Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Costco or Walmart: Which Has Better Prices?

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I love both Costco and Walmart (and Sam’s and Aldi, haha!) – but since Walmart is more convenient for me locally, I’ve been breaking down some specifics to see which has better prices!

This questioning all started in December when we brought another new baby home from the hospital. As a result of having a sweet newborn, I wasn’t able to make my typical monthly Costco run in January. Instead, I did all of our grocery shopping that month with Walmart Pick-Up. It made me wonder:

Since Walmart has its own store brand that is much cheaper than name brands, is Walmart cheaper overall compared to Costco? We know Costco has high-quality foods and offers great bulk deals. But are they the best deals?

I spent some time doing the math because I really want to do everything I can to save as much money as possible since our big family goes through so much food every month. Here’s what I discovered in March 2023…

Costco or Walmart: Which Has Better Prices?

Of course, I didn’t break down every single item, and beyond that, each store has features that the other doesn’t. Therefore, no matter what I will still need to shop at both. But here are some of the obvious prices I could compare to see what makes the most sense as I shop for my big family.

Chicken Legs at Walmart: $1.42/pound
Chicken Legs at Costco: $0.98/pound

48-ounces Daisy Sour Cream at Walmart: $6.28
Daisy Sour Cream at Costco: $5.29

Great Value Graham Crackers at Walmart: $1.98
Nabisco Honey Made Graham Crackers at Costco: $2.20 per box within a 4-count case

Great Value Salted Butter at Walmart $3.88 per pound within a 2-pound package
Kirkland Salted Butter at Costco: $3.07 per pound within a 4-pound package

Great Value Nitrite-Free Turkey Lunchmeat: $7.96/pound
Hillshire Farm Nitrite-Free Turkey Lunchmeat at Costco: $7.49/pound

Great Value Frozen Pepperoni Pizza: $3.98
Kirkland Frozen Pepperoni Pizza: $3.62/pizza in a 4-count box (and in my opinion, these taste so much better!)

Walmart Rotisserie Chicken: $6.98
Costco Rotisserie Chicken: $4.98

1-Pound Organic Spring Mix at Walmart: $4.98
1-Pound Organic Spring Mix at Costco: $5.49

Walmart NON-Organic Pears: $1.65/pound
Costco Organic Pears: $1.60/pound

Walmart Cantaloupe: $3.12
Costco Cantaloupe: $2.75

Walmart OFF-BRAND Rotel: $0.88
Costco Rotel: $0.87 (each can in a case of 8)

Walmart NON-Organic Fruit and Veggies Applesauce Squeezies $11.36/2-12 packs
Costco (Kirkland) ORGANIC Fruit and Veggies Applesauce Squeezies $11.99/24 count

Walmart Brand Shredded Cheese: $17.68/5 pounds
Costco Brand Shredded Cheese: $15.99/5 pounds

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At this point, after diving in and running numbers of so many of the items I usually get at Costco, and comparing them to the prices I find at Walmart, I stopped doing the math. Why?

Because almost across the board, Costco prices are better. And/or the price is very comparable but the quality is better at Costco (organic options at Costco for the same or close to the same price as non-organic options at Walmart).

Will I still shop at Walmart? Absolutely. I have to because I can only make it to Costco once per month at the most and I always need to supplement other grocery items throughout the month until I can make it again – especially when it comes to fresh produce!

And overall, while Costco prices are better, Walmart still has very good prices. For me, though, shopping in bulk at Costco allows me to do not only saves money but also time and energy since I can buy cases and big bags all at once!

What’s your grocery shopping preference? Have you found a local store to feature better prices than others?

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March 2023 Groceries and Meals We Ate (Big Family Food!)

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Here’s the big March 2023 groceries and meals we ate post we all love!

March 2023 Groceries

I had shopped late in February so we had a large stockpile of food heading into March. So we had a lot of groceries to work with as we headed into the month.

During the first half of March, I bought our girls’ WIC items (free to us, such a gift!) plus some meat that I found marked down. On my first trip, I found and bought two pork roasts that had been marked down to $1.79/pound. They were around $8.00 each and I plan to stretch them into 5 meals like this. AMAZING SAVINGS!

Another day when I went to get formula for Baby#11, I found ground beef for just $2.49/pound. That’s incredible right now! I bought 30 pounds, plus a few items of produce, spending $97 total that day. (I have a separate post coming soon to share what I did with all this ground beef!)

I got a Walmart pickup order somewhere in there, buying mostly fresh and frozen produce – but I forgot to take a picture!

Another day when I went to get more WIC items (we have four kids who qualify for WIC), I grabbed two pork loins marked down to just $4 each. It takes two of those to make one meal for us, but $8 for delicious meat!!

Because of the meat I’d bought in February plus the meat I picked up marked down early in March, I was able to mainly buy fruits and vegetables as needed and avoid the stores otherwise. It was kind of awesome! Toward the end of the month, I put in one more Walmart pickup order to get more fruits and veggies, plus cream, peanut butter, and apple juice.

I came in WAY under budget this month and we’ve been having a great time working our way through our pantries and freezers. But as always when I do this, I will likely go over budget next month when I make a Lincoln Costco trip to restock our staples. Look out April! OH, and we have an adoption party plus two graduation parties coming up, so April’s total is likely to be ridiculous, ha. At least I have some of March’s budget to work with!

A note about my grocery budget

I keep going back and forth about whether or not I can keep us at a $1,200/month budget for the 10 of us eating every day at home. This month gave me hope that I can make it happen!

There are some months that I go over, but then there are months like this one where I stay way under and make up the difference. Grabbing marked-down meat and focusing on fruit and veggie side dishes has really been a budget saver! Plus I’ve had plenty of ingredients on hand to make a variety of baked goods, which stretches our meals too.

So, for now, I’ll stick with my $1,200/month grocery budget goal. As the littles get bigger, I may need to adjust.

Ready to see all the meals we ate in March?

Meals we ate this month

Late February I put together three pans of lasagna. Two are in the freezer and we baked one early in March. We ate it with green beans and caesar salad (the big salad mix from Costco – so good!)

Around Thanksgiving last year, I picked up three huge turkeys for $0.98/pound. I thawed one early in March and baked it. We ate one meal from it that night and put away nine other bags of prepped turkey to use from the freezer as needed. Plus, the next day I made two and a half gallons of broth from the bones. Talk about a super good way to save money! From our $26 turkey, we’ll eat eleven meals! 

Matt gladly turned on an audiobook and deboned the turkey for me. :)

The night our turkey was fresh, I made mashed potatoes in the crock pot, roasted veggies, and turkey gravy, plus sliced fruit.

Last month at Costco I bought a huge bag of thin chicken breasts. I used these to make two pans of Crunchy Ranch Chicken Strips – one for dinner that night and one for the freezer. I put the rest of the bag of chicken into freezer bags and poured on some of the marinades I had in the fridge. Those went into the freezer for easy meals later.

For lunch one Sunday, I used some of the turkey broth and cooked turkey I’d made and made Turkey Noodle Soup. I prepped it on a Saturday and we warmed it and ate it the next day with salad and fruit.

The kids had spring break this month, so we bought a year pass to the Lincoln Children’s Museum so we could enjoy a special outing. (The amount it costs to pay for all of our kids to go just once almost covers an entire year’s family pass – so buying a membership was a no-brainer!). After we played and played, we met Asa, Eva, Justus, and Kelsey at a Hyvee grocery store. They have a large seating area there, which was a good spot for us to all eat (14 of us there that day). I had packed peanut butter and jelly sandwich fixings and applesauce, then I ran through the store and bought some treats like juice and chips to go with it. Meanwhile, the grown-ups grabbed sushi from the prepared food options the store had available. :)

 

One day for breakfast during spring break I scrambled 15 eggs, made sausage links, sliced some kiwi, washed blueberries, and threw out some Gogurts. The kids gobbled it all up!


Malachi was in a homeschool melodrama early in March. It was HYSTERICAL seeing Malachi play “Grandpa.” These kids are so talented!

The other drama-mamas gave me a lot of grace this year since we have so many littles at home, including a newborn! But I did try to help with food for the melodrama cast as much as I was able. A friend of mine and I tag-teamed making a “Breakfast for Dinner” meal for the cast, crew, and directors so they could eat before a show. We made Egg Casseroles, muffins, and yogurt parfaits. It was a hit!

I also volunteered to make brownies for the concession stand (I made these). We won’t talk about how I also signed up to make rice krispie treats and then FORGOT!!! :( Praise God for my friend Jenny who bailed me out of that one. :)

Here’s a picture of my brownies as I was packaging them up for concessions, along with a box of individually bagged chex mix I made to go with our breakfast for dinner meal. Plus kiwi, plus our coffee pot, plus baby bottles, plus my marker board where I attempt to write meal plans for each day. I promise that we had more than “Guac” that Tuesday, haha!

I made two dozen Bran Muffins one day and the kids ate them in two days. I was able to enjoy a couple of them with my coffee those mornings also. :)

One of our former foster sons was with us for a week in March. There are a lot of foods he doesn’t like, but he does love muffins! So in an attempt to get him to eat something with meat, I made an adapted version of these Corndog Muffins. It didn’t work, ha – he didn’t fall for my schemes. But the rest of us enjoyed them. Ack – do you see my bottled ranch in this picture? {Laura hangs her head} Alas, I’m in the survive life by buying ranch season of life. :) :) :)

We also ate carrots with peanut butter, peaches, and Cream Cheese Salsa Dip with chips.

Another day, I made a second double batch of Bran Muffins and served them as a side dish with one of the pans of Crunchy Ranch Chicken Strips I had made.

We go through these Mudballs like crazy for breakfast and snack options. One morning as I made this recipe x8 I took this picture of the peanut butter, honey, and chocolate chips melted together in a pan before I added the dry ingredients. That’s one big pot full of goodness there!

Last month I bought 8 pounds of grass fed hamburger meat from Aldi (this was before I found that awesome deal I mentioned above on the 30-pound of ground beef!). I pulled the 8-pounds of meat out of the freezer one day and browned it like this in my Instant Pot. This is one of my favorite fast Instant Pot tricks. (From frozen to cooked – 8 pounds of meat – 30 minutes!)

After it was cooked, I crumbled it and poured off some of the excess liquid.

I bagged up 5 freezer bags and saved the rest for a casserole as you’ll see below.

I used some of the cooked ground beef to make a huge Green Bean Casserole. Here’s a picture of the cooked green beans, cooked meat, prepared cheese sauce, and stick-of-butter rice (minus the butter, hahaha, because I wanted to save the $) that I made to add to the casserole to make it stretch extra far. (For the record, it took me the entire morning to get all of this done. I made pieces of the casserole bit by bit as I had a free moment to start something else cooking.)

After I assembled the huge Green Bean Casserole, I covered and froze it to bake the next time we offer a college student lunch.

One lunch with just a few of us home, I pulled some Chicken Burritos out of the freezer and baked them. I was out of fresh fruit so we ate mandarin orange cups as a side dish.

I used some of our cooked turkey to make a Turkey Hashbrown Casserole. It turned out delicious, and we ate it with roasted broccoli.

I often pick up a 4-pack of Beef Smoked Sausage from Sam’s. I cut it and put it into a small crock pot to heat all afternoon. We ate it that night with baked beans, cream cheese corn, and peaches or pears. The sausage with the corn was SUCH a delicious combo!

One Friday evening, I made a dozen hamburger patties with some of the beef I’d picked up that day, so we ate cheeseburgers with grapes and carrot sticks. It was a perfect Friday night dinner!

I had a few minutes one afternoon while our four littlest were napping, so I made a triple batch of Pumpkin Muffins/Bread. ACTUALLY, after they turned out weird, I realized I x3 some of the ingredients and x6 some of the ingredients because my brain no longer works correctly. :/ Good thing my muffin eaters liked them anyway!

One day for lunch, I sent Brayden and our Bonus Girl (age 7) to school with a cup of peanut butter, sliced apples, carrots, and a chocolate spinach cupcake. Bonus Girl came home from school and declared those carrots to be extra delicious (likely because she dipped them in peanut butter). I share this to tell you not to give up giving your kids veggies. She hated all veggies when she first moved in and now she’s finding ways that she actually likes them or even claims them to be “extra delicious.” So exciting!

One Sunday I made a pork roast and a huge amount of crock pot mashed potatoes. We had the leftovers later in the week along with steamed peas, strawberries with cheesecake parfait.

My niece baked rolls and dropped them off one day so we also had those with our pork roast leftover meal. I cut them, buttered them, then warmed them in the oven.

One morning before school (poor kids have to leave for the bus stop at 6:53), I made “eggs in a nest” for Brayden and Bonus Girl. They each have time to eat 1 1/2 of these plus a “circle toast” as they rush out the door.

One of my favorite dinners this month was Bbq Chicken Legs, cream cheese corn, baked beans, roasted asparagus and carrots, and sliced oranges. We all devoured this and maybe I was just extra hungry that night but it all tasted incredible to me!

For lunch one weekday, I got crusts out of the freezer and made pizza. There were only six of us eating that day so we all ate our fill and I saved the leftovers to send in Brayden and Bonus Girl’s lunches the next day.

I made Breakfast Sandwiches for us to eat one Saturday morning, so while I was at it, I made an extra 17 sandwiches for the freezer.

Our friend had given us some pulled rotisserie chicken, so I made a pan of Stick of Butter Rice and added salsa, beans, cheese, sour cream, chicken, and spices to make a bunch of Chicken Burritos for our freezer.

One afternoon while I was prepping dinner, I mixed together a triple batch of Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Bars. These are so nice to have on hand for breakfast and snacks.

That night, I warmed up some of the above-mentioned rotisserie chicken (which the kids dipped in barbecue sauce) and served it with roasted broccoli, mac and cheese, strawberries, pears, and muffins.

We made breakfast for dinner one night with 18 eggs (with spinach), 20 hashbrown patties, sausage and bacon, clementines, and strawberries.

One morning, our big kids were at school, BabyBoy#11 was napping, and the three little girls were unusually calm. I decided to take advantage of the moment and see what I could get ahead on in the kitchen while they played. They eventually came in and helped (there’s no better help than a 3-yo and a 2-yo old who are eager to crack eggs, am I right?!). But the morning went much better than most so I was able to make not one but THREE breakfast/snack items to offer us some convenience!

My happy little helpers…

Remember those pork loins I had picked up on sale? We baked them one night and ate them with baked beans, corn, and green beans. SO GOOD. (And it might be apparent by now that we have a lot of corn and beans on hand because as we eat through the pantry, those keep showing up!!)

At the end of the month, I thawed the Crunchy Ranch Chicken Strips I had stashed in the freezer. We made it with rice, peas, corn, and peaches.

I thawed another bag of cooked turkey (we’re enjoying that bird so much!) and made Turkey Ranch Cheese Melts with Smoothies.

Toward the end of the month, we enjoyed several guests one evening. There were 13 of us eating that night. I made a big batch of spaghetti and sauce, which we ate with roasted broccoli and carrots, corn, strawberries, grapes, and a few clementines that needed to get finished off.

We made it through the month easily with our big store of food, but it won’t be long before I’ll need a big Costco and Sam’s run. You can look forward to those details in May!

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Do I Still Buy Organic Food?

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Several have asked, so here’s the answer to: Do I still buy organic food?

Does it help answer the immediate question if I first admit that every time I go to Costco I buy a bag of frozen nuggets and a few boxes of frozen pizza?

I spy corn dogs in this Sam’s cart:

But also organic greens in this one:

Organic frozen veggies here:

A mix of organic and non-organic fruit here:

Do I Still Buy Organic Food?

In summary, sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. Here is some explanation behind my food purchasing decisions:

1. I need to keep to our $1,200/month grocery budget.

With 10 people to feed three meals every day and a rise in grocery prices, we considered increasing our grocery budget to $1,500/month. This would still only be $5/day/person which is very reasonable. But we’re hoping to maintain our budget as it is at $1,200/month, which is $4/person/day.

This decision was made because I knew it was possible. I CAN creatively and carefully keep our budget at this number. And I wanted to challenge myself to do it. So far, so good.

2. I decided to stop overthinking.

This has been tough because I KNOW that organic, grass-fed beef is much, much better than other beef. I know that free-range chicken is better. I know that organic produce is better.

And I also know that all of those cost much more. (Wait, not all. But most.)

If I think too hard about any of this, I feel guilty that I’m not spending time finding allllll the best sources for meat and produce, and that I’m not spending any amount of extra money that it takes to eat the best of the best.

Y’all, I’d be spending $2,500/month if I bought everything organic, grass-fed, and free-range.

Instead, I watch for sales on meat at regular grocery stores and we buy it, cook it, and eat it. I buy some organic produce when the price is right, and I watch for sales on the “regular” produce and eat it without guilt.

IT IS STILL MEAT. It is still fruit and vegetables. It is still real food. It still nourishes us. I have to be at peace with this and God is faithful to provide that peace.

3. My days are very full and my priorities have shifted.

I work to put real food on the table that is wholesome and nourishing. But with this many little ones to care for right now (currently seven kids ages newborn to 9), we also have to compromise sometimes with boxed mac and cheese – the kind in a blue box. We eat fruits and vegetables with every meal, even if it’s frozen pizza. And most of our meals still look like what you see below because I’ve learned to make very simple dishes that don’t take long to prepare.

What do I still buy organic?

  • Fresh spinach and greens – because it’s actually the same price or cheaper than regular
  • Any produce I find that is only slightly more expensive than regular
  • Milk from a farm because we have a good source that we’ve been using for years
  • Eggs from our neighbor
  • Meat only if I find a good price – which happens very rarely – so this barely makes the list

Otherwise, I focus on feeding us:

  • Real food as much as possible – meat, veggies, fruit, bread, milk, cheese, butter, peanut butter
  • Healthy fats – continuing to avoid hydrogenated oils and shortenings
  • Fruits and veggies at every meal
  • Low-sugar homemade baked goods

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You can see some examples of meals we eat here, here, and here.

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What are your current thoughts on eating organic foods?

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How I Shop and Budget for Our Large Family

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Everyone’s family needs and shopping options are different. Here’s how I shop and budget for our large family.

Who We’re Feeding

Here’s one of our latest family pictures, taken at our Boy #2’s wedding last summer. Our two oldest sons are married and on their own now. Boy #3 is a college senior and lives at home while he finishes his last semester. Boy #4 is a high school senior – and just about the time we thought we’d be empty nesters, God started to grow our family through foster care and adoption. The six littles in the picture are either adopted or will be soon. What a journey! You can read more about our family here.

Suddenly that picture is outdated as we welcomed another baby boy into our home early this year. :)

When you take a look at our large family’s overall grocery budget for the month, you might choke on your coffee. It’s large and possibly overwhelming to some. Here’s how we save in other areas so that we afford to buy all these groceries. And here’s a quick breakdown of our eating habits:

  • We feed 4 adults, 3 school-aged kids, and 3 toddlers – a total of 10 people – three meals every day. (Several days each week, one of our former foster sons comes over too.)
  • We very rarely eat out (approximately once every three months if we are on the road somewhere).
  • Our school kids pack a lunch to take to school; the rest of us eat lunch at home.
  • We feed a lot of guests – anywhere from 5-20 extra people per week.

How I Grocery Shop and Budget for Our Large Family

We live in a small town without a lot of grocery store options. So here’s what works for me when it comes to grocery purchases.

1. I hit Costco and Sam’s once per month to stock up on bulk items.

Costco and Sam’s are an hour away from us, so I make a plan for all the kids for the day, then I go stock up once each month. Read here about what I like to buy at Costco and Sam’s. You’ll see that I splurge on a few convenience items like frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. These purchases give me a night off from cooking without making us pay restaurant prices. It’s a perfect compromise!

2. Walmart Pick-Up

In our town, we have two local grocery stores that are rather pricey, plus Walmart. Two to three times each month, I place a Walmart pickup order to fill in gaps for our fresh produce and dairy needs until I can get back to Costco or Sam’s. Here’s a look at typical Wal-mart pick-up orders for our family.

3. Azure Standard

I get a few items every month or two from Azure Standard, and I like ordering items from them that I have a hard time finding other places. Here are some of the items I like to buy from Azure.

4. Local Farm Eggs and Milk

We are blessed to have friends with a farm a few miles away. They supply us with our milk each week. Our eggs come all the way from across the street where our neighbors enjoy raising chickens!

Our Family Eats Well for an Average of $4/person/day.

That’s how I shop, but how about how we eat?

All totaled, we average about $1,200/month for groceries. The great big budget number seems large, but it divides into just $4/person/day (less than that, actually, because we also feed guests from our regular budget). This includes all meals and snacks plus features many high-quality fruits and vegetables. I feel very good about this, especially since this budget number includes packed school lunches and ways we splurge at home instead of eating out. (UPDATE: I am currently working to see if I can keep our budget at this number or if I need to increase it. Stay tuned.)

Here are some examples of meals we eat at our house:

I made this simple Baked Chicken Leg meal for just $0.99/plate. It was a feast with chicken, baked potatoes, steamed broccoli, and fresh watermelon.

After a Costco trip, we often have Chicken Salad on croissants with spinach. We had this with fresh strawberries, raspberries, and carrots. The croissants are a splurge, but this is still an inexpensive meal!

Here’s one of our favorite meals: Smoked marinated chicken thighs – so easy and so delicious. On this particular day, we ate this with steamed green beans, buttered corn, baked potatoes, and grapes.

Breakfast for dinner is always a hit. This French toast meal served with eggs, sausage, and fruit is a favorite. The toast and eggs were flying off the plate and skillet faster than I could keep up!

I watch for mark-downs on meat and buy pork roasts when I can get them for less than $3.00/pound. I like to cook roasts overnight on Saturday to enjoy a meal like this on Sunday after church.

We’ve found that eating a lot of fruits and vegetables actually saves us money! Crazy but true!

More ways we save money:

But wait? You NEVER eat out??

Can you imagine taking this many babies into a restaurant? Here’s what we do instead. <— This post might give you some fun ideas for your family if you’re trying to eat out less. :)

High grocery store prices won’t get us down. What ways are you finding to save at the store?

Coming up next: Do I still buy organic food??

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February 2023 Groceries and Meals We Ate (Big Family Food!)

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Here’s a look at our February 2023 groceries and meals we ate that month!

February 2023 Groceries

We’ll start with a look at my grocery shopping trips this month. First, on the first Sunday of the month our entire family was able to worship together in Lincoln (where Asa, Justus, and their wives go to church). It was wonderful to be together, and we headed to Costco after church so we could eat lunch and shop. There are 16 of us now (including wives and a girlfriend) so lunch at Costco was slightly nuts. But cheap. How else can we feed 15 people for $32? (Baby opted for his bottle instead of a hotdog.)

I tried to capture a pic of all of us walking into Costco. Grown-up kids, little kids, Daddy – everyone holding a baby or a little hand…

I spend a solid $731 that day and got home with a great big haul of groceries. Sausage, chips, shredded cheese, frozen fruit and corn, maple syrup, honey, fresh greens and spinach, butter, rice, yogurt, cinnamon bread, creamer…

Coffee, applesauce pouches, yogurt pouches, peach cups, yogurt cups, half and half, cream, sour cream…

Chicken nuggets, carrots, apples, coconut oil, mozzarella, salad mix, frozen tilapia, cantaloupe, granola bites…

Many of the snack-sized items I got to help supplement our school kids’ lunches (even the splurges cost less than paying for a school lunch).

Four of our foster kids qualify for WIC benefits, which is a huge perk as it provides us with a small amount of fruits, vegetables, cheese, eggs, milk, cereal, juice beans, bread, and formula each month at no cost to us. I snapped this picture of the groceries I’d gotten with two of our WIC cards and wasn’t able to take pictures at home because all the babies wanted to be held at once since I’d been out. ;)

Mid-February we were in Grand Island for Malachi’s soccer games. I ran into Sam’s to get “just a few things” which for us means that I only filled one cart. :) :) :)

I spent $161 on food that day.

At the end of the month, I had a chance to go to Costco and Aldi. I came home with this after spending $304 on food. How did I get away with all these groceries for so little? Just before I went to Costco that day, I received an email that included my Costco Reward Certificate. It covered almost all my needs that day. SO THANKFUL!

At Aldi, I got strawberries, blueberries, clementines, bagels, pretzels, ketchup, sausage, grass-fed beef (on sale!), brown sugar, cottage cheese, and cases of:

  • Chicken broth
  • Salsa (2 cases!)
  • Pears in 100% juice
  • Peaches in 100% juice
  • Corn
  • Cream Cheese
  • Mac and Cheese ($0.50/box – a great convenience at a low price)

Since I stocked up so much at Aldi, I only needed one cartful at Costco. I got shredded cheese, applesauce, yogurt pouches and cups (on sale!), chicken (x3), butter, sour cream, broccoli, apples, greens, chicken nuggets, pizza, blackberries, guacamole cups, avocado cups, white queso, mandarin orange cups, half and half, red grapes, green grapes, caesar salad mix, and croissants.

After a Costco trip, the boxes are the best!

We are settling in with a new baby, I’ve had extra foster care meetings and appointments this month, and overall, we are pretty tired. Happy, healthy, joyful, thankful, and tired. So I decided this month to simply buy what we needed without overthinking and then get back to sticking to a budget later when I’m more rested and able to think/plan more frugally. :) These days sure are sweet though.

Keith loves his baby brother…

So. About that grocery budget.

I am realizing that I will soon need to increase our grocery budget.

I am having to rely on some convenience foods right now, and eventually, I can cook more from scratch and save more money. But even with that, I’m realizing that my budget may need to increase soon. Had it not been for our Costco Reward money, I would have gone FAR over budget this month. And there’s not much I feel I can do about it. The kids are only going to eat more as they continue to grow. Plus, for goodness sake, I am feeding 10 people three meals every day.

Stay tuned for an update on that once I have time to sit down and figure out what makes sense for our family. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you feel is reasonable to spend per person per month on food. :)

Meals We Ate in February

Ready for the fun part?! Here’s a look at some of the meals we ate in February!

Someone gave us some Italian Bread loaves so I used them that night to make Pizza Boats. I served them with fruit and fresh spinach. (Some of my kids dip their spinach in ranch, some just eat it plain, and one of them dips it in ketchup, ha. Whatever gets the spinach down, I say.)

I hadn’t made this Cheeseburger Mac in a long time and it really hit the spot! I made it on a day when we were having trouble with our kitchen sinks draining properly. So I served our dinner on these disposable trays we had accumulated somehow.

What does our kitchen look like when our sink drains are messed up and I can’t wash dishes??

The sippies and other bowls and cups you see above are actually clean. I had taken them upstairs to our bathtub and washed them because running out of clean sippy cups isn’t an option. Matt worked all afternoon and solved the drain problem. It’s always good to be reminded to be thankful for the opportunity to wash dishes!

There was a box of free zucchini when I went to a WIC appointment for our girls, so I brought some home and made a double batch of this Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread. I shared two of the loaves with a family going through intense health issues. The other two loaves got eaten in two days at our house.

Here’s a little peek at our 2-year-old and 1-year-old sitting at a little table that we’ve had since our big boys were little. They were eating a breakfast of banana, yogurt, and zucchini bread bites.

I had a roast in the freezer so I slow-cooked it one day with potatoes and carrots.

I made 6 pounds of meatballs one day (recipe coming soon). I froze 4 pounds of them and baked 2 pounds for dinner that night with mac and cheese and steamed broccoli.

Here’s a look at six of our littles around the table eating meatballs. :) :) :)

When Baby#11 was born, someone gifted us an amazing pizza gift card. We took advantage of this one night when the pizza place was offering a special! That was a great night off of cooking for me!

I had picked up some Uncured Beef Smokies from Costco, and the kids were super excited. I poured barbecue sauce on them and slow-cooked them all afternoon. They were…so-so. :) It was a nice, convenient dinner but none of us gobbled these right up.

The day I made those smokies, the kids had the day off of school. One of our daughters-in-law was at our house helping for the day so we made a huge batch of Cream Cheese Cut-Out Cookies for Valentine’s Day.

One day in February it got up to 60 degrees, which is crazy for us in Nebraska! I took advantage of the weather and smoked a bunch of brats and hotdogs for dinner.

We took some to share with another family who had just had a loss in their family, then we enjoyed these with baked beans and carrot sticks.

One night I made a big batch of Cheeseburger Soup, but added noodles instead of potatoes. We ate our fill that night, then I added sour cream and cheese to the leftovers to create a casserole to eat another night.

For our school kids’ Valentine’s Day lunch, I made and packed them a heart-shaped quesadilla. :)

For dinner on Valentine’s night, I made Chicken Pizza Bake and took a few minutes to cut the pepperoni into hearts. :)

Here’s a look at a Saturday morning breakfast for all the littles that they enjoyed after watching a show (so I could wake up slowly with our baby). Sausage links, apple slices with peanut butter, yogurt, pumpkin muffins, and cinnamon toast.

I don’t remember what we ate for our main dish this meal, but I snapped a picture of Brayden and Keith eating pear slices and spinach with ranch while they waited on the rest of their meal. This is often how I feed the kids: give them their fruit and veggie to eat first before filling up on the rest of the meal. We have fewer food fights this way.

I put White Chicken Chili in the crock pot one morning and we enjoyed it that evening with Applesauce Bread. If you haven’t tried this easy chili recipe before, you must. It’s delicious, and it also takes no effort to make!

On another day, I made regular chili. We didn’t eat it, but instead, I filled two gallon-sized freezer bags with it and froze them both. I had browned several pounds of ground beef so it made sense to create something with the cooked meat before stashing it away. Chili it was! Now we have two meals ready to thaw and eat at any time! OR, I can use some to make this amazing Chili Cheese Dip.

Lunchtime each day can be a bit of a “thing” for our 4-3-2-and 1-year olds. They are all so little, and lunchtime is almost naptime, so we’re all a little bit tired at this point in the day. So, I’ve taken a break from giving them leftovers (Matt, Elias, Malachi, and I eat those up at lunchtime though!) and I’ve started giving them more “snacky” items. Here’s an example of a day I fixed their plates with pepperoni, cheese cubes, avocado cups, crackers, and applesauce. It was a hit!

After my final Costco run of the month, we enjoyed their croissants with chicken salad, grapes, and strawberries.

The older boys weren’t home for lunch that day so we actually had leftovers. I turned them into Chicken Salad Melts with cheese and ranch, which we baked the next day after church and ate with tomato soup, smoothies, and chips and salsa.

Here’s a peek at a marker board I moved into the kitchen. I’ve been writing down meals as I plan them for each day so that our 7 and 9-year-olds can read it instead of asking me over and over what we’re eating. It’s served as an added blessing that Matt knows what I’m planning and starts helping with prep without asking what needs to be done. :)

Completely unrelated to food, but worth sharing is the picture of our silverware drawer after our four year old cleaned out that part of the dishwasher. We are starting to get our 4-7-9 year-olds more involved with household needs and he is very capable of this task. Who cares that the silverware is all messy in the drawer? Not me!

We made breakfast for dinner that included biscuits, sausage/cheese eggs, pears, and blackberries. It was simple and the kids loved it!

I made three lasagnas one afternoon, freezing two and saving one to eat during the week. You’ll see that meal in March!! :)

How’s your budget looking? Care to share how much you spend per person per month? (I’m currently at $120/person/month but need to consider increasing and would love some input!)

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January 2023 Groceries and Meals We Ate

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Here’s a look at our groceries and meals we ate in January!

The first part of January is a bit of a blur and I didn’t cook much because our church family brought meals to us for over a week. Why? Because this happened:

We were blessed to welcome home a baby sibling to some of our current foster/adopted kids. This little guy is so sweet and gets at least 4,000 kisses every day.

January 2023 Groceries and Meals We Ate

With a newborn in the house, it didn’t work for me to make my normal monthly trip to Lincoln for a big grocery haul from Costco and Sam’s. So instead, I opted for two big pick-ups from Walmart. The first one was the largest I’ve ever ordered!

This order cost $750.
I got chicken, hamburger meat, ham, lunch meat, frozen hashbrowns, $150+ worth of fresh and frozen fruits and veggies, shredded cheese, cheese slices, sausage patties, salad kits for Elias and Malachi, cream, butter, sour cream, bread, buns, bagels, and chips.

I also splurged on some convenience items since Matt and I aren’t getting quite enough sleep at night right now. This has been well worth it so that when our hands are full we can have Malachi bake some pizzas or throw nuggets into the air fryer.

When I got home from the store that day, none of our big kids were available and Daddy was holding Baby, but all six of our other littles pitched in to bring in groceries and put food away. It was so cool to see them all so eager to help! Even our 1-year-old got in on the action. (I couldn’t get a good picture of all of them helping because they were all moving around and trying not to trip over bags!)

It took over an hour to put all the food away, but we sure were stocked up again!

Instead of putting away all the meat I had bought, I decided to make a few meals to try and get ahead for the next couple of weeks.

I put an entire package of chicken thighs into a big casserole dish and made Pizza Chicken (forgetting the cheese before placing the pepperoni, oops!). I put this into the fridge to bake that week. That made dinner so easy that night!

My 7-year-old helped me crack about 2 dozen eggs into baking dishes. I whipped them, then baked them in the oven for half an hour. I put cheese on top right away, which melted. Then I built 23 egg, cheese, and sausage breakfast sandwiches for our freezer. This has been awesome for early before-school breakfasts for five of our kids!

Meanwhile, instead of freezing the 5-pounds of ground beef I had brought home, I cooked it in a big pot. I packaged it up in separate containers, one for tacos later in the week, one for whatever I needed in the future (which I froze), then I added chili ingredients to the rest of the meat in the pot. We ate the Chili with grapes and strawberries for lunch after church the next day. SO EASY and nice to come home to a hot meal ready to eat.

A few nights later we baked our Pizza Chicken, which I served with broccoli, corn, strawberries, and oranges. While waiting for their plates to be fixed, six of our littles stood at the counter and finished off an entire 5-pound bag of oranges! I couldn’t keep up with slicing them! :)

One morning for breakfast, I toasted some bagels and served them with Warm Chocolate Soother. I forgot to take a picture until the kids had almost finished eating everything.

I spent a few minutes one morning slicing 3 pounds of cheese for easy snacks.

A super easy meal one night was BBQ Chicken Legs, baked potatoes, and peas. This tasted soooooo good!

All month long our family passed around a lovely variety of illnesses. One night when Malachi finally had an appetite again, I made him a plate with warmed pumpkin muffins with melted butter, a sliced apple, and a peach cup. Best thing he ever tasted, so he said. :)

I invested in a handy gadget to make our own healthier and much less-expensive Uncrustables. My daughter-in-law, Eva, spent some time helping me make a bunch for the freezer so I can pull them out for kids’ lunchboxes.

She threw all the scraps into a pyrex dish and I used them to make Easy Bread Pudding. This was so great because nothing went to waste and then I had breakfast ready to bake the next morning!


Mid-month, our kids had two snow days home from school. We took advantage by making some extra fun foods. I had some pre-made pizza crusts in the freezer, so one day I let all the kids make their own mini-pizzas.

The next day we made these Snowflake Quesadillas.

When the four littlest were napping, I trudged outside and got a big bowl full of clean snow. We made Snow Ice Cream, which was sooooo much fun because Grandma was there to join us for a few days! The littles had never tried Snow Ice Cream, and they loved it. I made a bowl for Elias and Malachi also, which was extra fun because it reminded them of their childhood days. :)

Matt and I were blessed to have a night away at a church retreat (we took Baby with us) while Grandma and big brothers/sisters-in-law and a few others came to help hold down the fort. It took a lot of effort to prepare for our get-away so I was thankful for the bag of Chili in the freezer which I thawed and warmed for a meal the night before we left.


I also put in a second Walmart pickup order for the month so everyone would have easy food to eat while we were gone.

The retreat was wonderful and everyone back home had a great time with their caretakers. We brought home a huge bag of miniature candy bars (leftover from the snack table at the retreat), so I used them up one Sunday when we served a meal to young adults at church. Candy Bar Cheesecake anyone?

Prepping for the meal was made easier because one of our daughters-in-law has been coming once a week to help me. She helped me prep three huge cheesecakes on the Friday before the Sunday meal. So thankful!

Sunday meal and fellowship, a fantastic time!

I’ve been using my crock pot more since Baby came, and Spicy Ham and Potato Soup is one of my favorite easy meals to make in the morning. It cooks itself all day and is ready to eat at night.

I had picked up a 7.5-pound pork roast that had been marked down to $1.69/pound. So I put it in the crock pot to cook one day and then shredded it to pull out and use for these meals. Have you tried this yet: Make 5 Meals with 1 Pork Roast?? I love this inexpensive meal deal!

I had also found a great mark down on ground beef so I cooked it all and made a big batch of Sloppy Joes.

Maybe I’ll never pay full price for meat again?? It’s pretty great to find these deals!

Another markdown I found was these 1/2 pound burger patties. Even with the markdown, it still felt like a splurge to buy these. So I used them to make Hamburger Steak one night with mashed potatoes and veggies. It was a higher maintenance meal (with toddlers tugging on my legs) so by the time I had the meal completed, I didn’t remember to take pictures and I was reminded why I stick to Simple Meals right now. :) :) :)

On the last Saturday of the month, I made a huge pile of pancakes and scrambled a dozen and a half eggs. I don’t make pancakes much anymore so the kids (and the hubby) were thrilled!

The Uncrustables Eva had earlier in the month made were such a hit (and so nice to have in the freezer!) that I made twenty more at the end of the month.

Therefore I had a lot of crusts again and made another Easy Bread Pudding to bake on a Sunday morning for everyone to eat before church.

It was a great month with great eats!

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Meals to Make for Picky Eaters

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Have picky eaters at your house? Here are some meal ideas that will hopefully please everyone!

I’ve found that with this many to feed each day (we currently have 10 regular eaters at our house), it’s almost impossible to please everyone at every meal. This doesn’t mean that I become a short-order chef and make different food to make everyone happy. No way.

But there are some very easy ways to set out meal options and let people build their plates the way they like. Here are some examples!

Meals to Make for Picky Eaters

1. Baked Potatoes

I bake a crock pot full of potatoes like this. Then I put out a variety of toppings for people to choose from like:

  • Chili
  • Diced Ham
  • Bacon Bits
  • Cheese
  • Sour Cream
  • Butter
  • Steamed Peas
  • Steamed Broccoli

Our littlest will eat a buttered potato with diced ham and peas or broccoli on the side. Our seven-year-old won’t eat the potato but will eat a bowl of chili with cheese. Our nine-year-old will eat any or all of this. Our adults eat loaded potatoes with any variety of these toppings. AND EVERYONE IS HAPPY. Especially me. :)

2. Chili

Unfortunately, not everyone at our house likes chili. But if I make a pot of chili with hot dogs or baked potatoes, each person can make a meal from this that they will enjoy. Here are some options:

  • Chili in a bowl with cheese and sour cream and fritos, or
  • Chili over a hot dog with cheese, or
  • Just a baked potato with fixins, or
  • Just a hot dog with fixins

Again, everyone is happy.

3. Nacho/Burrito Bar

This is one of my favorite go-to meals for our large family. I can set out tortillas and/or chips along with the following fillings/toppings and everyone builds their plate or bowl the way they like.

4. Pizza

This one is simple, especially if you already have pizza crust frozen and ready to pull out out of the freezer for a quick meal. For our family, I make three to six pizzas, depending on how many of our grown kids will be home for the meal. I make a variety of pizzas with different toppings, making sure I have something that everyone likes!

Some with just cheese, some with meat and cheese only, and some with meat, cheese, and veggies.

5. Healthy Snack Meal

Our former foster son, age 4, visits regularly and is an extremely picky eater. While the rest of us eat the meal I prepared, here are some food choices I’ll offer him:

  • Spinach-Filled Smoothies (how amazing that our pickiest eaters will guzzle these down!)
  • Colby Jack Cheese
  • Fruit (he eats just about any fruit I have on hand)
  • Muffins (I try to keep pumpkin, apple, or zucchini muffins on hand so that the muffins I give him are more nourishing.)
  • Mudballs (I make batches x8 of these about every two weeks because our littles love them and they are great for snacks.)

TIP: I always serve each meal with a variety of fruit and veggie side dishes for people to choose from, so that helps accommodate picky eaters too. Here’s more detail about how this works at our house.

What are your go-to meals for picky eaters?

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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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