Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Our $0.99 Per Plate Costco Meal!

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Check out our $0.99 per plate Costco Meal!

Once again, I’m so happy to share another meal that costs such a small amount to feed an entire family!

The Backstory

Our six-year-old has been trying to lose her two front teeth and she thought eating chicken legs would help!! I wish you could see her beautiful face, but for now, here she is in the yellow dress:

Per her suggestion, the next time we went to Costco, I picked up a package of chicken legs. I have got to remember to buy these more often!! It only cost $8.60 for 30 chicken legs!!!

I marinated and smoked half of the package of chicken for this meal and was amazed that I could make 15 chicken legs for only $4.30. They were incredibly delicious! With baked potatoes, steamed broccoli, and chilled watermelon, we had a feast!

Our $0.99 Per Plate Costco Meal

Total cost for 10 of us (four adults and six littles ages eight and under):

  • Chicken Legs
  • Baked Potatoes
  • Broccoli
  • Watermelon

$9.89

Which breaks down to just $0.99/plate.

Everyone was especially hungry that night so even the littlest babes put away a fairly nice amount of food!

Isn’t it exciting? Even with rising grocery prices, we can still enjoy wonderful, healthy meals for less than $1.00!

More money-saving posts you might like:

Did our girl lose her teeth?

Well yes. But not because of the chicken legs. It was a good try though, huh?!

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Big Family Food: How We Afford Fruits and Vegetables

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Curious how we afford fruits and vegetables?

How We Afford Fruits and Vegetables

People keep telling me that fruits and vegetables are SO EXPENSIVE. That they can’t afford them. That I’m really splurging when I buy so much fresh fruit every month.

I couldn’t figure out if I was in denial about this or if maybe I’m so used to buying so much produce that I don’t “see the expense” anymore. Or, is it possible that fruits and vegetables really are affordable but the first look at their price scares some people? I really wasn’t sure.

So I did some fruit and veggie math.

We’re currently feeding ten people three meals each day. Our three littlest are ages 2, 1, and 1. Our four oldest household members are adults, so it balances out. :)

Our monthly grocery budget is $1,200. Of that amount, I calculated and was shocked to learn that only about $300 is spent on fruits and vegetables. (I looked online at all my Sam’s, Costco, and Walmart receipts, so handy!) I truly thought it would add up to more than that since my produce purchases are so frequent and big.

So I did the math again to double-check.

Sure enough, only about a fourth of our overall monthly grocery budget goes toward these, and I don’t hold back:

  • Frozen green beans
  • Frozen peas
  • Frozen corn
  • Frozen fruit for smoothies
  • Frozen hashbrowns
  • Fresh spinach (we go through at least one pound every week)
  • Fresh spring mix (we go through two pounds every week)
  • Fresh carrots
  • Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Fresh broccoli
  • Apples
  • Bananas
  • Clementines
  • Berries ( strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries depending on the season)
  • Melons (cantaloupe, honey dew, and watermelon depending on the season)
  • Grapes
  • Kiwi
  • Pears
  • Canned pumpkin
  • Canned peaches
  • Canned pears
  • Canned mandarins
  • Applesauce (a ridiculous amount of applesauce)

Where I landed after doing the math:

Feeding my family a lot of fruits and veggies is not expensive.

I sort of apologize for my geekiness, but as it turns out, I’m pretty excited that I went back and added it all up! Now I feel like I have an actual answer to the “fruits and veggies so expensive” claim!

If I’m spending $300 of our monthly grocery budget on produce – for 10 people for 30 days? This breaks down to just:

$1/person/day.

Which is $0.33/meal.

This, to fill our bellies with lots of fresh, frozen, or canned fruits and vegetables in a big variety of forms. That’s actually incredible, I think! Especially when our plates look like this:

Steamed broccoli, corn, raspberries, and nectarine on spaghetti night;
and no, I don’t put sauce on our baby’s noodles because I don’t want the mess. :)

This was our 8-year-old’s first serving. He had seconds of all you see here:

Here’s Matt’s plate the evening we celebrated Asa’s birthday with
smoked chicken, alfredo, and steamed broccoli:

One Sunday lunch was spinach on tuna sandwiches, watermelon, and guacamole.
This was our 6-year-old’s plate. She’s a pretty small eater. Unless it’s cake. :)
(But now, of course, I’ve been putting spinach our the cake so…)

Our three year old asked for spinach on the side with ranch and watermelon with his tuna sandwich that day. Not pictures, his tuna sandwich as he gobbled it down already.

This is my plate filled with Overnight Beef Roast, pears, peas, and baked beans. (In case you need to know, I didn’t actually cook it overnight. I cooked it all day and it was perfect for dinnertime!)

Here’s my plate showing our salmon burger meal with steamed green beans, corn, sweet potato fries, and a tiny bit of asparagus from our garden! (We each only got a little bit of asparagus.) ;)

PSA: The Avocado Mash cups at Costco or Sam’s are worth their cost in that they stay fresh in the fridge for a long time and offer an awesome, easy snack or side dish for babies and adults alike. Our littlest girls LOVE these and will each eat an entire cup with their meal. We bigger people like to eat them with chips. So good!

In case you need to see a chubby baby hand a couple more times:

So, can I afford $10/day to feed 10 people fruits and vegetables?

Absolutely. I can spend a dollar a day on each family member to keep us all nourished. I am shocked that it costs so little to buy so many varieties of fruits and vegetables every month. Is it possible that this food category is what actually costs the least instead of the most as we are all led to believe??

One more veggie-kid photo as we wrap up; here’s Keith after finishing his smoothie (filled with frozen fruit, fresh spinach, yogurt, and milk):

You should try doing the math to see how much you spend on fruits and veggies! Challenge yourself to be sure you’re filling everyone up on all the good stuff – it’s much less expensive than we think!

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Big Family Food: Morning Meal Prep

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Want to see what my morning meal prep looks like?

I’ve always been a planner-aheader. This has been mostly good for me except that God has had to teach me to also live in the moment and not always be working on or thinking about whatever needs to be done next. :)

As I’ve learned to chill out and to let go of what can’t get done (and know that what needs to get done will and what doesn’t won’t) – I’ve truly been grateful that being efficient in the kitchen is a strength God gave me. I have found that I have to be very organized and that I have to keep everything as simple as possible so that I can get everyone fed (and clothed, but you don’t want to see what our laundry looks like).

Here’s our current kid breakdown:

  1. Asa, 25, married and living in Lincoln
  2. Justus, 22, getting married in July!
  3. Elias, 20, a college senior living at home and working this summer
  4. Malachi, 17, a high school senior with a growing video production business
  5. Brayden, 8, a 3rd grader
  6. Bonus Girl, 6, a 1st grader
  7. Keith, 3, a preschooler
  8. Bonus Bonus Girl, 2, fit thrower, little mommy, and snuggler
  9. Bonus Bonus Bonus Girl, 1, mess maker, giggle box, and book reader
  10. Bonus Bonus Bonus Bonus Girl, 1, observer, stair climber, and toothy grinner

Well, all that to say: Whenever possible, I spend five minutes or thirty minutes or an hour in the mornings getting food ready for the day in whatever form I can. I do this:

  • After my morning coffee time with my Bible, prayer, and journal
  • If possible, before all the kids are out of bed, or at least when most of them are eating breakfast or happily playing
  • Before Matt leaves for work
  • And/or after my friend Pam arrives to help (she comes every weekday morning for two hours, and she’s a huge reason I am still alive, bless her dear heart)

Morning Meal Prep

Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what I might do during my morning meal prep time. Often it’s as simple as using the five minutes I have to unload and reload the dishwasher. Sometimes it involves cutting fruit or doing a quick clean-out of the fridge. Whatever it is, I find that if I have a minute to get something done, I need to take advantage of it!

One morning the three baby girls slept in until 8, which was amazing and unusual and I took advantage of it! I cut a watermelon and put it in the fridge for side dishes. I sliced kiwi for breakfast to have ready for all 6 littles. And I used up the avocados to make Guacomole to go with that night’s dinner.

Then, I put chicken thighs in a bag with dressing to marinade so that we could put it on our smoker that night for dinner.

Another morning I made a double batch of Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Treats, which we enjoyed for breakfast the next two days. I also made a blender full of this smoothie so that Matt and I could just pour and drink as needed at lunchtime.

See the frost-covered ham in the above picture? Someone had given us that and I really needed to use it up! So I set it out to thaw so I could quickly slice and fry it for lunch later. Then I mixed up a crock pot full of Party Potatoes to cook while we were taking a walk and playing all morning.

I don’t usually make “big lunches” like ham and cheesy potatoes. But that day it just made sense and it wasn’t difficult, so I went with it. We were out taking a long walk all morning and got back just in time to be starving, so I was so glad to have this ready to go when we walked in!

We didn’t eat the entire hunk of ham, so while everyone was finishing lunch, I diced what was left and put it in the fridge for our next baked potato meal.

As it turns out, our baked potato meal was the next day.

Keith (3) was so eager to scrub potatoes, so I got a chair and put him to work the next morning. He was so proud!!

I let the potatoes sit, then turned the crockpot on high at lunchtime. They were cooked and ready for our baked potato dinner by 5:15!

I took advantage of a cooler morning and make some muffins and bread so we’d have easy breakfasts and snacks. With so many littles, having these bread items on hand is always very helpful!

I made a triple batch of Pumpkin Muffins (this recipe but without chocolate chips).

Then since I had a few more minutes and the ovens were already hot, I used our ripe bananas to make Banana Bread. See the loaf on the left? That was the pumpkin muffin batter that I had left after filling all my muffin pans!

One morning, we planned on walking and playing at a park all morning, so I planned ahead to have lunch ready to make right when we got home. I am so glad I did, as you’ll see a few pictures below. :)

I cracked a bunch of eggs into a bowl so we could quickly scramble them to go with pancakes at lunchtime.

I set out the pancake mix (a splurge from Sam’s, and it’s really good!), put the prepped eggs in the fridge, and put the skillets on the stove.

Well. It is a very good thing I had everything ready to cook when we got home from playing at the park. The kids were all beyond hungry (as was this mom) and the three baby girls completely melted down screaming at my feet while I scrambled eggs and flipped cakes. Poor dears.

Don’t believe one bit of sweetness you see in this picture. (I mean, they are super, super sweet. But in this picture they were also 100% unhappy.) Blondie Girl was throwing out lids as fast as she could and screaming with every throw. Brunette Girl, well, you can see her whole body was involved in the meltdown. And Baby Girl, oh she was banging that lid with all her might. Elias came home for his lunch break right then, shook his head with a grin, and grabbed the nearest screamer, bless him. We got lunch on the table quickly and then put everyone down for much-needed naps. Oy.

And that, my friends, is why I have to prep ahead in the mornings if at all possible. If I don’t, we still find something to eat, even if it’s stale cereal and mushy apples. Sometimes it’s cheese sticks and slices of turkey lunchmeat. Canned fruit is a lifesaver, so I buy it by the case.

But prepping anything I possibly can in the mornings makes our days a bit less stressful, so I do what I can when I can! :)

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How We Avoid Eating Out (And What We Eat Instead)

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We try to avoid eating out if at all possible. I’ll share why we do it and how we do it!

First, why do we try to avoid eating out?

  1. The cost. For our large family, eating out, even at a fast-food restaurant, can cost $60+. It just doesn’t feel worth it to drop that much money for one meal.
  2. The mess. Maybe it sounds silly, but with six littles, all the wrappers, dips and drippy burgers are a huge hassle. Also, can you imagine what it would look like if we took alllll of our babies to a restaurant? I’m not sure there are enough high chairs in any facility to accommodate us, ha.
  3. The gut. We know occasional eating out won’t hurt us since we try to eat well at home. But eating out frequently makes our bellies bloat. :)
  4. The treat. We like to keep restaurant food as a special treat for our family. So when we do go out or grab fast food on a road trip, it’s super fun for all of us!

When do we eat out?

Here are some examples of times we enjoy restaurant food:

  1. Matt and I occasionally go out for a meal and have adult conversation. Yes, we often talk about the kids when we’re out. There are ten of them; how can we not?
  2. Our teen/adult kids grab food with their friends, of course. Malachi has the McDonald’s app so he finds reasons all the time to “get a good deal on McD’s.” It’s his hard earned money, so… ;)
  3. When we are on a road trip, I usually pack food for our first meal or two (see details below). But after that runs out, we do something like grab a bunch of nuggets and fries for everyone to share in the van or at a park.
  4. Matt’s folks give us a sweet gift at Christmastime to use for a meal out with our family. We save this to use when all of our kids are together, and it is such a fun treat!
  5. Sometimes we order pizza if we find good deals. We do this sometimes when all of us are together so we can enjoy our family time. Or we might do it sometime if Matt is out of town and we want a special pizza/movie night to help us miss Daddy a little less.
  6. We have a traditional “Back to School” meal at our local Runza. We’ve been doing this since our big boys were little – back when they earned free kids meals from the library during the summer reading program! While there are no more free kids meals, we have had fun treating our family to a Runza meal right before we all settle into a new school year. (This year we just did a big to-go order because again, can you imagine taking this crew into find seating? And ketchup? Oy.)

What We Eat Instead

Just because we almost never eat out doesn’t mean we don’t have fun treats at home. Also, as much as I love cooking, I need breaks too! Here are some our tricks. Maybe you can steal some of these ideas for your family!

  1. We kind of like that we can get a couple of cartons of ice cream at the store for $3 each – spending $6 total for our entire family to have ice cream – instead of spending $40 for everyone to get a cup or cone.
  2. When I grocery shop, I intentionally buy convenience foods that I can make on days I don’t have time to cook. I’ll share some ideas below!
  3. We pack food to take to ball games and on road trips. This saves money, but honestly, I most appreciate that it helps us avoid messes and hassles. I have all of our food in a big cooler bag, we spread out on a blanket, and we eat. Yes, I have to do prep-work at home before we leave. But I find that this is SO MUCH EASIER than messing with a drive-thru or trekking back and forth to a concession stand with so many little ones. Here are some great ideas of different foods I’ve packed for us to eat at games and on the road.

Convenience Foods I Buy to Feed Our Family Instead of Eating Out

While shopping, I sometimes hesitate about a boxed/prepared item because it costs more than homemade food. But then I consider the comparison to how much it costs for our family to eat out.

For instance, spending $15 for a package of really tasty frozen tostadas at Costco feels like a big splurge to me. But then I remember that I’ll have them in the freezer to use on an extra busy night. So the $15 convenience food suddenly turns into a money-saver compared to the $40 I’d pay for ordering pizza.

With that in mind, now when I’m at Costco or Sam’s I pick up four or five ready-to-warm up items to keep in our freezer on our “no time to cook” or “don’t feel like cooking” nights. Here are some examples:

Frozen Pizza

Costco frozen pizza for the win. Am I right?

Five Cheese Tortelloni

Our entire family loves these and they cook in just a few minutes. I dump sauce into a pan to warm and eat with them. We eat whatever veggie and fruit we have ready to grab. It’s such a fast meal!

Frozen Meatballs

Our kids love these! I often put them in a crockpot with barbecue sauce to warm all afternoon for a fast meal at night. Or I’ll cook some to eat with spaghetti, which the kids think is fancy. ;)

Orange Chicken

We get this at Sam’s, heat it in our air fryer, and serve it with packages of quinoa/rice we get at Costco. Eat it with salad or leftover veggies, and our meal is fast and fun!

French Fry Friday

Often on Friday nights I make nuggets and fries in our Air Fryer and we put in a movie for the kids. They LOVE this!

I think the main key for me is to always keep our meals simple. If I regularly made complicated meals, I’d burn out quickly and want to resort to take-out. But Simple Meals and easy recipes help keep me sane in the kitchen as I feed our large crew!

When do you like to eat out as a family? What are some of your tricks for eating at home more often?

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One Week of Summer Fun Food Ideas

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After my most recent stock-up day at Sam’s, I made a complete one-week meal plan full of summer fun food!

You can read here to get the specifics of what I bought at Sam’s in May. We ate through much of this pretty quickly as there are a lot of us (currently 10) eating three meals a day at our house.

Then after a week or so, once the kids were out of school, I decided to make a complete list of meal ideas based on what I had on hand. (This proves what I talked about here about how I shop first, then meal plan.)

One Week of Summer Fun Food Ideas

I decided to share my plans with you because you might just find that this list comes in handy for your summer days too. This list includes seven breakfast plans, seven lunch plans, seven evening plans, and seven make-ahead snack ideas. :)

Let us know your email address here so we can send you the list. It includes recipe links too, and almost everything can be made ahead of time so that you can go outside and enjoy your summer with your kids!

 

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Meal Plan First? Or Shop First Then Plan?

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Someone recently asked: Do you make a meal plan first and then shop? Or do you shop for food and plan your meals around what you have? What saves the most time and money?

I certainly can’t speak for everyone as to what saves the most time and money. And you know I highly recommend that you subscribe to receive our Simple Meals plans so that you don’t have to think as hard and work as hard. :)

What I have found to work best for me right now is this:

  1. Shop. Buy all the food. Buy more food. We need so much food.
  2. Try to stay organized. Have an entire grocery store inside my house if possible.
  3. Each morning, consider what the day holds. Meetings, appointments, court for the kids, Matt’s schedule, kids’ events, and so on. Once I think through what the evening will look like, I plan our evening meal accordingly.
  4. Along with that, I work with what we have on hand. I look through our fridge, freezers, and pantry. Then I decide on an evening meal that works!

This shelf sits in my kitchen, so I can look and get ideas with a quick glance. Pizza sauce and olives? I have crusts in the freezer so I could make pizza tonight. However, that is a meal I like to make on a night we have games or other outings. So I nix that idea and decide to make a burrito bar since I have plenty of tortillas and all the fixings on hand.

My meal planning decision is also dependent on how many people we’ll be feeding that night. Will it just be Matt, me, with the six littles? Or will all the bigs be home too? With their gals join us? Any other friends? We feed anywhere from 8 to 18 depending on the night. So I always get a feel for who will be around for dinner as I’m making our nightly plan.

Isn’t it harder this way?

This current method means that I’m coming up with a meal plan every single morning. But because of our very full house and so many coming and going, I am finding that planning day by day works so much better than planning ahead for the week and then reshuffling it because of what each weekday holds.

What saves the most money?

Again, I can’t speak for everyone. But for me, right now, I believe that shopping first and meal planning later is saving me more money.

When I’m shopping, I can pick up meat that has been marked down – then I make meals based on the discounted meat I’ve found. I can take advantage of sale items, then make meals based on the deals I’ve found. I can pick up staples to keep on hand so that I can always make basic, easy meals with no effort.

This works well for me and saves money too!

What is working best for you right now as you plan meals?

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Inexpensive Meals I Made From Costco

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Grocery prices are on the rise. That’s why I am so encouraged to share these delicious, inexpensive meals I made from Costco groceries!

We really can be more cheerful about grocery spending, friends. Yes, some prices have gone up. But we can still make very reasonably priced meals for our families. And we can still even serve them WITH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

You know I had to say that, right? :)

Sometimes we think that we need to compromise on healthy foods in an effort to save money. Not so, not so. Let’s keep eating good food and know that we can focus on nourishment too!

I have become curious as of late, so I decided to spend some time breaking down the cost of some of the meals I made after a big Costco trip. I was so excited to see that every meal I made was still incredibly reasonable.

I typically feed a minimum of 10 people at each evening meal. Depending on our adult kids’ schedules and the friends they have with them, often we feed 15 or more at dinnertime. This makes my cost breakdown even more exciting. :)

If you’d like to take a look at the list of food I recently bought, you can check that out here.

Inexpensive Meals I Made From Costco

1. Chicken Salad on Croissants

I used canned chicken and croissants that I got at Costco to make a delicious meal of Chicken Salad on croissants with spinach. We had this with fresh strawberries, raspberries, and carrots. The cost for this meal was right around $18 for 10 of us to eat!

2. “Homemade” Pizza

We used the pizza-making-kit from Costco to have a pizza night. Everyone loved this! We made four pizzas and ate them with these nourishing smoothies. Total cost for this meal was only $17. Amazing, right? But wait, it gets better…

Only our six littles were home when we first had this meal, so we ended up having enough leftovers to stretch these pizzas into two meals. So my $6.97 pizza kit lasted us for two meals, which was awesome on the budget, and also because having pizza leftovers is soooo nice to pull out on a busy day!

($17 divided by 2 meals equals $8.50 per meal to fill my family with pizza and a nourishing side. SO AMAZING!)

3. Smoked Chicken

We marinated Costco boneless chicken thighs in barbecue sauce, then threw the chicken on the smoker. We ate this with steamed green beans, buttered corn, baked potatoes, and grapes. The total cost for this meal was $26.

Sound like an expensive meal? Maybe. But it was a full night with many of our bigs and their significant others being home. Plus some family friends and my niece joined us. So we actually fed 16 people that night – 10 adults and 6 kids. $26 for a meal like this!! It breaks down to just $1.62/plate.

4. French Toast

The cinnamon streusel bread from Costco makes the most wonderful French toast!! We use eggs from our neighbor and made this meal with sausage links and sliced pears (or another choice of fruit the kids grabbed). The total cost for this meal was $19 for 12 people, $1.58 each.

I hope this cost breakdown encourages you as it does me!

Want to make these meals cost even less?

All of these meals can cost even less if you make more of the foods from scratch. My current season in life gives way to me purchasing some convenience foods (like croissants and other breads, some boxed foods, and canned items). But to save more money:

1. Make Chicken Salad from a cooked whole chicken. Save the bones to make broth for another meal or two. Instead of buying croissants, make bread like this. Or homemade, easy Pita Bread. So much more money saved!

2. Make homemade pizza crust like this. You can make these ahead of time and freeze the extras for an easy meal later.

3. Watch for meat mark-downs! I recently found chicken thighs marked down for quick sale at Sam’s. I bought all I could!

4. Make homemade bread or simply skip the special cinnamon streusel bread to use a less expensive variety to make French toast. Skip the sausage in the meal and just enjoy eggs as protein. :)

What inexpensive meals have you made lately?

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Stay tuned for more Big Family Food posts, where I share all about how I make food for our big family! And read here to catch up on other posts in this series you may have missed. :)

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We’d love to connect with you :)
Join our fun community here!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Meals I’m Making with my Grocery Haul

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I recently shared details about all the groceries I bought in April. Some have asked, “What meals do you make with all of these groceries?” So I decided to give you a peek into what I’ve done with all this food!

If you’d like to see more specifics about what I bought and how much I spent (oy!), you can do that here.

 

First, did you see that I bought quite a few boxes of prepared snacks at Costco and Sam’s? Yep, it’s soccer season! I used all of the following groceries for snacks either to take to the ball field or on stroller walks for the littles:

  • Granola Bites
  • Yogurt Squeezies
  • Heavenly Hunk Snacks
  • Fruit Bars
  • Gogurt
  • Applesauce Squeezies

Next, it can be assumed that all of the fresh fruits and veggies I pick up throughout the month serve as snacks between meals or as side dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Along with frozen veggies, I typically keep these on hand as much as possible:

  • Mixed Greens
  • Spinach
  • Broccoli
  • Petite Carrots
  • Blueberries
  • Strawberries
  • Clementines
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Grapes

Now, here’s an idea of some of the meals I put together with some of groceries I bought in April:

  1. I used the canned chicken and croissants that I got at Costco to make a meal of Chicken Salad on croissants with spinach.
  2. I used the Cinnamon Streusel Bread from Costco along with eggs from our neighbor to make french toast. SOOO good.
  3. We marinated the chicken thighs in barbecue sauce, then threw the chicken on the smoker. This is one of our favorite meals!
  4. Usually, on Fridays, we make a simple meal of chicken nuggets and fries in our Air Fryer. We call this “French Fry Friday.” But I also call it “Mom’s Night Off.”
  5. We used the pizza-making-kit to have a fun pizza night. Everyone loved this!
  6. The loaves of bread I bought were used to make quick sandwiches. All of the adults in our family often need to eat on the run, so it’s good that I keep bread and lunchmeat on hand for them. Also, about once each week we make peanut butter sandwiches for lunch for the little ones.
  7. I also used a loaf of bread along with the sliced cheese to make a meal of grilled cheese sandwiches. I served it with tomato soup, which I already had on hand, and fruits and veggies.
  8. I plan to use the Tilapia for fish tacos soon!
  9. I baked the package of hamburger patties and put together burgers for all of us to eat while watching Malachi play a soccer game one evening. We went through almost the entire package of 18 burgers that night because an outing like that calls for all hands on deck!

That’s some of us at a recent soccer game. :)

Snacks I made with these groceries

  1. I used the almond butter from Costco to make two big batches of Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough Bites. I love having these on hand for the kids to eat. (I already had honey and coconut flour to use in this recipe.)
  2. I used the baking ingredients to make muffins. We eat muffins like crazy at our house, working our way through these recipes.
  3. I use all of the mixed greens and frozen fruit to make our daily smoothies. (Like this for the grown-ups. Like this for the kids.)

Justus College Graduation Party

Our Justus graduated from college at the end of April. We had a “Fire Pit Party” so much of the food I’d picked up from Costco or Sam’s was set aside for this gathering. I filled in some gaps with a last-minute Walmart pickup order.

  • Hotdogs, Brats, and Buns
  • Boxes of Individual Chips
  • Potato Salad
  • Grapes
  • Strawberries with Cream Cheese Parfait
  • Small water bottles

Stay tuned for a post coming soon that shares the cost breakdown for some of these meals!

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Big Family Food: Total Grocery Spending for April 2022

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I decided to keep a running tab of all of our grocery spending for April. Ready for the great big break-down?

We are currently a household of 11. This includes 5 adults and six littles. Most days we feed extras like a fiance and a girlfriend of our boys #2 and #3. Plus any others we are blessed to enjoy at mealtime or after ball games!

Throughout the month, I typically:

  1. Head to Lincoln one time to stock up at Costco and Sam’s.
  2. Place several Walmart Pick-Up orders to supplement the fresh produce and other groceries we need.
  3. Get local milk at a farm once each week.
  4. Pick up WIC items and a few other groceries at a local grocery store close to our house.

Here are more specifics about what I bought and spent during the month of April 2022:

Walmart Pick-Up

In order to keep up with all of the fresh produce we eat at our house, I have been placing a Walmart Pick-Up order a few times each month. My friend Pam comes to help me with the kids each morning, and she is awesome enough to grab my pick-up orders when I schedule them right before her time to come over.

Walmart Pick-Up April 6: $112 

Walmart Pick-Up April 12: $167 – I was prepping for a huge Easter dinner, so this order included candy for our Easter egg hunt plus some treats to supplement our big meal.

Walmart Pick-Up April 29: $127 – Justus graduated from college on the 30th, so along with fresh produce, I ordered brats and other food we needed to feed people who came to his reception.

Local Grocery Store

We have a very nice store just a few blocks from our house. They are great, however, their prices are usually higher so it’s hard for me to justify doing much shopping there since we buy so many groceries.

I run there a couple of times each month, though, to grab a few needed items, to take advantage of sales, and to get WIC items. (Three of our foster daughters qualify for WIC, which provides them with free formula, milk, cheese, cereal, produce, and a few other items. This is a huge blessing!)

Since these trips are short and sweet, I try to take one or two littles with me so they can have a fun outing and learn a little bit about shopping and obeying at the store. Here’s a summary of our April Grand Central Trips:

Grand Central April 3: $15 – I ran in and grabbed milk because we were almost out!

Grand Central April 11: $42 – I picked up all of our WIC items for the month, plus filled in a few gaps by grabbing some buns and frozen items we needed. WIC covered most of our cart that day, praise God.

Local Farm Milk: $40 – We are in a group that takes turns picking up farm-fresh milk each Tuesday. We get 2-gallons each week, and it is incredible milk!

April Trip to Lincoln

Costco – $420

  • Bottled water
  • Olives
  • Granola Bites
  • Strawberries
  • Blueberries
  • Clementines
  • Apples
  • Pears
  • Canned chicken
  • Tortilla Chips
  • Gogurt
  • Heavenly Hunk snacks
  • Coffee
  • Olive Oil
  • Sugar
  • Brown sugar
  • Almond butter
  • Bread
  • Brat rolls
  • Croissants
  • Boxes of chips
  • Frozen pizza
  • Tilapia
  • Chicken thighs
  • Chicken nuggets
  • Mozzarella cheese
  • Cheddar jack cheese
  • Applesauce squeezies
  • Yogurt squeezies
  • Kombucha
  • Italian dressing
  • Mustard
  • Fruit bars
  • Cinnamon streusel bread
  • Pizza making kit (with four crusts and sauce)

Sam’s – $229

  • Boneless chicken thighs marked down!
  • Red grapes
  • Frozen cheese curds
  • Frozen orange chicken box
  • Case of canned baked beans
  • Case of canned corn
  • Spaghetti sauce
  • Sliced pepper jack cheese
  • Sliced colby jack cheese
  • 2-pack of whole wheat sandwich bread
  • Turkey lunch meat
  • Potato salad
  • Pepperoni
  • Mixed greens
  • Spinach x2
  • Bananas
  • Half and half
  • Sour cream
  • Hamburger patties
  • Hamburger buns
  • Applesauce
  • Spaghetti sauce
  • Fish sticks
  • Raspberries
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Apple juice

Total Grocery Spending for April

$1,152 

I try to keep our spending under $1,200 each month, so mission accomplished. We fed guests, we ate well, and as far as I can remember, we didn’t eat out at all this month.

Wait. I was sick one day so Matt ordered pizza while caring for so many littles while Mommy was in bed. :)

Care to share what your grocery spending was for April?

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Big Family Food: I Have Got to Organize My Kitchen!

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Got to organize, got to organize, I have got to organize my kitchen…

Ok. This is starting to get nuts. I’m nuts. My food situation is nuts. Oh my goodness, I just realized I am completely out of nuts. Or am I?

What’s wrong, Laura?

Nothing’s wrong actually. :) And really, I’m kind of having fun as I face this new “food challenge.” But I also feel like I’ve been a homemaker since 1994 and all of a sudden I no longer know what I’m doing.

When we started adding kids to our tribe in 1997, I learned slowly how to fulfill our family’s food needs. I learned how to save money while our family grew. I learned how to feed my family healthy foods. Then, I learned how to feed teenage boys. All the while, I learned how to feed guests.

I learned and I grew and I had a system. I HAD A SYSTEM.

And then everything changed.

My old system doesn’t work anymore. It hasn’t for quite some time and I’ve been adapting. My Great Big Costco Experiment proves that I am over here HOLDING ONTO MY HOTDOG while trying to figure out how to grocery shop for and feed such a large family now.

I actually love this. Not sure how to feed this tribe anymore? The old ways don’t work? Need to develop a new system to make this happen efficiently?

Bring it on.

But also, what happened to all that fruit I bought yesterday? I bought this and this at Costco one Thursday:

Then just a few days later I had to order this from Walmart:

Then a few days later I needed this:

I love that we have such a large family and that we eat so much good food. I just can’t figure out how to keep up.

Is there such a thing? Can I keep up?

Or is this my new norm?

Moms with lots of kids, tell me: Am I going to need to go to the store every few days from now on? After all, the little kids are just going to turn into big kids, and then I’ll look back on my groceries of 2022 and laugh at myself.

I Have Got to Organize THIS!!

I’m not sure I have any answers yet, but I am working now to figure out a new system that works. For grocery shopping, for keeping up with so many mouths and appetites, for dealing with pickiness, and for organizing it all in my house.

So that’s what I’ve been working on lately!

One of my biggest issues (besides keeping up with grocery purchases) is figuring out how to organize all of our food efficiently. Here’s what I’m working with:

  • We have a lovely closet-like pantry and a refrigerator/freezer in our kitchen.
  • Out in a storage room, we have additional shelves for non-perishables. We also have a second fridge/freezer out there plus two deep freezers.

It’s ugly out there, but it’s storage space so that’s what matters.

I’m very blessed to have so much outside room for storage. The problems have been that:

  • We have so many little ones (3, 2, 1, and 9months) that I have very little time to organize all of the food in storage. Whenever I get home from grocery shopping we all just stuff food into whatever freezers, fridges, and pantry spaces we can find room. There is no system and has not been organized.
  • Every time I need something from our storage room (at least a dozen times every day), I have to make my way from the kitchen, through the living room, through Justus’ room, and into the outside storage room. It’s not such a big deal, except that alllllll of the little ones want to follow me out there, then they get mad that they can’t play out there, then I have to grab up babies to get them back into the house…

IT IS A MESS.

As in, the system is a mess and the storage room has been a mess.

These “before pictures” don’t make it look like a total mess, but trust me, we couldn’t even walk in this room.

With all of the cases and boxes of food and paper goods, the storage room barely had a path to walk through to get to anything we needed.

I’ve been praying about how to make it work better, and dumb as it is, I’ve shed some tears over it. I’ve just been frustrated because I need to make it better and I haven’t been sure how.

Finally one day, I just started digging into my kitchen pantry. My goal was to get everything organized in a way that put everything in my kitchen pantry that I used the most. Everything else was going out to the storage room shelves.

Here is my kitchen the day I pulled everything out to regroup.

Meanwhile, I realized that I have an area in my kitchen, just behind my sink, that was basically wasted space. (I didn’t take a before picture, so sorry! I was too focused on figuring out a new system. Just know that it was messy and unusable.)

It occurred to me that with some work, we could turn that space into something useful and helpful for storage and efficiency. But what exactly should we do to make that area usable?

Have I ever told you about my dear friend Pam?

I’m not sure what I would do without her. She comes over for a couple of hours every weekday morning – to help with the kids, to help me with appointments, to help me with housework – whatever I need, she’s there.

Pam helped me brainstorm, then she worked with me to reorganize that unusable kitchen area. Sooooooo thankful!!! Keith “helped” her unscrew a little table that was attached to the wall taking up and wasting space. She yanked stuff off the wall. The baby girls and I scrubbed the walls and floor. Then Pam helped me move a shelf from the storage room into that area in the kitchen.

During nap time, I took trip after trip from storage room to kitchen, filling the shelves, then redoing the pantry.

Here’s the new shelf we moved into the kitchen:

And here’s the reorganized pantry:

Having the additional shelf in the kitchen changes everything! It looks so much nicer than the mess that was there before, plus now I have all of my non-perishables right in my kitchen. I still have to make the trek out to our storage room for food in our extra fridge and freezers, but having everything else right where I need it is SO HELPFUL!!

And speaking of the storage room:

We can walk through it and all that’s stored in there now is all of our paper goods, woot!

There is still more organizing that can be done in our house, but having our kitchen and food more organized sure is a huge blessing!

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