Week 1 of Eating On $350 Monthly

Week 1


Groceries For Breakfast & Lunch

• Loaf of Bread or 2 ($1.47 at Walmart)
• Milk 4L ($3.47 at Walmart)
• Sandwich Meat (between $3-$8, we get the $8 for 2 packages at Costco and freeze the other half)
• Eggs ($2.47 No Frill's)
• Salad stuff can be taken from the groceries for dinner.
• Cucumber ($1.27 No Frill's)
• Cereal ($2.50 lasts 3 weeks from states or $3.47 at Walmart for a 1.5 weeks)
• Pancake Batter ($6 from Costco)
• Yogurt ($2.47 from No Frill's)
• Fruit ($11 mixed fruit Costco, large bag)
• For Homemade Soup, take leftover veggies from Supper after week and simmer down in pot, add yams or squash, let cook till tender, puree everything in a blender.  Add salt to taste.
• And these items include EVERY MEAL that I wrote below, we aren't that adventurous at our house and most breakfasts are the same and lunches usually rotate around 4 meals.  Your most likely going to have left over fruit and pancake mix.

Breakfast:

• cereal: now I know this isn't the healthiest but if you are a cereal eating family here are some tips for the cheapest cereal.  Canada has some very expensive cereal, it's ridiculous and I know this because my husband refuses to eat anything but cereal in the mornings.  I am always looking for cereal to be on sale.  Walmart often has sales for cereal, as well as No Frills.  BUT the cheapest place to find cereal is in the states.  We often go to the states about twice a year, sometimes once, but we always stock up on cereal.  If you have family with a Sam's Club Card, you can find the Multimeals for $2.50, that's 1kg of cereal.  As well, if you pay attention to Bourillims flyer, they often have multimeals 10 for $10!!  
• eggs & toast: super easy and good for you, especially if you boil the egg, yes boil!!  The way to do this is fill a pot with water, add about a tablespoon of vinegar.  Once the water is boiling, turn it down to medium heat and crack open the egg and add.  It takes about 2 mins to cook but you have an easy over egg without the grease!
• french toast:  super easy and delicious.  Grab a large dish, break open 4-6 eggs, add about a teaspoon and a half of cinnamon, take your bread and coat, place in frying pan.  Soo good!
• home made waffles:  we do this a lot.  I buy just normal pancake batter, cheapest is Costco, buy the large bag for $6, and make up a ton of waffles.  These are easily frozen and you take them out and pop in the toaster.  
• yogurt, fruit, & granola: fruit at Costco frozen is so cheap.  I just bought a massive bag of Strawberries for $8.50, and those without Costco cards, No Frills (Superstore) often has fruit on sale, watch for it and buy an extra bag or 2 when it happens.   
• cottage cheese & fruit:  I always buy my cottage cheese from No Frills because it's CHEAP!!  And the no name brand stuff tastes just as good as the name brand stuff.  I was once told the same company that makes a name brand (can't remember the brand) just changes the container to a non name brand and fills them up with the same thing.  Mind you this doesn't apply to everything but it sure does for sour cream and cottage cheese.
• fruit smoothies: fruit, ice, yogurt and/or milk, a banana

Lunch:

• grilled cheese & tomato soup
• salad
• p&b sandwich (kids)
• any kind of sandwich
• chicken wrap
• leftovers
• home made soup
• itchy band: we make itchy band a lot in our house, super cheap and you can make it very nutritious.  We add peas and corn along with eggs and meat to our itchy band.  This makes it more filling as well as a bowl of veggies and protein instead of empty calories.

TOTAL:$23

Supper Grocery List

• bag of shrimp ($7.50 at Walmart)
• green peppers
• red peppers
• onions
• taco wraps  ($3 No Frills)
• can of peaches (.95 at No Frills)
• lime juice  (.97 at No Frills)
• rice ($10 LARGE bag Costco)
• bag of romanie (3 heads $3)
• pizza dough ($.97 at Walmart)
• cheese (sale $5 at Sobey’s)
• bag of perogies ($3.50 No Frills)
• steak (4 for $18 @ Costco)
• chicken ($20 @ Costco)
• mushrooms
• zucchini
• carrots ($1.99 at No Frills)
• bag of beans ($8 @ Costco LARGE bag)
• bag of corn ($2.50 @ Walmart)
• celery ($1.75 at No Frills)
• black beans ($1.19 can No Frills)
• Genoa (some kind of meat for pizza)
• sour cream ($2.50 at No Frills)
• eggs ($2.47 at No Frills)
• bread  ($1.47 at Walmart)
   

Meal #1
Shrimp & Chicken Stir fry

• green/red peppers (strips)
• onions (large chunks)
• rice
• carrots (thin strips)
• celery (cut on an angle)
• sweet tahi
• soy sauce
• Italian dressing

Cook your onions, carrots, and celery till soft, add in green/red peppers (if you do it before they will be tooo soft!).  While these are cooking, make rice.  To make sauce, mix some soy sauce, sweet tahi and Italian dressing all to taste.  Add to veggies, serve over rice.

Meal #2
Perogie Casserole

• perogies
• cheese
• onions (caramelized)
• beans

Boil perogies and while those are cooking, caramelize your onions (add t of sugar).  Once onions and perogies are cooked, take out onions and fry perogies.  Then place perogies, onions, and cheese in casserole dish, broil in oven till cheese is melted.  Serve with a side of veggies.  I usually serve green beans with a dip of butter.


Meal #3
Shrimp Tacos (and make chicken for kids if you want)

• shrimp (cook extra at stir fry)
• chicken (cook extra at stir fry)
• pepper/salt/chili flakes
• hot sauce
• mango salsa
• black beans
• salad
• lime juice

Add a bit of olive oil in pan, cook shrimp till warm, add salt, pepper, chili flakes, and hot sauce (just enough to coat or don't use it at all if you don't like the heat).  Sprinkle with lime juice after.  Shrimp on wrap, add mango salsa.  Serve with beans.

Mango Salsa Recipe
Mangos and peaches taste VERY much alike and peaches are way cheaper!!! 

• about 1.5 cups of peaches chopped into tiny cubes
• .5 of a red onion chopped finely
• a green onion chopped finely
• tablespoon of lime juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• teaspoon of olive oil

This is great on tacos and burgers and is good for you!!

Meal #4
BBQ Steak & Chicken with Veggies

• steak
• chicken
• onions
• green/red peppers
• zucchini
• mushrooms
• salad
• tahi or Italian sauce

Cut up veggies so that you can place them on the BBQ or use scures.  Cover with either tahi (for heat) or italian and let sit.  Make salad.  With salad in fridge, take your steak, chicken, and veggies out to be BBQ'd.  Enjoy!


Meal #5
Curry Chicken

• curry 2 tablespoons
• mayo 1/2 cup
• chicken cubed
• corn
• beans
• can of chicken soup
• cheese
• rice
• salad

Put all ingredients but rice in a casserole dish (cook chicken first).  Top off with cheese, cook for 30mins at 375.  Serve with rice and salad.

Meal #6
Home Made Pizza's

• green/red peppers
• meat
• cheese
• mushrooms
• onions
• pizza sauce or ranch
• meat of choice (even left over chicken & shrimp)
• pizza dough

Make a pizza!  And to make it even better, buy some corn meal, and put about a teaspoon on the pan before putting down your dough.

Meal #7

• eggs
• bread
• cinnamon

Our 7th meal, being a Saturday usually, we either go out or make something simple like French Toast, or eggs on toast.  If we do go out for dinner, and I'm not talking sit down dinner, that would be well over budget, (we only have $100 a month)!  No, we go somewhere that won't cost over $15 for the both of us.  Usually McDonalds because you can get coupons on their website, like 2 dine for $9.48 and they also have kids meals coupons (for those with older kids).

The salad that I have at the end of some meals, we make ceaser salad because it's so easy, doesn't really give a big nutritional value but it fills ya up, and if you don't put so much ceaser on it's better for ya!  lol  I also make a green salad too some weeks and it lasts for the week.

Anyways, next week maybe I will do another one of these!  You would be surprised but the total for these meals is $56.  That doesn't include Italian salad dressing, tai sauce, soy sauce, parmasan cheese and ceaser salad dressing because they can be used multiple times.  Now, you are going to have left over chicken, steak, shrimp, beans, corn, perogies, and onions for future meals.
  

Total for a week of groceries......... $79

This is WITHOUT coupons.  If you are in the states, you might be able to get a few of these items for either $2 off or even free if you watch the flyers right.  Hope this helps someone save money because I sure know it saves us money!!