Grocery Challenge

I had a good friend post a link from this site (www.5dollardinners.com) a week or so ago, and I decided to try out the "20 Meals for $150" with options for 2 lists for Sam's Club and 2 lists for Costco.

We started out with the first one for Sam's Club.

The recipes so far are yummy and simple, but the 4 servings that most the recipes make are too much for my family of 4 as two of the mouths are three or under. 😃  So I took it into consideration when I made my initial list. I already had a few things, like rice and canned tomatoes, but after making my list and comparing it to the one the site had, I found it was missing a pricey item: quinoa. Once we went to the store, I found that our Sam's didn't have some of the same things that were on the list, like the spaghetti sauce and salsa; the prices were also different, which i expected. Plus (as stated above) two of our four mouths are very small, So I didn't get as much meat as on the site's list. Then I didn't get the avocado (only my hubby eats it) or mango (that's one I just gotta do fresh 😉) or bakery rolls (I got frozen Rhodes rolls instead). Oh. And we got bacon.

That being said, (before taxes) we spent $137.

And by my estimates, not only will we have the 20 meals plus leftover food, we'll a few extra whole meals and maybe enough to 'create' a whole new meal!

As of right now, I believe I have dinners planned thru Dec 14, but that is taking out most Sundays as we're usually with extended family... We'll see if it works out to not have to buy much for dinners in the next month!

Here's a secret though, I just copied and pasted the recipes from the listing she had, and didn't buy the printables, (being the designer I am, I will make my own printables). However, (the site changed since I last got on it) the links to the recipes aren't in the meal plan page anymore, but i bet the recipes are still on the site.