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

March 2, 2023 by Laura 6 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

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!)

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

How I’m Planning Christmas for Our 14 This Year

December 4, 2022 by Laura 1 Comment

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I’m planning Christmas for our tribe and I thought it would be fun to process “out loud” while I work out details!

You know I love to go all out at Christmastime. But how I used to do Christmas when there were only six of us does not work now that there are 14 of us.

I’m looking for ways to have a lot of fun without spending as much money this year also. Here’s how I’m hoping to get away with spending very little out of pocket this year.

How I’ve been saving/earning “free” money for Christmas this year

  • I’ve spent time earning Swagbucks during the past few months and made my way up to $100 free dollars in gift cards! I decided to redeem them all to use at Sam’s, so now I have $100+ to use for gifts there!
  • I got a “check” from Costco as part of their cash-back program. I plan to redeem that for free gifts.
  • I’ve been saving the cashback that we earn from our Discover card and I can use that at Amazon for gifts.

Meanwhile, I’ve found some great deals here and there and have been buying and tucking away stocking stuffers for a few weeks.

How I’m Planning Christmas for Our 14 This Year

  1. I’m looking into games that our entire family can play (which is a challenge since our kids are ages 1-25!) This Saran Wrap Ball Game is perfect though.
  2. I’m putting together these Christ-Centered Christmas gifts for our entire family, which will be the main part of our Christmas day.
  3. I’m focusing on consumable gifts again so that we don’t pile more STUFF into our house. :) Here are ideas for consumable gifts (not just food!).
  4. We’ll plan a day after Christmas to enjoy with “just the grown-ups.” So much of our life is focused on the little ones, which is exactly as it needs to be. But two years ago we started a tradition of hiring sitters for all the littles for an entire afternoon and evening. We bigs all head to our church fellowship hall where we eat and play games for hours together. It is much needed and so much fun!

What about the FOOD?!

You might remember that our traditional Christmas dinner for the past several years has been Lasagna. I’m changing that this year because 1 out of 14 of us refuses to eat lasagna. NEVER do I ever cater to one person’s pickiness on a regular day. But this Christmas I’ve decided to. Why? Because our Christmas meal is supposed to be special, and if my daughter can’t possibly put lasagna into her mouth and it causes a fight at mealtime? No thanks. Not on Christmas. (This is my gift to me.)

So we’re having a Nacho Bar. Everyone can fix their bowl or plate the way they like and everyone wins. Plus, by the time we’re hungry enough to eat Christmas dinner after a big breakfast, it’ll probably be time to pull out games anyway. So we can munch on nachos and play games in the afternoon. It’s perfect!

What about that big breakfast? I’ll make an Easy Breakfast Casserole ahead of time and bake it while we dig into gifts that morning. I’ll serve it with fresh fruit and one or two of the following (I haven’t decided yet!):

  • Orange Poppyseed Muffins
  • Applesauce Bread
  • Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins
  • Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bread
  • Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies
  • Cream Cheese Pumpkin Muffins
  • Easy Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Banana Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins
  • Eggnog Muffins
  • Honey Cinnamon Muffins
  • Monkey Bread
  • Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
  • Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
  • Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls

Here are a lot of great Make-Ahead Christmas Breakfast Ideas to look through!

Christmas Make-Ahead Breakfast Ideas

Do you have fun Christmas traditions or some that you’re starting this year? I’d love to hear!

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

Meal Plan First? Or Shop First Then Plan?

June 1, 2022 by Laura 8 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

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?

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

Big Family Food: Family Picnic

March 30, 2022 by Laura 2 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Mid-March gave us the opportunity for a fun family picnic!

The more kids we have and the more adulty our older kids get, the more difficult it is for us to all find an opportunity to all be together at the same time. The stars aligned one day in March, and we were able to meet up in Lincoln for an awesome day at the park together! (Asa and his wife Eva, Justus and his fiance Kelsey, Elias, Malachi, Brayden, Keith, Matt, me, and our four foster girlies)

One of our goals when we get together is to find something we can do that we will all enjoy – from baby to toddler to preschooler to elementary kids to high schooler to adults. Oh, and it helps if we can find something that doesn’t cost much money. Of course. :)

On this particular day, we found a park with a fun playground for all the littles plus plenty of grassy areas for all the bigs to kick around a soccer ball. And the best part – we had packed the frisbee golf equipment we’d invested in one Christmas. So the boys set up our goal and created a course. After lunch, the bigs had fun playing frisbee golf for hours while the littles played nearby.

Also, it was a perfectly sunny, 67-degree day. Gorgeous!

I grabbed this picture of the big boys and in short, while we were together, I couldn’t stop staring at this scene. When our older boys get together, this is what happens. The four of them find their way into a square with a soccer ball at their feet. They kick around and chat without even realizing they’re doing it – it’s what they’ve always done. Be still my heart. God gave us amazing adult sons.

Meanwhile, the amazing babies.

Daddy was holding the littlest. These two had a blast on the swings. The other three were playing and playing on the playground (which I failed to get a picture of, phooey!).

Oh yes. And we also ate a super tasty picnic.

This ended up being a perfect lunch that was easy to put together and pack for an outing. Everyone got their fill and loved it.

The night before, I made a big bowl full of chicken salad.

I packed two bags full of chicken salad, croissants, grapes, applesauce, chips, salsa, and avocado cups.

I also packed water bottles, forks, a knife, napkins, and paper plates.

There was nothing fancy about our meal, but it was perfect for our needs that day!

Do you know how the Bible says that “Mary treasured all these things in her heart…”? That’s what I feel like I do on days like this. They are a gift, they are rare, and I love standing back and watching all my dear ones together. :)

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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. :)

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

Big Family Food: My Recent Walmart Pick-up Orders

March 23, 2022 by Laura 9 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

To supplement my once-a-month Costco or Sam’s trips, I put in Wal-Mart pick-up orders every ten days or so. Here are a couple of pictures from recent orders!

Sometimes when I talk about how much I enjoy taking advantage of Walmart Pick-Up, I hear how some of your experiences with it have been less than positive. Shucks, I’m sorry! For me, it has been a lifesaver. Like, I think it has actually saved my life. Or at least it has saved hours and hours of my life and much of my sanity (which is actually already gone, doggonit).

Apparently our local Wal-Mart rocks in the Walmart Pick-Up department. On the flip side, ours has gone to almost entirely self-checkout which I reallllly struggle to do when I have a huge full cart and babies with me. Thus, my Walmart Pick-Up life-saving claim.

My Recent Walmart Pick-up Orders

I love that I can add all my needed groceries into my online cart in just a few minutes. Then I select a time to pick up that works for me. I take a kid or two with me for an outing when I go pick up, or I send a friend or one of my older boys. And then boom, my groceries walk themselves out to my van (with a little help from an awesome associate), put themselves into the back, TELL ME THANK YOU, and I go home. This is beautiful.

Here’s what I got from this particular pick-up order:

  • 4 pounds strawberries
  • 2 pounds spring mix
  • 5 ounces fresh spinach
  • 6 ounce raspberries (x4)
  • 4 crowns broccoli
  • 8 bananas
  • 2 pounds grapes
  • 18 ounces blueberries
  • bag of avocados
  • 2 packages hot dog buns
  • family size caesar salad kit
  • 5 pounds frozen tator tots
  • 4 pounds frozen hashbrowns
  • 3 pounds frozen strawberries/bananas
  • 4 pounds frozen fruit mix
  • wheat germ
  • cocoa powder

Total cost for all this: $99.

I know grocery prices are on the rise, but truly when I see all I got for a hundred bucks, I’m very thankful.

Another trip I got:

  • 2 gallons milk
  • 2 packages hamburger buns
  • 2 packages hotdog buns
  • 3 pounds clementines
  • 5 pounds shredded Colby Jack cheese
  • 2 pounds shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 2 boxes lasagna noodles
  • 6 jars pasta sauce
  • 2 quarts heavy whipping cream
  • 2 quarts half&half
  • coffee creamers
  • 2 cans pears
  • 1 can peaches
  • 2 bags petite baby carrots
  • 1 pound mixed greens
  • 2 containers cottage cheese
  • 3 pounds gala apples
  • 2 pounds pink lady apples
  • 4 boxes frozen hashbrowns
  • Totinos (ha, gross right? I get these for Malachi sometimes as they are his fav.)
  • 3 bags tortilla chips
  • 4 pounds strawberries
  • large tub sour cream
  • bag of meatballs
  • 2 16-packs of beef hotdogs

Total cost: $168

Do you do Walmart Pick-Up? What has been your experience?

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. :)

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

Big Family Food: My Big Costco Experiment

March 20, 2022 by Laura 20 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Slowing but surely, I’m figuring out more time and money-saving grocery shopping methods. Check out my big Costco experiment! I’m learning so much!

In this post, I shared that I had tried ordering all of my non-perishable Costco products online and letting them ship it all to me for free. Sounds so smart, right??? Yes. What a great way to avoid having to fill so many carts at Costco, right??? Yes. And this way, all of my non-perishables would land on my porch (with free shipping) and all I’d have to do in-store is buy fresh and frozen food. Maybe I could even get away with just one heaping cart, right??? Yes.

BUT WAIT.

One of you left a comment here to share that when ordering online, the prices are slightly higher than when purchasing in-store. I had no idea! And then I decided that I wanted to know how much more. Because if it wasn’t significant, I figured that my newly-discovered online-ordering method might be a huge time-saving help even if it did cost a couple of bucks more overall.

My Big Costco Experiment

The next time I was able to go back to Costco, I bought everything (and I do mean everything, as you will see in the pictures below) perishable and non-perishable. I filled an orange cart (you know the ones?) and I thought I was going to have a disaster in which everything on that orange cart would topple over onto the aisle as I turned. The stress – it was too much! WHO CARES if it costs more online, thought I. I can’t even fit everything I need onto this huge orange cart! I decided that I would go back to ordering online just to save the headache!

Hmmm. But then later, I pulled out my receipts for in-store purchases and compared several items to the online prices. Well, would you look at that??

Almost every online item costs around $1.50 more than the same item when purchased in the store. Some cost over $2.00 extra. This really adds up since I buy so many items!! I didn’t price check every single product from my past online order, but last time I shopped online I ordered 19 things. If I paid $1.50 more per item, that added up to $28.50 more compared to when I buy them in the store. Yikes, no thank you. I’d rather buy food with that $28.50!

So, now what?

Well, I think I figured out something that might work!

See, I can only make it to Costco about once each month if that. So when I go, I have a really long list of items that I need. If I’m by myself, there’s no way I can fit everything I need into one cart, or even onto one big orange cart. But here’s a plan that will be less stressful, I believe, than trying to Tetris everything onto an orange cart before it topples over.

I’m going to need to fill a cart, check out, unload into our van, then go back into Costco for round two. Ha! Sound like a ridiculous plan? Of course it’s ridiculous. But I think that’s where I’m at.

My New Costco Plan

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

When packing our van, I usually fill a cooler bag full of meat and cheese, and a second cooler bag full of perishable produce.

This particular Costco trip, pictured above, filled the back of our Ford Transit! This was an exceptionally large shopping trip because we had a lot of events I needed to prepare for, as well as the need to fill our fridge/freezer/pantry at home for normal use. I got:

  • Cheeses and crackers to serve for refreshments after Justus’ senior vocal recital
  • Oat milk, Nature Valley snacks, olive oil, and a few other items for Kelsey (Justus’ fiance) and her roommates
  • Chips, bottles of water, and paper products for Malachi’s Homeschool Melodrama performance nights (each parent signed up to provide items for concessions)
  • Pork butt to make a pulled pork meal to feed the Melodrama group during a dress rehearsal
  • Apples, grapes, mixed greens, spinach, blueberries, and raspberries
  • Shredded cheese, kombucha, and Naked drinks to share with our college kids in apartments
  • Oats and bagged granola
  • Frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, and tilapia
  • Hamburger meat and chicken thighs
  • A few other odds and ends that I’ve forgotten and these:

These are for our 6yo and 2yo for Justus and Kelsey’s wedding this summer! What an amazing find at Costco!

Am I the only one?

So, what do you think about my Costco experiment? Have you ever had to go in twice in order to successfully make all of your purchases without items falling out of your cart?

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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. :)

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

Big Family Food: Ways I Can Cut Our Grocery Budget

March 2, 2022 by Laura 9 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

We eat big around here. Are there even ways I can actually cut our grocery budget?

This is what I’ve been exploring lately. What are some ways I can cut our grocery budget without causing more work or frustration?

I was so positively challenged by Reanna’s comment on this post:

If you are considering ways to save on your grocery budget you might consider buying more in “ bulk” and less single serving items. I’ve never bought individual applesauces, or other single serving items. I also only buy simple snacks such as fruit or crackers. We mainly concentrate on eating more during mealtime and not snacking as much. Snacks can be very expensive!

I 100% agree with her idea to avoid single-serve items, and I used to shop and serve food in just the ways she described. But with caring for so many little ones all while trying to keep up with our big kids (we’re planning another wedding, eeee!) – I have resorted to all kinds of convenience food items just to survive. (Our three littlest babies are each about 9-months apart in age, our three-year-old is potty training, and three days every week we enjoy our former foster babe, another three-year-old oy!)

My first thought when I read the comment was, “Yes, but not right now. Maybe after we get through this season.” But then I let her ideas simmer a while and I started to think about ways I could make some money-saving changes.

What I need to consider before I decide to cut our grocery budget:

  • Is the money-saving change worth the time and energy it will take to make up for the convenience?
  • Will it be worth the messes it might make? (We are already drowning in baby-made messes around here.)
  • Is the cost savings enough to make a substantial difference? (As in, will I spend $6.50 instead of $7.00 but create a significant amount of additional work for myself? If so, saving $0.50 will not likely feel worth it.)
  • Will any changes I make mean that we are eating less nourishing foods overall?

A word about snacks:

Well, three words about snacks: We eat them. A lot of them. Not all of us though – here’s how it works at our house!

Our three-year-olds, two-year-old, and one-year-old kids eat several snacks throughout the day. I would have some incredibly grumpy babies if I didn’t give them a mid-morning muffin (or something similar) and some berries. Sometimes I actually feel like all I’m doing is figuring out yet another good snack I can offer to truly hungry little ones.

I give them substantial meals, of course, but their little tummies can only handle so much at a time. We go through grapes, berries, apple slices, granola, cereal, and muffins like crazy – all eaten between meals.

Now, on the other hand, I almost never give our 6-year-old and 8-year-old snacks between meals. They are expected to eat their fill during meal time and I’ve found that if they eat a snack, they don’t eat a good meal later (which makes them need a snack later, which makes me want to cry later, truth). So the snacking is limited to the kids under 3 – and also to the hungry mom who rarely has time to sit and eat a full meal, thank you for understanding.

Ways I Can Cut Our Grocery Budget

I feel a little bit silly that I haven’t actually looked at cutting such obvious grocery spending options for so long. On the other hand, this mama is tired, has a lot of meetings, and hasn’t had quite enough sleep for approximately 1,460 nights in a row. So that’s why I’m so grateful that Reanna suggested that I consider a different way to shop and serve food.

I discovered peach cups and pear cups and applesauce squeezies a couple of years ago, loved how handy they were, and never looked back. And with that, I never really looked again at the price comparison either. Until I was challenged to consider the necessity of extra spending.

Pear cups cost $0.13/ounce. But a can of pears costs $06.7/ounce – half the cost of the convenient cups. Peaches? Same story. Half the price to buy a can instead of the little cups.

When we hit the road or need to pack food to eat at a soccer game or at the park, the cups will be wonderful and helpful with so many kids. But at home? I can easily open a can and dole out the peaches or pears in little bowls.

IT’S SO OBVIOUS. But I’ve been tired. So.

Meanwhile, the applesauce.

For the past three years, I have been buying cases and cases of applesauce squeezies. These gems are so helpful I can’t put it into words. And what happens when I give my littlest kids a bowl of applesauce? You don’t want to know, but I’ll tell you anyway. They paint with it. On their shirts, hair, feet, and under the table. I learned the hard way not to give them a bowl of applesauce, and there are too many of them eating (read: painting) at once to help them all eat it in a clean way.

Squeezies though? I can hand them out, and actually leave the room to go potty by myself. This is a miracle and though shalt not take my applesauce squeezies from mine house.

But do I need them forever and always? As it turns out, my 6 and 8-year olds are quite handy with a spoon. I can easily serve them applesauce in a bowl and save money on an entire case of applesauce squeezies every week. How about that? A jar of applesauce is $0.5/ounce while the squeezies are $0.15/ounce or more. Triple the savings! And if I’d ever get back to canning applesauce again, well, that’ll save even more.

What else can I cut or change?

I already buy almost everything in bulk. At Costco, at Sam’s, and through Azure Standard. And when I consider all the needs of our day, plus my lack of time to make more of our food from scratch, I’ve had a difficult time knowing what else I can cut.

But one thing I’ve committed to, besides buying fewer individually packaged fruit options, is to buy fewer individually wrapped items in general.

The only time I truly need individually wrapped snacks is when we go to tennis matches, soccer games, or other trips and outings. My goal right now is to keep items like this on hand but to save them for outings instead of resorting to handing them out at home during snack time.

Here’s a post filled with easy food ideas to pack and take to games and events.

What I don’t plan to change now (or ever?)

As I’ve shopped lately and done some price comparisons, here are some foods I’ve decided to continue to buy for the sake of convenience, even though they are a little more pricey.

  • Diced Ham – For $0.24/ounce, I can buy a package of ham that’s all cut and ready to dump into an egg casserole or this soup. A whole ham costs about $0.14/ounce. But I have to cook it and cut it (which is fine when I make a whole ham for a meal and use the leftovers in soup and such). Having the diced ham in my freezer ready to help me put a meal together in 5-minutes is worth the extra cost by far!
  • Frozen Shredded Hashbrowns – I buy 4-pound bags of Mr. Dell’s hashbrowns for $0.7/ounce. I can buy a bag of yellow potatoes for $0.4/ounce. Dude, gimme both. :) Those frozen hashbrowns save me so much time and make meal prep so very easy! They are delicious and the Mr. Dell’s brand includes only potatoes. So I feel great about using them for many of our meals. And whole potatoes? We use those too, and they are also an inexpensive convenience food in my book. But only when I make them like this or this.
  • Pre-Made Pizza Crust – I keep these in the freezer at all times. Do I know how to make pizza crust? Yes. Is it hard? No. But right now it’s fantastic to go to the freezer and grab crusts already made for me. I then grab a couple of cans of pizza sauce, shredded cheese, and whatever other toppings I have on hand. We quickly make pizza and it’s super easy. It’s also a lot cheaper than ordering pizza.”
  • Shredded Cheese – Talking about the shredded cheese for pizzas reminded me of the beauty of the gift of bags of pre-shredded cheese. I used to buy huge blocks of cheese and my kids would shred it in our food processor. Gone are the days. My bigs are either gone or don’t have time, and I have decided not to give my babies a cheese grater. Smart, eh?Grating cheese would never happen if I had to wait until I had time for the task. So bagged shredded cheese it is! Are there ingredients added to the bag to keep the cheese from clumping together? La-la-la! I can’t hear you, I don’t know what you’re talking about… :)

Well, I’m quite sure that as I consider ways I can save, I’ll be able to add to this list. Any other ideas you all want to throw out there?!

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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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