It’s a grocery haul!

Back when I was sharing online more about food and wellness I shared more grocery hauls, but those have been far less frequent in recent years. I personally still love watching them on YouTube but I never share them myself anymore. However, I’m trying out “new” types of content for my personal finance youtube channel and wanted to do a grocery haul!

It’s fun to see what people bought and how much it cost. Personally I’m not the most frugal shopper but I try to do several things to lower our bill without a lot of work. That includes checking our pantry and fridge before we shop and making a meal plan. It also involves shopping at more budget friendly stores like Trader Joe’s and Aldi!

We usually plan five dinners per week and plan one night for leftovers or eating out and one where we eat with family. That works for our style so we have meals planned but can adjust which night we eat them depending on moods and time for cooking.

Weekly meal plan dinners:

• gnocchi with salad
• pizza night with salad
• salmon burgers with sweet potato fries and frozen veggies
• spicy turkey meatloaf with Mexican street corn
• chicken sausages with onions + peppers and chips with dip

Having a meal plan helps us know what to buy and stay on track so we are less likely to eat out during the week.

What we are using from our pantry/fridge:

• Oatmeal for turkey meatloaf
• Onion for turkey meatloaf
• Frozen veggies (broccoli, cauliflower) for sides
• Salad dressings
• Frozen fruit for smoothies
• Eggs, sausage, pancake mix for breakfasts

What we bought at Trader Joe’s:

• Milk (for Penny)
• Caesar salad kit
• Bagged spinach
• Frozen bell peppers
• Avocado
• Roasted Mexican corn
• Sweet potato fries
• Pita chips
• Tortilla chips
• Crispy okra
• Ok-mak crackers
• Couscous
• Roasted cauliflower & cheese ravioli
• Gnocchi
• Ground turkey
• Salmon burgers
• Garlic herb chicken sausages
• Pepperoni pizza
• Vodka sauce
• Carolina gold BBQ sauce
• Chipotle dip
• Cookie butter cookies

It’s not our healthiest weekly meal plan ever but it does sound delicious! We are trying to get veggies/salad with every meal along with a variety of veggies. It also helps to have some quicker meals on hand this week since we’ve got a lot going on in the evenings from yoga classes to softball games.

We already had the gnocchi and it was really good! My husband loves gnocchi so it’s nice to be able to have it every once in a while as a delicious vegetarian meal option.

We are doing cash spending for our grocery shopping each week so we used our cash envelopes and came in under budget at $78.01. We still have enough left over to replenish anything that may run out or buy diapers, the most likely candidate!

Trader Joe’s is one of the best grocery stores and I love going there! I’ve been avoiding it since it opened since it is always super busy when I’ve tried to go in the past. Grocery shopping isn’t as enjoyable when you are bouncing around between people and having to fight for space! Now that we know weeknights are less hectic we will definitely be doing more shopping at Trader Joe’s!

Do you like grocery hauls? Let me know and I will do more! I definitely plan on doing our meal plans each week and want to share them!