Grocery Challenge: aka moving is expensive and we still need to eat!

Since my poor, poor blog is often neglected, I haven't written a recent update.  Here is the big news:

WE MOVED! 

Moving is a chaotic process, and we definitely experienced our share of chaos, but we are now happy residents of Troutdale, Oregon.  The best things so far about Oregon?  We are just a 3 hour drive away from my parents, the temperatures are significantly cooler than Northern California (we're talking 20-25 degrees cooler!), I don't have to pump my own gas AND we're within a pretty close radius of quite a few shopping options!

Now let me tell you the downside of moving to Oregon:  The act of moving is expensive.  We went with a 26 foot Penske moving truck and let me tell you, we used every INCH of that truck!  Gigantic moving trucks are not cheap, nor is the diesel for a 465 mile trip.   Rents are also higher in this area than what we were blessed with in Red Bluff.  $365 more a month to be exact, but thankfully we found a great (big) home that will meet and exceed the needs of our family for the next few years until we are able to purchase our own.  

Oh, and if the moving expenses weren't enough... the registration on our van expires this month so we're forced to deal with getting the registration transferred and dealt with a lot quicker than we may have done otherwise. 

Bob will be getting a cost of living increase, which will definitely help with our higher housing costs but I needed to find a way to decrease some of our other expenses, especially in the here and now while we try to get back on track with our finances and budget.  Enter my facebook status post from last night:  

The Challenge: Stick to a $50/week grocery budget until our finances level out again after all of our moving expenses. I'm scouring the weekly ads. Hopefully between Fred Meyer, Albertsons, Safeway & Target I can feed my family decent food AND stick to a bare bones budget! Stand by for updates :)

And now for the updates! 

I started this challenge by checking out the online weekly ads for the nearby stores and came up with a list of dinner ideas based on what I was finding on sale.  This is what we will be having for dinner over the next 12 days, I don't assign a meal to a day.  I have found it works best for our family to have all of the ingredients on hand for a number of meals and then we can pick and choose off the list each day depending on what we have a hankerin' for.

Dinners:

Mexi pasta (pinterest recipe)

General Tso Chicken, rice & zucchini

Breakfast for dinner x2

Dinner salad

BBQ pizza - zucchini pesto for us, pepperoni for the kids

Grilled meat & potatoes

Beef, broccoli & rice

Fajitas

Soup & bread

Lettuce wraps & potstickers

Sandwiches/leftovers

You may notice a few meals like "grilled meat" and "fajitas" that didn't actually specify which type of meat.  I left it that way on purpose so I could build those meals around the proteins I would find on sale at the store and not be locked in to a specific main ingredient.

The shopping results:

{Target:  Food total $16.14, broom $7.99}

Broom & dust pan - $7.99

2 Cucumbers - $0.38 (used $1/$1 or more vegetable purchase Target Mobile Coupon)

Small jar Classico Pesto - $2.00

Market Pantry Bread - $0.22 (used $1 off sandwich bread TMC)

Market Pantry Canola Oil - $2.14 (Clearance priced $3.14 & $1 off $2+ MP item TMC)

Snack Pack Pudding - $0.71 (clearance price)

Cantalope - $0.99 (used $1/$1 or more fresh fruit TMC)

Ground beef - $2.69 (used $1 off fresh meat TMC)

Rhodes rolls - $1.29 (used $1 off frozen food item TMC)

Up & Up freezer bags - $2.49 (used $1 off $3+ Up & Up TMC)

Foster Farms chicken breasts - $3.38 (clearance priced)

{Fred Meyer:  $30.34}

Tortillas - $1.49

Margarine Tub - $2.63 (used .35 cent off manufacture coupon)

Grapes - $2.35 (on sale for 98 cents/lb)

Broccoli - $0.88 (on sale for 88 cents/lb)

Chips - $2.00 (on sale with FM store coupon)

1 can corn - $0.50 (on sale with FM store coupon)

1 can green beans - $0.50 (on sale with FM store coupon)

Salsa - $1.79

Pepperoni - $3.00

Bacon - $3.99 (on sale with FM store coupon)

Giant jar of pickles - $3.44 (used .55 cent hang tag coupon)

3 Tree Top Juices - $5.00 (FM store coupon 3/$5)

10 lb bag of potatoes - $1.98

4pk Cranberry Orange muffins - $1.79 (clearance priced impulse purchase)

  * Also used a $1 off future purchase catalina coupon from a previous shopping trip

{Albertsons:  Food Total $45.75, Kid vitamins $5.99}

Croutons - $1.29

Water chestnuts - $0.99

Salad dressing - $2.99

Milk - $2.89

Shredded Mozzarella - $3.99

2 Dozen eggs - $0.79 each

Kid vitamins - $5.99

Potstickers - $2.99

Family pack Oscar Meyer lunchmeat - $5.99

3 bell peppers - $3.00

4pk bakery cinnamon rolls - $1.00 (another impulse purchase, maybe desert tonight!)

MEAT:

2.82 lbs of boneless pork chops 2 packages, BOGO sale - $9.93 (Grilled Meat!)

2.27 lbs of bottom round steak 2 packages, BOGO sale -  $9.11 (to be used for Fajitas, soup and beef & broccoli)

We did have a few grocery items on hand already that I figured into our meal plan and didn't need to purchase and my parents sent us home with a big bag of lettuce and zucchini from their garden.  Overall, I'm really happy with my plan and my shopping results.  I don't think we will ALWAYS stick to a grocery budget that is this bare bones (notice no beer, soda or lots of snacking options), but its awesome to know that we can do it and still eat the types of meals we prefer to eat with a decent variety!

EDIT: (adding my facebook status update to explain my change from $50/week to $100/2 weeks and how I will end up a little over my challenge budget and I'm ok with that!)

I <3 Target mobile coupons! I'm back from my morning of grocery shopping, I took pictures of my purchases from each store and I'm thinking I'll go into detail with a blog post (my poor neglected blog) Anyway, the overall update is that I decided to shoot for $100 over the next two weeks, shopping for our needs on a $50/week budget would have been too limiting because I like to buy value packages of meat, etc. I went to Target, Fred Meyer & Albertsons and spent a total of $92.23 on food items (plus another $7.99 for a much needed broom/dust pan and $5.99 for a 150ct bottle of kid vitamins so we can stop giving them gummy bears, lol!) I will end up slightly over my goal of $100/2 weeks because I know we will need to get a few more gallons of milk, fresh fruit and I've planned on bbq pizzas next weekend and I'll buy the dough from Safeway 2/$3. Might end up closer to $125... but if I can feed our family of 5 breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks for the next 12 days on that amount I'd say that is a huge success!