
*This post was drafted in September but published in January due to an illness and death in my family. Apologies for any confusion on the continuity of this four part series.
Hi friends! If you’re new here, welcome!
This is the latest addition to a series of blog posts I’ve been writing in which I document and detail the costs of all the groceries I bought that week, as well as the costs of everything I actually use to feed my household of 3 adults.
Specifically, this is the final week of a full month of tracking my grocery and meal costs. If you’d like to start back at the beginning and read forward to today, here’s a handy dandy link to read Week 1.
I hope these posts can inspire you on strategies to make your grocery budget go further as well as give you meal ideas if you are stuck on that age old question, “what should we eat for dinner?!”.
As for some disclaimers:
- We all have different dietary needs.
- We all have different preferences.
- We all have access to different food sources.
- We all have different ideas of what a healthy diet looks like.
If you just looked at this short list of disclaimers and you are still saying, “Yeah, but…” then I encourage you to have a look at my original post where I talk in a little more detail about the hows and whys of my personal meal budgeting and planning – the most important word in that sentence being “personal”. There is no rule book to any of this after all, so take what fits into place for your life and feel free to leave the rest behind =)
Now for the stuff you’re here for – how much did we spend??
Per usual, my grocery shopping was done at Aldi and Food Lion. Here are the totals I spent at each, the combined total, and the total our meals actually cost for the week.
So the total amount we spent on groceries at Aldi was $24.85.
The total amount we spent on groceries at Food Lion was $22.48.
The grand grocery total was $47.33.
And the total spent for all of our meals from Friday dinner to the following Thursday Dinner was $48.54.
I’ve also tacked on an extra $5 to account for the extra odds and ends that I don’t strictly track, like coffee and creamer, and a few individual lunches and snacks that aren’t leftovers. This is of course an estimate, but it’s based on past tracking of those odds and ends. We don’t typically eat breakfast and most of our lunches do end up being leftovers from dinners.
Here's what we got this week!


And our meals for the week…
Stay tuned til the bottom of the page to see our monthly grocery and meal grand totals, plus some other fun meal totals!
Friday Dinner
Pulled pork sandwiches w/ mashed sweet potato and corn on the cob.
Total Cost: $11.66
My target price point for pork shoulder to have to fall to for me to buy it is 99 cents a pound. Pork shoulder was only on sale for $1.59 this week, but lucky for me, this one was marked down! We got 8.5 pounds of pork for just a little over $8! The first meal I make when I cook up a pork shoulder is always pulled pork sandwiches, so that’s what we had, served with corn on the cob leftover from last week’s shopping, and mashed sweet potatoes.
- Pork Shoulder $8.19
- Hawaiian Rolls $1.39
- BBQ Sauce $0.30
- Sweet Potatoes $1.08
- Butter $0.20
- Corn on the Cob $0.40
- Oil & Spices $0.10

Saturday Lunch
Pulled pork sandwich with fried egg.
Total Cost: $0.45
Our quick easy Saturday lunch was to fry up some eggs and have leftover pulled pork sandwiches.
*Because I included the entire cost of the pork shoulder and rolls in the initial dinner, I’m not counting them in subsequent meal totals.
- Eggs $0.20
- Leftover Hawaiian Rolls $0.00
- Leftover Pulled Pork $0.00
- BBQ Sauce $0.20
- Oil & Spices $0.05

Saturday Dinner
Korean fried chicken w/ broccoli and rice.
Total Cost: $4.93
Sometimes I think I should get more creative with my Saturday night dinners, but we all love this Korean fried chicken SO MUCH, and Saturday is the only night I have the time and energy to fry the chicken. It’s just so insanely delicious, I haven’t wanted to sacrifice it on the menu to try anything else. As usual, we served it with steamed broccoli and rice. I used half the large package of chicken I’d gotten and put half aside in the freezer for another dinner.
- Chicken Thighs $1.72
- Hot Pepper Paste $0.54
- Corn Syrup $0.25
- Broccoli $1.25
- Rice $0.25
- Frying Oil $0.42
- Flour, Corn Starch, Spices, & other Sauce Ingredients $0.50

Sunday Lunch
Scrambled eggs, pork, cabbage, and onion.
Total Cost: $2.01.
My boyfriend made us lunch today. He sautéed a bunch of chopped cabbage and onions and made us scrambled eggs with cabbage, onions, and pulled pork. Something about cabbage and pork together is always a winning combo.
- Leftover Pork $0.00
- Eggs $0.15
- Onion $0.38
- Cabbage $1.38
- Oil & Spices $0.10

Sunday Dinner
Whole roasted chicken w/ potato wedges and salad.
Total Cost: $11.19
I roasted a whole chicken in the oven and served it with potato wedges and salad. We had lots of chicken leftovers after this meal, plus I have the chicken scraps to use for broth making!
We also finally got around to using that salad kit that you might recognize from a prior week. These kits are so tiny for 3 people, so I always bulk them up with extra spinach or other greens. They pack enough dressing in each kit that everything still gets nicely coated.
- Whole Chicken $6.15
- Potatoes $1.50
- Salad Kit $2.99
- Spinach $0.40
- Oil and Spices .15

Here’s the broth that came from the scraps. I ended up with around 3 quarts (a 4th jar is not pictured).

Monday Dinner
Carnitas tacos with refried beans and Spanish rice.
Total Cost: $3.99
I took a ton of the shredded pork, seasoned it liberally, and spread it on a sheet pan. I broiled it until it turned crispy and served it with onions and peppers on top of fresh homemade corn tortillas. I also made Spanish rice and refried beans as sides.
Between the leftover pork, chicken, and sides from dinner tonight, we have SO MANY leftovers for work week lunches.
- Leftover Pork $0.00
- Bell Pepper $0.79
- Onion $0.74
- Rice $0.25
- Masa Harina $0.25
- Pinto Beans $0.82
- Butter $0.30
- Tomato Paste (half a can) $0.15
- Can Tomatoes w/ Green Chilis $0.39
- Chicken Broth $0.00 (homemade from scraps)
- Oil and Spices .30

Tuesday Dinner
Pan fried chicken thighs with tomato and avocado, cubed sweet potatoes, and cream of zucchini soup.
Total Cost: $5.79
This meal was one that I kind of just threw ingredients together for. For this dinner I cubed sweet potatoes and roasted them in the oven and pan fried some chicken thighs (the second half of the large pack I had divided on Saturday). I had an avocado that needed to be used, so I chopped a tomato and the avocado and made something of a tomato and avocado salad to top the chicken with. Finally I made some cream of zucchini soup using some of the chicken broth I’d just made. This soup recipe makes around 2 quarts of soup, so plenty of extra for later too!
- Chicken Thighs $1.72
- Sweet Potatoes $1.08
- Avocado $0.65
- Tomato $0.40
- Zucchini $1.40
- Onion $0.39
- Chicken Broth $0.00
- Oil, Spices, & Sour Cream $0.15

Wednesday Dinner
Sausage and Lentil Stew with Rice.
Total Cost: $3.52
I pulled a pound of pork sausage out of the freezer that we’d gotten on manager special a few weeks prior. I cooked the entire pound and put half the cooked sausage back into the freezer to use later, probably in another soup or stew.
- Sausage $0.57
- Lentils $0.50
- Carrots $0.49
- Spinach $0.40
- Tomato $0.25
- Diced Tomato w/ Green Chili $0.39
- Tomato Paste $0.22
- Onion $0.30
- Rice $0.25
- Homemade Chicken Broth $0.00
- Oil & Spices $0.15

Thursday Dinner
Leftover night.
Total Cost: $0.00
Because we had SO MANY different bowls of leftovers in the fridge at this point, I declared it leftover night! I love leftover night because it always means an easy, early night, and fewer dishes than if I’d cooked dinner.
- Leftovers $0.00

And that’s the final week of a full month down!
How about some fun monthly totals!
- In the full month, we spent $208.30 on groceries.
- We used approximately $203.69 worth of groceries on our actual meals.
Other fun numbers:
- We bought 8 dozen eggs.
- We went through 20 lbs of potatoes and 9 lbs of sweet potatoes.
- We used 9 lbs of onions.
- We ate 26 lbs of chicken (includes skin and bones), around 14 lbs of pork, and 7.5 lbs of beef.
- We used around 15 cups (over 7 lbs) of rice.
- We went through 3.5 lbs of dried beans and 5 cans of beans.
Lastly, I would love it if you would follow my Instagram where I post grocery hauls and meals I’ve made, including stuff that doesn’t make it onto the blog.

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