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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!)

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Big Family Food: Grocery Shopping for $110

February 2, 2022 by Laura 1 Comment

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

Have you been following along on our Big Family Food Journey? Today I’m going to share a picture of a recent Walmart pickup order for our family.

First, a brief grocery budget breakdown

I’ll detail our grocery budget more in another post. But it’s mostly divided up this way each month:

Costco $600
Walmart Pick-Up $250
Azure Standard $60
Amazon Subscribe and Save $100
Local Farm Meat, Eggs, and Milk $170

I’ll likely need to reevaluate this soon, so stay tuned!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have a GREAT BIG SHOPPING WEEK post that I’m working on. But here’s a small shopping day to give you an idea of what some of our groceries look like.

On this particular grocery shopping trip, I put in a Walmart Pick-Up order. I love doing this because it is such a simple way to shop for my family. I grab my computer and put everything into the cart that I need. I select a time to go pick it up, and that’s that. Walmart employees do my shopping, checkout, and bagging for me – for free! They even put it into my van. This saves me at least two hours of time and energy. It is a life-saver for me!

Here’s what I got this particular trip:

I mostly needed fruits and veggies so I got carrots, broccoli, premade salads (for my college kid), greens, bananas, pears, and blueberries. I also got a few jars of spaghetti sauce, frozen fruit for smoothies, frozen corn, canned pineapple, cream, lime juice, frozen sweet potato fries, and Fritos (to go with upcoming meals of chili and taco soup).

We go through a huge amount of fresh and frozen produce, so I often need to make purchases like this often. But something to consider:

Look how much good food we got for $110!

This grocery haul provided awesome side dishes for our family. Fantastic snacks for all of our littles (and bigs). Smoothies to nourish us on the run. And it made life easier because it meant that for several days, I had easy-to-grab food to feed the kids quickly.

During a big Costco trip, I’ll bring home sometimes 6x this amount of food (oh yes I will). When I order food online, our living room is filled with cases of staples. But the picture you see above is a very typical Walmart Pickup order for us – one that I put in every 1-2 weeks as needed.

I can’t wait to show you more! 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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Big Family Food Shopping Trip: I Spent HOW MUCH?!

January 26, 2022 by Laura 22 Comments

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

If you’ve been following our Big Family Food series, you’ve only just begun to see how food works at our house right now. I am having so much fun sharing and can’t wait to keep adding to this series. Today I’m going to tell you about a big food shopping trip I had in January!

Where I shop for groceries:

First, let me detail a little bit for you where we buy food for our family.

  • I try to sneak away to Lincoln (about an hour away from home) once each month for a big grocery shopping day. At the very least I hit Costco. Sometimes I’ll also go to Aldi. And I just signed up for a Sam’s membership (which I’ll talk about below).
  • I usually place 2-3 local Walmart pick-up orders each month. This fills in the gaps before I can go to Costco again, and keeps us supplied with fresh produce. As you’ll see below, WE GO THROUGH A LOT OF FRESH PRODUCE. Oy!
  • We get two gallons of fresh milk from a local farm once each week. Of course, that isn’t enough for our family, so I also grab a few gallons each month from the store too.
  • This leads me to share that we get WIC benefits for our foster babes, which is a huge blessing because it provides milk, eggs, cheese, cereal, and my favorite: FRESH PRODUCE! ;) Typically, I go pick up our WIC food items at a local grocery store that is close to our house.
  • I order several staples every couple of months from Azure Standard, which is a food co-op that delivers groceries right into town for us to pick up! My favorites from them are big bags of frozen veggies, cases of tortillas, and either fresh flour or grain to grind into flour. (Currently, I’m just buying flour because I don’t have time to grind it right now.) You can read here to learn more about the items I often buy from Azure.

The day I spent HOW MUCH?!

So now let me tell you about my great big food shopping trip day back in January. I needed to take our littlest babe to Lincoln for an appointment, so she and I headed out with cooler bags and boxes to get our groceries stocked up! It’s not often I get one-on-one time with our kids, so this was special, even if it was ridiculously cold outside that day!

Oh wait – this first!

Since I was going to be shopping by myself with a six-month-old, and I know that I usually need at least two big Costco carts, which isn’t possible with a baby in tow, I tried out a new idea and I super love it!

I sat down at my computer one day and ordered all of the dry-good staples I like to pick up at Costco. I tell you what, I am going to do this every time from now on! There’s no way all of these items plus all of the fresh and frozen items would have fit into one cart (which you’ll see below). So in just a few days after ordering, and with free shipping right to my porch, here’s my online Costco order:

I know it’s hard to see everything in these boxes, but here’s the rundown:

  • 2 Cases of applesauce pouches
  • Box of peach cups
  • Box of mandarin orange cups
  • Box of packs of nuts
  • Case of olives
  • Case of black beans
  • Case of baked beans
  • Box of quinoa and rice mix (such a wonderful convenience food to have on hand!)
  • Bag of coffee
  • Several big containers of spices we use regularly
  • Brown sugar
  • Pack of canned chicken
  • Bag of dried blueberries
  • French fried onions

January Costco Online Order $267

Then, I went into Costco with the babe and filled our cart with everything else we needed!

I’m all about grocery shopping, but one of my favorite things about Costco is the clothing they offer! I found really nice coats for three of our kids for just $7 each. Our littlest just moved up a size in clothing, so I found a few outfits and jammies for her. I grabbed a case of diapers. And what about food? Oh joy, all the good food!

  • Strawberries
  • Blueberries
  • Boneless Chicken Thighs
  • Flautas (we love these for a quick meal in our Air Fryer!)
  • Tilapia
  • Grapes
  • Mixed Greens
  • Sparkling Water (a fun treat for all the bigs at our house, including me) ;)
  • Tortilla Chips
  • French Fries
  • Chicken Nuggets
  • Pizzas
  • 2 cases of Naked (because it never gets old to say “I got Naked at Costco.”)
  • Ham
  • Turkey
  • Croissants
  • Bananas
  • Apples
  • Blackberries
  • Pears

January In-Store Costco Trip $256

Sam’s too?

Well, shucks if I didn’t get sucked into an offer for “Spend $45, get a $45 eGiftCard.” But a free Sam’s membership, just to try and see if I like it for a year? Why not?

—- > Pssst, here’s a link for you to take advantage of this also if you want!) Spend $45, get a $45 eGiftCard. Online only. <——

The biggest pull for me is that there is a Sam’s in Grand Island (45 minutes west of us) but not a Costco (which is in Lincoln, an hour to the east). So I think it will be nice to have this Sams membership when I am in GI. Plus, I wanted to compare Sam’s to Costco and see what might meet our needs better.

So after our Costco shopping was complete, Baby and I headed to Sam’s to check it out before her appointment.

I like it!

I feel like I’m going to like Costco better, but at the same time, Sam’s had some fun sales and clearance that I really appreciated! I got a couple of birthday gifts for our littles for super cheap since it was right after Christmas. Awesome fun! Plus they had some really neat food clearance items too.

I filled my cart here too, which I wasn’t expecting to do. But it doesn’t take much to fill a cart when you’re buying in bulk!

  • Frozen fruit for smoothies
  • Pepperoni
  • Rice Cake snacks (for one of our college kids to take to his apartment)
  • Clementines
  • Salad Mix
  • Cheese Slices (x2)
  • Canned Pineapple
  • Fresh Pineapple
  • Instant Oatmeal Pouches (for a special treat for the kids)
  • Box of Spaghetti Noodles
  • Tub of Whole Milk Yogurt
  • Whatever else is buried under there that I can see. I lost my receipt. :)

January Sams Food Purchase $117

Then we had to take it all in and put it all away. :/

This is a huge job, not just because of the big food shopping trip and how it filled the back of our van, but also because there are so many babies who need to be held, especially after Mommy has been gone all day! So while I juggled baby snuggles, Matt, Malachi, Brayden, and our 6yo Girlie trudged in and out bringing everything in. :)

Food piled up all over the living room and kitchen, and we slowly got it put away.

Hmmm. I need to show you my freezers and food storage spaces huh?! Sounds like a good upcoming post in our Big Family Food series!

Big Family Food Shopping Trip: I Spent HOW MUCH?!

Between my online Costco order, my in-store Costco purchase, and my Sams purchase, my total was $640. I was expecting it to be much more, actually. (It was more with the clothes, coats, toys, paper towels, and diapers. But I only count actual food in our food budget.)

I feel like $640 isn’t bad for a great big, once-a-month Costco and Sam’s shopping trip. But here’s something that I am both giggling at and trying to re-evaluate:

Much of this food was gone after a week and a half.

A WEEK AND A HALF!

We still have plenty of pasta, rice, beans, fries, and fruit cups left. There’s a little chicken left in the freezer plus half the flautas. We haven’t finished all of the ‘Pellegrinos, ha.

But did you see all the fresh produce in those pictures? I’m talking six pounds of grapes, eight pounds of strawberries, two tubs of blueberries, seven pounds of apples, five pounds of clementines, eight pounds of pears, two containers of greens, a tub of pineapple, and whatever else I missed. Ten days later, we were left with 3 apples and a small bowl of shriveled grapes. Whoa, baby. Where does it all go?

Truly, feeding this tribe and watching the food disappear fills me with joy!! My college-age niece, who drops by frequently, opened my fridge just after the ten days had passed since my shopping trip and was like, “Whoa, your fridge is so empty!” Hahaha, I know, Kailey. I know.

Not to worry, because we really do have plenty of food in the house at all times. It’s the fresh food that’s hard to keep up with.

I’m chewing on this:

I think it’s time to re-think our grocery budget and my shopping practices. The budget might need to increase or shift in some places. Also, I don’t know how I’d make it happen (because I have to move a few mountains to be able to go out of town for these big shopping trips), but I might need more than a once-a-month Costco or Sam’s trip.

So stay tuned to our Big Family Food series. I’ll share as I figure all of this out. I hope you’re having as much fun with this series as I am!

Where are your favorite places to grocery shop?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P.S. I finished this post and scheduled it. Then I went back to Sam’s a few days later because I was in Lincoln for an event and there was a Sam’s a mile away. I spent another $250 on produce and meat. Yes. It’s time to take another look at our grocery budget. Oy! But hey, at least I’m getting the most out of my free Sam’s membership!

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