$50.00 a Week Challenge: Week Three

I am a SNAP recipient who receives $110.00 per month in benefits. To augment that, I am able to budget an additional $100.00 per month for food. Altogether, that leaves me with a budget just shy of $50.00 per week. Join me as I share what I do to make it work.

Welcome to Week

Wow, here we are at Week Three already! Despite having to utilize mathematics, I’ve been having a good time with my challenge—especially putting together these posts for you all. I know there’s a few of you following along, but you are definitely a quiet bunch. Feel free to chime in in the comments—or not. No pressure here at La Casa de Jen!

If you’re on Reddit, you can also start a conversation on my subreddit, Generic_Jen_Blog, which has a total of TWO whole users! Come over and make it three!

Now that I’ve once again pointed out my embarrassing lack of engagement on social media, let’s get into the details of Week Three.

Meals

Italian Salad (three nights)

At first, I was only going to do two nights of salad, but when I got home, I realized I had enough ingredients to make three salads. So, I put my Gino’s East pizza in the freezer for another time and got busy prepping my salads.

The salad was basically what you’d get on an Italian sub: iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, hot pepper rings, ham, salami, and mozzarella. With the exception of the tomatoes & hot pepper rings, I made all three salads up on Friday night. Ahhh! I don’t mind cooking. I actually enjoy it sometimes, but I hate doing it every night. I love it when my past self does these nice little things for my future self!

If I had purchased these salads from a restaurant, they would have easily been $9.00 each, and I only spent $11.36 total. Three salads for under $4.00 each? Nice!

Tacos (two nights)

What is there to say about tacos? Well, yes, we can easily talk about how delicious they are. The tacos I make at home are strictly American-style—the way I’ve eaten them my whole life: ground beef, Old El Paso hard shells, and Ortega mild sauce. While I love any type of taco, sometimes you just want that taste of nostalgia.

While I may use store bought shells and sauce, I ditched the seasoning packets 15 years ago. These days, I make my own using ingredients I always have on hand [Yes, we’re spice people; our spice collection takes up two whole cabinets in our tiny kitchen. Thanks a lot, Penzey’s].

I don’t know of a taco truck on Earth where you can get two dinners worth of tacos for just over 5 bucks.

Jet’s Pizza (two nights)

On my ”Christmas Tree Day” post, I mentioned that Jet’s is my favorite pizza*. Well, on Tuesday, I had a doctors appointment in the neighboring town, where there’s also a Jet’s. And ever since Sam sent me a picture of her pizza from Flo and Santos in Chicago, I have had some pretty robust pizza cravings [Despite having eaten them weekly, frozen pizzas from the grocery store do NOT count…yuck]. The answer was clear; I needed to swing by Jet’s after my appointment. I figured I’d wind up a bit over budget, and that was okay.

I ordered my usual: one large deep dish—or “Detroit-style” as they call it these days—pizza with pepperoni, onions, and green pepper. I enjoyed it hot the first day, and I will equally enjoy it cold today.

*I love Green Lantern Pizza too, but sadly they’re only in the Detroit area. Dear Green Lantern, if you read this, please open a Lansing location! XOXO

Total Spent on Meals: $37.99

Baking/Dessert Project

Chocolate Cake

Maybe I’m missing out on other wonderful chocolate cakes because I always insist on using my tried & true Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe along with Perfectly Chocolate Frosting. But this cake is ridiculously easy to make, incredibly moist, and it’s made with ingredients I always have on hand. If you make it, just take care when you are pouring the boiling water in while the mixer is running [see below]. With your mixer on its lowest setting, pour the boiling water in slowly. Don’t be daydreaming like I was.

Do you remember Goofus & Gallant from Highlights magazine? Well, I’m Goofus. Quite frankly, I’m fine with that. I always hated Gallant—such a brown-noser.

Total Spent for Dessert: $0.00

Stock Up

I missed one hell of a sale on ground beef a few weeks ago when it was $2.99/lb. However, it was back on sale this week for $3.99/lb, which is still a great price when you consider the fact that the regular price is $6.49 a pound. I divided the ground beef into 7 half-pound chubs and froze them.

Then, I went to use the olive oil the other day and noticed we were almost out, so off to Walmart.com I went. Because I was doing a trial of Walmart+, I could have it shipped for free, and it would arrive the next day. I chose Walmart because my oil is $2.32 cheaper there than it is at Meijer. Also, I had $10.00 in Walmart Cash to redeem. Bonus! The grand total for my olive oil? $3.47.

After making my chocolate cake, I had also used the last of my avocado oil and cocoa powder. So I hopped onto the Sam’s Club app and ordered more of each—both of which were a steal. At Meijer, 25.36 ounces of avocado oil is $14.49, while at Sam’s I got a whole liter (33.81 ounces) for $9.94. As for cocoa powder, it’s $4.49 for a small 8-ounce container. I paid $9.48 for 23 ounces at Sam’s.

At Meijer, I grabbed an extra taco sauce because it was on sale. Additionally, it was part of the “Buy 5, Save 5” promotion, so that took another dollar off the total.

So, in the end, I wound up going over my $50.00 budget, partly because I needed to stock up on these few extra things. No worries. Staying under budget the past few weeks allowed me to purchase these necessary items without affecting my bottom line.

Total Spent to Stock Up: $43.78

Bonus Category!

I promised you all transparency, so now it’s my time to come clean. I found out that the coffee shop in town was going to be offering pączki from a local bakery on Fat Tuesday. I had the money in my budget to comfortably afford it. So, I went ahead and ordered six to share with Bree: 3 custard, 3 cream cheese.

Total Spent on Pączki: $20.00

The Final Tally

I went over budget by a whopping $51.57. However, I was able to take advantage of some incredible savings, enjoy a special once-a-year treat, and:

1. The olive and avocado oils, along with the cocoa powder will last me for a long time.
2. That ground beef will be the basis for fourteen meals.

I saved a total of $34.95. I have $41.55 left on my EBT card for next week’s groceries, and I will be receiving my $110.00 SNAP disbursement on February 17. That means I still have plenty in my budget for the rest of February.

Grand Total Spent on Food This Week: $101.57

In Conclusion

I told you before I started this challenge that there would be weeks when I would go over budget. Well, here we are. I not only went over budget, I doubled it! Luckily, because I usually stay beneath my $50.00 budget, I had enough in The Bank of Jen to cover this week’s expenditures.

Jet’s pizza and pączki are a rare treat in this household, and it was definitely a FAT Tuesday up in this crib. But what a week to be alive! No regrets here.