This month we are approaching our grocery budget a little bit different. First, our summer is coming to an end. Next week is our final “slow” week of the summer followed by our beach trip. So after looking at our supplies and realizing that we are to back to school days and crazy nights. So the decision was made to go ahead and get things ready for our crazy busy life. We headed to Aldi on Wednesday night to buy some staples and make sure we had can goods. Next it was Costco on Thursday. Fortunately, Costco had an awesome sale on convenience foods and lots of things that make our lunches easy to pack in the mornings.  Zach and I also went to Walmart and grabbed 40 lunchables which were on sale for $1 each. These are awesome for the kids at the beach and also for a special lunch treat.   On Friday, I stopped at CVS to grab the laundry detergent that was on sale. This is a ton of shopping this week but I am vey happy with feeling confident for the first couple of month of fall.

Next is actually getting some things in the freezer for grab and go dinners. Matt picked up 80# of ground beef that we ordered from Zaycon on Friday afternoon.  This is some of the freshest meat we have ever received the date stamped on all the packages is July 23rd, so 2 weeks ago this was a live animal.  We decided to simple put in the freezer 20 pounds or 10 packages to use for things that call for raw meat.  Next we spent five hours, fry up and packaging the rest in one pound containers. These are also for pulling out for taco meat, spaghetti sauce, hamburger helper, sloppy joes, chili and stews or crock pot recipes that call for a pound of ground beef. I estimate this should last us six to nine months. This morning I made a large batch of French toast. The kids and I enjoyed some for breakfast and the rest was frozen to stick in the toaster for a quick easy breakfast.

We have a very full pantry and freezers. I plan to reduce our grocery budget to $100 in September and $300 in October. I may be able to keep it low for the rest of the year depending on how things work out with sales and how much the kids decide to eat.