I am a SNAP recipient who receives $193.00 per month in benefits. To augment that, I am able to budget an additional $32.00 per month for food. Altogether, that leaves me with a budget of just over $50.00 per week. Join me as I share what I do to make it work.
Welcome to Week Eight
I’m actually feeling better already! The fatigue and pain are pretty much gone. I’m still stiff, but I can actually stand up straight, which I couldn’t do earlier in the week. I’ve never had a flare come and go this quick. I thought for sure I’d need a round of steroids and was prepared to make a rheumatologist appointment on Monday morning. I’m not complaining! Let’s just hope it remains subdued.
While my flare could be the result of crazy weather fluctuations, weather has never affected me in the past, so I really don’t think that’s the culprit. Instead, Sam & I are wondering if this flare was a result of the Abilify leaving my system. Whatever the reason, I’m just glad to be feeling better and up to finishing this week’s budget challenge post!
Meals
Smelly BBQ Bagel Delights (two nights)
If you’re not familiar with my Delights, I wrote about them back in Week Four.
I had not planned on making these; I was going to make fettuccine alfredo. However, since I had bought bagels and cheese, I figured why not. I wasn’t feeling the alfredo, and I was too rundown to cook anything anyway.
Fettuccine Alfredo
I remembered to buy cream this week, but I wasn’t feeling the alfredo. I will make it eventually. Heavy cream lasts forever, and I’ll be using it in a few other recipes as well.
Hamburger & Salad (two nights)
I was pissed because the buns I had wanted to get were out of stock. I settled for Frederick’s by Meijer kaiser rolls, which were “meh,” but they did the job since they are just a vehicle for the burger & condiments. I will be using the left over buns to make ham sandwiches next week.
Dole salad kits aren’t my favorite. The lettuce always tastes funny and sometimes it tastes musty. Yuck! However, it was $1.00 off, and I wanted something simple to go with my burgers. Luckily the lettuce wasn’t musty this time.
Gyros & Hummus (one night)
I was in a lot of pain, feeling rundown, and craving gyros again, so I caved and ordered from GrubHub. I did not want to use my food budget, so I took money from another budget, in which there is plenty of money—more than I need at this point. It hurts to spend that much money on one meal, but there are days when IDGAF. Monday was definitely one of those days.
I am happy to report that my food was delicious. It really hit the spot, and it was nice to enjoy a guilty pleasure when I wasn’t feeling the best.
Tuscan Soup (two nights)
I bought Bob Evan’s “zesty hot” sausage thinking it was hot Italian sausage. Nope, it was breakfast sausage. I decided to use it anyway to make this copycat of Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana. Believe it or not, I’ve never been to Olive Garden, so I can’t say how this recipe compares to the Olive Garden soup, but I thought it was pretty good—even with the breakfast sausage.
Total Spent on Meals: $50.50
Baking/Dessert Project
I didn’t have any baking projects in mind. I did make a chocolate cake though for which I had all the ingredients on hand. I always keep ingredients on hand to whip up desserts!
Miscellaneous
Since strawberries were 99¢, I only grabbed one—but only one since they’re not very good this time of year. However, after the fact, I wish I would have bought a bunch and froze them because they are perfect for smoothies!
Speaking of smoothies, I had frozen strawberries left over from my parfaits, so I decided to use them in smoothies. Sam is usually the smoothie maker, and she makes the best smoothies! However, since she’s not here, I was on my own. It took me a couple of tries, but I came up with the perfect strawberry banana smoothie for one: 80 grams of Simply Cranberry Cocktail, 170 grams of vanilla yogurt, one banana, and 10-12 frozen strawberries.
The Simply Cranberry Cocktail is Sam’s secret ingredient, and she adds it to every smoothie she makes. It makes smoothies extra delicious!
Total Spent for Miscellaneous: $5.98
Stock Up
Meijer had a great promotion last week: buy 7, save $7.00. I bought 14 eligible items: red bell peppers for next week’s soup, bagels, Kraft mac & cheese, and 4 Simply juices. Unfortunately, they were out of a few other things I had wanted. I was really grumpy about that. If you’re going to have a great sale either make sure you order plenty or put item limits in place.
Total Spent to Stock Up: $16.04
The Final Tally
While I spent a modest amount on groceries for this week, I made up for it when I placed a $30.00 order on GrubHub. That’s life though. We’re all out here doing the best we can with what we’re given. This past week, I was given the autoimmune flare from hell, and all I wanted was some food that I was craving. That resulted in me going over my $50.00 budget. It also resulted in making a bad week a little bit better.
If it weren’t for me doing these budget “challenges,” I would not care in the least. However, since I am publicly documenting every food item that comes into my house, while purporting to stick to a $50.00 weekly food budget, I feel like I have to justify myself every time I go over budget. And I’ve gone over budget quite a bit. With that said, I just averaged my weekly expenditures over the last eight weeks and found that I spend, on average, $56.50 per week on food. Not bad! I was definitely expecting it to be much more than that.
Over eight weeks, I went $52.00 over my budget. That is pretty much the total of my two unplanned restaurant meals: the $20.11 pizza I had back in February and the nearly-$30.00 Mediterranean food I had this past week. Giving way to cravings has its price. That’s why I don’t do it often. Everything in moderation…except sweets. I can’t resist the sweets, unfortunately.
Grand Total Spent on Food This Week: $67.02
In Conclusion
This challenge has been a crash course in mindful grocery shopping and meal planning. It turns out, a little strategic planning goes a long way. Sure, there were moments when budget woes and cravings threatened to derail me, but that’s the beauty of this experiment—it’s real life, not a perfectly curated food blog. The occasional splurge is a reminder that we’re all human. But the satisfaction of staying mostly on track, and the progress I’ve made managing my food budget effectively, is a much greater reward. This experience has shown me the power of prioritizing and making conscious choices—a valuable lesson that extends far beyond the grocery store and into all aspects of life.
