

This is one of my favorite dishes to make with any Mexican food leftovers we have. No need to measure. No need to proportion. I simply mix together any meat, beans, rice, cheese, corn, guacamole, or sour cream and roll them into tortillas. (This is also a great way to use up small amounts from three open jar of salsa!) Usually, I freeze these to use for fast lunches that we warm up in our air fryer. This makes for super inexpensive burritos!

Apple Bread or Muffins

If I have apples that are starting to shrivel, I grind them up and make Applesauce Bread. Or Applesauce Cake!

Marinated Meat

We almost always have three or four almost-empty bottles of dressings or sauces in our refrigerator door. I love pulling all of these out and dumping them into a bag of chicken to marinate. This always makes for a fun-tasting smoked chicken dinner. And it clears out fridge space!

Soup

If I have any fresh veggies that are starting to get wilted, I’ll make broth or soup with them. Here’s how I add a lot of veggies to make broth.

Fried Potatoes

Any time I have leftover baked potatoes, I cut them and fry them in butter. If I want to make it a meal instead of a side dish, I add any leftover cooked meat we have in the fridge.

taco potato skillet 3

Pizza

Have random odds and ends of meat, cheese, or veggies in the fridge? Throw them on a pizza. Once, I was putting together pizzas for dinner and found two leftover grilled hamburgers from a few days prior. I cut them up and added them to two of our pizzas. See that spinach I “sneak” on there too? My kids eat it without question!

Spaghetti Bake

I had a big bowl of leftover spaghetti, so I stirred in cottage cheese along with shredded mozzarella and Colby jack cheese. It turned spaghetti into a “fancy dinner” that we all loved!

We save so much money this way!

I love how we can prevent waste when we use our leftovers creatively like this. I find it fun to see what meal I can put together with whatever we already have in our fridge!

What’s your favorite meal to make with leftovers?

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Big Family Food: More Ways to Save on Groceries. Maybe?

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I think we’re all looking for more ways to save on groceries right now. I’m finding that we are flying through groceries faster than ever with our growing family. And it won’t slow down! Our littles will turn into bigs and then we will really be eating through the grocery store.

Even with grocery prices on the rise, I’ve been challenging myself to stay under our $1,200/month budget. I’m not sure that I can and I’ve found that I have to get a little bit creative to try and make it happen. Some specifics about how I shop right now:

  • With so many little ones, I don’t have time or ability to shop lots of deals at several different stores. I know I’m missing out on lots of savings (loss leader sales) because of this, but I can get creative in other ways, right?
  • I stick with once-a-month trips to Sam’s and Costco, plus a Walmart pickup order every week or so as needed. (I’m looking into adjusting this though because I’m finding I might need to go to the warehouses every two weeks so I can keep up.)
  • We get some groceries from Azure Standard every couple of months, plus a few from Amazon.
  • We get milk and eggs from local farmers and friends.

Who I’m Feeding for $1,200/Month

Daily:

  • 3 adults
  • 5 kids
  • 3 toddlers

Here are some of the littlest of our crew:

Frequently:

  • some of our adult kids who don’t live with us anymore (Elias comes home from the University to grab food; Justus and Kelsey are over a few times a week)
  • babysitters (a variety of help at our house almost daily)
  • my kids’ friend
  • college students (Sunday lunches and then some)
  • company

I used to take meals to people often as needed, but that’s not something I’m able to do right now. Eventually, I hope to get back to being able to do that!

I’m thankful to be able to feed so many people every day. I delight in it and sometimes don’t care how much it costs, simply because feeding, nourishing, and loving people is such a joy. But at the same time, I have to care about the cost, especially when feeding so many.

Recently, I’ve been trying to share some great ways I’ve found to save on food costs. Like these:

 

I’ve been working on more ways to save…

More Ways to Save on Groceries

1. Skip the pre-packaged snacks.

This might seem like a no-brainer, but during this season in my life, I found that I was falling back on buying cases of little packages of crackers or other snacks at Sam’s or Costco. After all, I truly do need grab-and-go snacks for our kids to eat during walks, at the soccer field, or in the car.

Instead, though, I’ve been purchasing boxes of snack-sized ziplock baggies and letting my 6 and 8-year-olds help me package up snacks for these purposes. This is saving us a lot of money plus helping us choose healthier snacks overall.

Also, because of some extra helpers I’ve had during the past few months, I’ve also been a little bit more able to make snacks from scratch again. It feels so good to make more homemade goodies again!

2. Pack a lunch instead of buying a school lunch.

This might seem silly because the school lunch is very reasonably priced. But I can easily pack our kids’ school lunch for much less than the $3.20 that they charge. (Here are lots of ideas.) Plus, my kids don’t make great school lunch choices (eat the cookie, skip the veggies). ;) So packing a nourishing lunch for them saves quite a bit and helps them be healthier too.

3. Make meat a side dish instead of a main dish.

Instead of planning my meals around meat, I’ve started planning my meals around my fruits and vegetables and other sides. We have been eating a plateful of rice or potatoes, steamed veggie, bowl of fruit, and a little meat. Some meals we don’t have meat at all if we eat beans for protein.

4. Eat more fruits and veggies.

This truly is a money saver!!!!! Meat is $3-$8 per pound while fresh produce is between $0.19-$4.00/pound – with a lot in between. I love that we can eat such nourishing foods at such low cost. I’ve learned to fill my cart and not hold back, knowing that fruits and vegetables are much needed and extremely reasonable in price.

5. Do a little math.

If you take the time to do a price breakdown of some of your favorite meals, you might find, like I have, that many homemade meals cost very little to make. This doesn’t save money, necessarily. It’s just encouraging!! It helps me know that I really am feeding my family well for a very low cost per person!

Here are some examples I’ve shared here:

6. Buy turkeys on sale at holiday time.

I was shocked when I realized that I could make ten meals with just one turkey! I used that bird to feed company, to make soup, to create easy lunches – all for such a low cost! If we can take advantage of holiday sales on turkeys, then thaw and bake them throughout the year, we can really save a lot on great meat.

7. Don’t waste produce.

Here are details about how I buy and use all of our produce before it goes bad. This is a huge money saver!

8. Drink more water.

Ok, but don’t take away my coffee!! (<— which I make at home for only $0.35!)

Many of you probably already do this, and I used to be better at sticking with only water at our house. But as our older boys got older, I found that having Body Armor, Izzes, Bubblys and a few other fun drinks on hand was nice for when their friends came over.

I still plan to get some cases of drinks from Costco and Sam’s here and there, but it will save my grocery budget if I buy them less frequently.

9. Don’t overthink it. 

We need to eat and we want to eat well. So sometimes I just have to ignore the rising price and know that I need to buy it anyway, especially when it’s a nourishing need for our family. There are many of us, we eat a lot of food, and that’s that. (Still, it’s good that I’m considering splurges that I might be able to cut out while not worrying about the necessities.)

10. Recognize the huge cost savings compared to eating out.

Even when we’re eating something that has been pre-packaged for convenience, we are still saving an incredible amount of money by eating at home compared to eating out. Here’s what works for us and how much we save by eating at home!

Share your best grocery saving tips!

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How I Saved $480 on my Grocery Budget in September

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You’ve heard this tip before, but I wanted to share it again because practicing it gave us significant savings last month! Here’s how I saved $480 on my grocery budget in September.

I have a very large grocery budget, so saving $480 was pretty significant. We feed 9 people three meals every day, 2 additional people at dinnertime most nights, and regularly have guests and friends eating with us. So we typically spend around $1,200/month on food.

How I Saved $480 on my Grocery Budget in September

Every once a in while, I feel the need to focus on eating what we have instead of continually stocking up. This is a little bit tricky, simply because part of the way we save money is to constantly have a nice variety of food on hand so I can “shop” my freezers and pantry when I make meals and snacks. Running out can potentially mean a super expensive shopping trip to make up for all the food we’ve used up.

On the other hand, I reached that point most of us get to in which I needed to use up the random items lurking in the back of the freezer and pantry. There were plenty of great meals that could be made with what we had on hand; I just had to get creative!

And so, after huge stock-up purchases at Sam’s last month and at Costco early in September, I decided to see how long I could go without grocery shopping.

What I had:

Rest assured, I took the worst pictures ever to show you my freezer and pantry stockpile. I hate being unorganized, and yet, so much of the time I live in a state of disorganization while focusing instead on caring for so many littles.

Cringe with me while you look through my (unorganized) full freezers, fridge, and pantry so you can see that I truly had a lot of food to work with while I challenged myself to avoid grocery shopping!

Ack, here’s what my fridge always looks like right after a Sam’s or Costco trip: we just stuff the food in wherever it fits until we can regroup. :)

The cases of canned and jarred food go on a shelf in the kitchen.

While at Costco early in the month, I’d picked up three boxes of fruit.

As you can see, we had loads of food to work with! But…

What I’d still need

There’s no way for me to buy enough milk, fruits, or vegetables to last an entire month. So I still allowed myself to buy dairy products and produce as needed through the end of the month.

Some disclaimers

  • Three of our foster children qualify for WIC benefits. So each month, we are blessed to pick up around $180 worth of groceries (cheese, milk, produce, cereal, beans, and bread) at no cost to us. This is a huge help!
  • When I refer anyone to Azure Standard, I receive a small credit to my account. I let the credit add up for several months, then I place an order for a few free groceries about three times each year.

With so many mouths to feed, these two perks are a huge help to us and we are thankful for the bonus groceries!

What we ate in September

Now for the fun pictures! Here are many examples of food we made and ate during our weeks of eating from our stockpile.

I’d had a ham roast in the freezer for over two years (see why I needed this challenge?!). I think I had avoided it because I didn’t know what to do with it.

Solution: Cook it. Eat it. Hmmm, why didn’t I think of that sooner?

I simply put it into the crock pot in the morning to cook on low all day. Later in the day I dumped on some barbecue sauce. It was brainless and turned out super tasty!

Here are the plates I fixed for the seven littlest that night: ham roast, green beans, cheesy noodles, and sliced fruit.

I had a bag of fish sticks in the back of a freezer, so I air-fried them along with sweet potato fries one evening. We had corn on the cob, strawberries, and these smoothies to complete the meal. (I got my huge 10-quart air-fryer at Sam’s. It’s perfect for us!

I made these snacks to keep on hand for all the littles – these are a lifesaver! Mudballs, Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars, and Snickerdoodle Bites

Here’s a plate I fixed one afternoon for two of our toddlers to eat at our small picnic table while they played outside.

One night before our 6-year-old’s soccer game, we ate an entire double-package of tortelloni with sauce, spinach dipped in ranch, and a bag of clementines. (I forgot to take a picture, so I grabbed this one from my files!)

One Sunday, I’d run out of time before church to prep anything for our lunch so I just dumped some Costco meatballs into the crock pot with barbecue sauce. When we came home, I warmed up corn and got out a big can of peaches and some fresh spinach to eat with ranch dressing. It was simple and all the kids loved it!

I had a 4-pack of beef smoked sausages from Sam’s. So I cooked two (but needed a third one, so cooked that while we were devouring the rest!) along with a bunch of quesadillas, peas, and sliced pears.

I marinated a big 3-pack of chicken legs, then smoked them early one afternoon. I put them into a crock pot to stay warm while we headed to Malachi’s tennis match. When we came home I steamed broccoli, warmed up leftover corn, and opened cans of mandarin oranges for us to eat before we headed to a little league soccer game for our 6-year-old.

I had three small packages of different meat in my freezer that had been sitting in the back simply because not one of the packages was enough to feed my family a full meal. I decided one day to thaw all three of the packages at the same time and smoke them to make a meal. So, one big pork chop, four chicken thighs, and five beef ribs made us a feast that night! I served the meat with smoothies, steamed broccoli, and tortilla chips with this dip.

A dear friend gave us a rotisserie chicken from Costco, so I used some of the meat to create an amazing Chicken Alfredo meal. Matt, Malachi, the littles, and I all ate it. A family friend joined us. Then later that night Elias came home with two college buddies and they finished it off. :) :) :)

On Fridays, we often like to celebrate the end of a school week with “French Fry Fridays” at dinnertime. I didn’t have any frozen fries but had a big bag of potatoes so I experimented by making homemade fries in the air fryer. They weren’t difficult to make but it did take forever to cook them in the fryer compared to cooking store-bought frozen fries. The taste though? INCREDIBLE.

I had a double pack of brats in the freezer so smoked them for dinner one night. Justus and Kelsey joined us, which was a treat! Then Elias showed up – so everyone was here except for Asa and Eva, who live in Lincoln. :)

I served the brats with steamed broccoli and cauliflower, steamed green beans, several boxes of mac and cheese, and a few sliced apples.

We have a lot of company coming mid-October and I wanted to get ahead on meal prep one morning when I had help around to watch the littlest kiddos. I decided that our October guests would get to eat whatever I had to work with on this day, during the last week of September. Lucky for them, I had all the fixings for Lasagna and Chili. So those are ready and in the freezer to thaw and serve to the company (14-22 per meal).

 

I had frozen cooked turkey in the back of the freezer plus two jars of homemade broth. So one morning when I knew I’d be gone all afternoon, I made a big pot of turkey and noodle soup to warm up and enjoy when we got home. (Made like this, except that I’d bought a huge bag of egg noodles at Sam’s and used those.)

Here’s a look at a lunch I served to our four littlest kids, plus Malachi, Matt, and myself. I didn’t think to take a picture until after half of our lunch was gone! But we did go through an entire loaf of bread, lots of meat and cheese, and half a watermelon. And that was without any extra guests or our elementary kids at home. Grilled cheese is a favorite!

I discovered some chicken in the back of the freezer that I didn’t realize was there (woot!) and had all the ingredients needed to make White Chicken Chili, so at the end of the month, I put that into the crockpot to slow cook all day. It was perfect as we headed into fall!

As we reached the end of the month, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we still had about a week’s worth of great meal options left. It did help that I’d allowed myself to continue to buy fruits, veggies, milk, and cheese as needed. Still, we’d saved $480 on our overall monthly budget so I feel that this was a huge win!

Have you ever challenged yourself to avoid the store and eat only what you have on hand for a few weeks? It’s actually pretty fun and a great way to save money!

 

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Food I Often Buy at Costco

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Curious about what I usually buy at Costco? Here’s the list!

Perhaps I should start with the hotdog?

There it is, the monthly Costco-trip hotdog. As I’ve shared, shopping at Costco is a big deal for me, simply because I can only get there once each month and we have a lot of mouths to feed! I burn a lot of calories while shopping, and that hotdog keeps me on my feet. True story.

Here’s a refresher on how I shop Costco:

  1. Walk into the store, take a deep breath, and shop for all non-perishables. Clothing, paper products, canned goods, boxed snacks and chips, baking products, applesauce, and whatever else doesn’t require refrigeration or extra care.
  2. Check-out, load the van, then go back in.
  3. Take a bathroom break.
  4. Eat a hotdog and drink a big cup of water. This job makes a person need some major sustenance and $1.50 for the big dog/drink combo is pretty rockin’.
  5. Grab an empty cart again and fill it with all the fresh produce, frozen foods, refrigerated foods, and bread products that we need.
  6. Check out again, load the van again, open the box of Kombucha I just bought, and drink a bottle for refreshment and survival.

Indeed, I’ve found that I have to fill my cart twice when I shop at Costco. I’d take one of my big kids with me so that they could help me get the job done in one trip, but actually? My Costco shopping trips also involves “a day off for Mom.” Once each month, we make arrangements for me to head to Lincoln (about an hour from home) to have a day to myself. I take my laptop and work at Panera for hours. I shop at Sam’s, Costco, and any other place that has items our family needs. I come home refreshed and with a van filled with groceries!

Food I Often Buy at Costco

Beyond the hotdog, here’s a rundown of what I almost always grab when I’m at Costco.

1. Lots of fresh produce

  • apples
  • bananas
  • clementines
  • blueberries
  • strawberries
  • raspberries
  • blackberries
  • carrots
  • mixed greens
  • spinach
  • broccoli
  • potatoes
  • pears
  • grapes
  • melons
  • whatever else is in season

2. Frozen Food

I usually pick up frozen:

  • Vegetables
  • Fruit
  • Hamburger patties
  • Pizza
  • Chicken nuggets
  • Sweet potato fries
  • Bacon
  • Tilapia

3. Refrigerated Food

  • Shredded cheese
  • Turkey and ham for sandwiches
  • Sliced cheese
  • White queso
  • Tortellonni
  • Cream cheese
  • Sour cream
  • Cottage cheese
  • Butter
  • Boneless chicken thighs
  • Kombucha
  • Avocado mash (our little girls love these!)

4. Snack Food

  • Applesauce squeezies
  • Tortilla chips
  • Granola bars
  • Occasional other individually packaged snacks to grab for the kids to eat at soccer games or on walks

5. Breads

6. Baking

  • Peanut butter
  • Almond butter
  • Honey
  • Brown sugar
  • Raw sugar
  • Baking powder
  • Baking soda
  • Pancake mix

7. Other

  • Coffee
  • Canned tuna
  • Canned chicken
  • Pasta
  • Baked beans
  • Refried beans
  • Canned corn
  • Rotel
  • Canned olives
  • Spices
  • Mac and cheese

What do you like to buy at Costco?

P.S. I also shop at Sam’s, and my list there is similar. Which do I like better, Costco or Sam’s?? You can read my answer here.

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Costco Tortelloni Meal: Only $1.41 Per Person

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We all love this Costco tortelloni meal, and it only costs us $1.41 per person!

I almost always pick up this double pack of Five Cheese Tortelloni when I’m at Costco. It’s great to have on hand for an easy, quick meal and every person in our family loves it.

Side note: It is a very big deal to be able to say “every person in our family loves it.” With this many kids, and several of them picky, it’s so nice to have meals I know that everyone will eat without complaint!

Costco Tortelloni Meal: Only $1.41 Per Person

This particular night, we fed 11 people (5 adults, 3 kids, and 3 toddlers). I boiled both packages of tortelloni, warmed a jar of spaghetti sauce, warmed leftover veggies, and got out spinach with ranch.

Total cost for this meal was only $15.56. For 11 people, that breaks down to just $1.41 per person!

Our six littlest kids eat spinach dipped in ranch like finger food. :)

When we eat this tortelloni meal, we usually skip the sauce for the toddlers to avoid the big mess it would create! Instead, we scoop the cheesy pasta pockets into little bowls for them and cut them up with kitchen shears. They eat it and eat it and eat it!

And there you have it. Costco’s tortelloni, sauce, warmed veggies, and fresh spinach cost $1.41 per person. That’s fast food I can get behind! :)

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How to Make Ten Meals with One Turkey

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Is it possible to make ten meals with one turkey? Indeed. I just made it happen. What a great way to stretch the grocery budget!

In an effort to save grocery money, I’ve been brainstorming ways to use the food I have in my freezer and to make it stretch as far as possible. It turns out that one turkey stretches really, really far! (Unless you host 25 people for Thanksgiving. Then you get one or two meals out of one turkey.)

But say you took advantage of holiday sales on turkeys and got an extra one or two to eat throughout the year after the holidays were over. How far could you stretch that bird?

Ten meals, perhaps? Even five is a great return on your turkey investment.

How to stretch that turkey!

I had a 20-pound turkey taking up room in my freezer. I decided in August to thaw it and smoke it on our Traeger. Delish!

Matt pulled all the meat off the bones for me (one of my least favorite jobs) and it produced two 9×13 inch dishes full of cooked meat.

At the time of this turkey extravaganza, there were eight kids at home (one has since headed back to college). Plus we fed a few extras here and there. Still, we were able to make ten meals with one bird! Because this was such a cost-effective and tasty way to feed so many people, I plan to stock up on turkeys this November when they go on sale!!

NOTE: We didn’t eat these meals one right after another. I froze quite a bit of the turkey in meal-sized portions to pull out and use as needed. So not only did this save money but having the pre-cooked meat saved time. Win-win!

How I made ten meals with one turkey

You’ll notice as you read my meal descriptions below that we were able to make our turkey stretch by eating only small amounts of it with each meal. We’ve found that it’s better to enjoy meat as a secondary dish, filling up instead on plenty of fruit and veggie side dishes to stretch the meat and stretch the budget. Fruits and veggies are actually a super inexpensive way to stretch your grocery budget!

Here’s the turkey meal breakdown:

Meal #1: We ate freshly smoked turkey with a lot of side dishes.

Meal #2: We ate some bites of leftover cold turkey in a chef salad. A little bit of meat is all we needed.

Meal #3: We made lunch plates filled with warm turkey with ranch for dipping, plus fruits and veggies.

Meal #4: We ate turkey sandwiches on rolls. It doesn’t take a lot of turkey to make a sandwich on a roll. We got out lots of different condiment options to make our sandwiches fun. Plus we had chips with guacamole and watermelon.

Meal #5: Right after we smoked and boned the turkey, I used the turkey bones and skin to make a huge batch of broth. I used some of the broth to make a simple noodle soup. I didn’t add any turkey to the soup, but instead boiled noodles in the flavorful, rich broth along with added veggies to make our meal.

Meal #6: I made a big pot of stir-fried veggies and tossed in a few pieces of shredded turkey.

Meal #7: I used some of the turkey broth to make rich potato soup. Incredibly good!

Meal #8: I made gravy with some of the broth (Matt’s request!). We then made mashed potatoes doused and enjoyed them with turkey gravy.

Meal #9: I made quesadillas for lunch with cheese, spinach, and bits of turkey.

Meal #10: We warmed the remaining turkey and served with it barbecue sauce for dipping, plus leftover cheesy potatoes and veggies.

As you can see, not every meal includes actual turkey. But the broth made from the turkey bones and skin is super nourishing and flavorful. That’s why I feel just fine about skipping meat in those meals. We are still completely satisfied. And if you take a look here at how I make broth, you’ll see how veggie-packed it is.

How many meals can you make with one turkey?

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How I Make a Grocery List (Without Making a Grocery List)

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This is how I make a grocery list without making a grocery list. It’s kind of like taking my kitchen to the store with me…

Have you ever been at the grocery store and wished you had looked in your fridge first to check on your bottle of ketchup? Do you see a sale on pickles but can’t remember if you are already stocked up for the next three years worth of picnics?

The most recent time I was heading out of town to do a great big Sam’s run, I started to write down everything I wanted to be sure to pick up. But with babies underfoot I really didn’t have an opportunity, so I decided to try this instead…

How I Make a Grocery List (Without Making a Grocery List)

I took quick pictures on my phone.

I know what goes where on my shelves. I know what a full pantry and freezer are supposed to look like for our family. So instead of taking pen and paper into the store, I had these pictures to reference! Then I could see what was missing on my shelves.

Did I need canned beans in any form? No I did not. But was my fruit shelf almost empty? Indeed. Was I almost out of corn and olives? Yep. Did I have to question these things when walking down the canned food aisles? Nope. There’s the picture I took that morning!

Freezer number one shows that I have pasta on the top shelf (yes, I keep it in the freezer because we have mice issues if I don’t store things well.) I’m good on pasta. The second shelf shows that we are getting low on frozen pizza but I prefer buying those at Costco, and today I am going to Sam’s. We’ll make do, ha. The third shelf shows just one package of chicken thighs and a package of chicken legs. That’s not enough to get us by until the next time I have a chance to stock up. Get chicken…check!

There’s a frozen turkey someone gifted us with and some bags of whole wheat flour…

In the other freezer, I can see meat from our local farmers, meat I’ve bought from mark-downs, frozen veggies and fruit, and some meatballs from Costco. Overall, that freezer is looking pretty good!

This is the inside of my second refrigerator, which is out in our storage room. We keep extra milk out there, and usually, it is full of extra cold food that doesn’t fit in our kitchen fridge. Yikes, it’s almost bear! So at Sam’s I will stock up!

My Sam’s Trip with my “Grocery List”

We were completely out of fresh produce, plus we were getting ready to head to Montana for Justus’ wedding: a 12-hour road trip. Snacks for littles (and bigs) were very necessary. So I bought packaged food I don’t normally buy in an effort to help our long drive be a little more fun. :)

The pictures I’d taken on my phone were super helpful so that I could reference what I already had and what I still needed to pick up. I’m telling you though, they just don’t make carts big enough for our monthly grocery shopping needs, ha!!

I barely made it out of the store without spilling this mountain of food. :)

It might be hard to tell the difference, but here’s our shelf once I got our canned foods restocked.

From here on out, I will definitely be taking pictures on my phone to the grocery store so that I can use this as my list. Technology at its finest!

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