The Aldi receipt says $49.84, and I have it taped to the refrigerator door like a report card. That was our entire grocery bill for seven days, Saturday to Friday, for two adults. Ohio doesn't tax groceries, so that number is the whole thing.
I tried this partly as a test and partly out of curiosity. March was our last mortgage payment, and I've been looking at every line of our spending with fresh eyes, wondering what we really need. Our normal food spending these days runs about $100 to $110 a week between Aldi and a smaller Kroger trip. Could we do half without being miserable?
I gave myself one rule I'd call fair and one I'd call a little cheating. The fair rule: everything we ate that week had to come from that one receipt or from leftovers. The cheat: I didn't count pantry staples we already had. Coffee, cooking oil, flour, butter, salt, pepper and a shelf of spices were already in the house. Anyone trying this from an empty cupboard would spend more.
What I bought
Here's the receipt, more or less in the order I walked the store:
- Bananas, about 3 pounds, $0.87, and a 3-pound bag of apples, $3.99
- Russet potatoes, 5 pounds, $3.49; onions, 3 pounds, $2.49; carrots, 2 pounds, $1.29
- Bone-in chicken thighs, 3.2 pounds at $1.69, $5.41
- Ground beef, 1 pound, $5.79
- Eggs, 18 count, $4.19; half gallon of milk, $1.85; shredded cheddar, 16 ounces, $3.79
- Bread, $1.55; tortillas, $1.99; spaghetti, $1.15; pasta sauce, $1.69; rice, 2 pounds, $1.99
- Two cans of black beans, $1.58; frozen mixed vegetables, $1.15
- Old-fashioned oats, $3.29; peanut butter, $2.29
What we ate
Breakfasts were oatmeal with bananas most days and eggs twice. Lunches were peanut butter sandwiches, apples and whatever was left from dinner.
Saturday: roasted chicken thighs with potatoes and carrots on one sheet pan. I roasted all eight thighs and saved four.
Sunday: chicken fried rice with the saved chicken, a cup of frozen vegetables, onion and two eggs.
Monday: spaghetti with meat sauce, made with the whole pound of beef and one onion so it went further.
Tuesday: black bean and cheese quesadillas with a side of rice.
Wednesday: the rest of the spaghetti, baked in an 8-by-8 with cheese on top so it felt like a new meal.
Thursday: breakfast for dinner. Scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and onions, toast.
Friday: potato soup from the last of the potatoes, carrots, onion, milk and a handful of cheese.
At the end of the week we still had about a third of the oats, most of the rice, half the peanut butter, four eggs, a few slices of bread, two pounds of onions and three apples. So the week really cost less than $50 in food we ate, and a few of those leftovers rolled into the next week's meals.
Nothing went in the trash. That might be the part I'm proudest of.
Would we do it again?
Yes, but not every week. Here's the honest version.
The bananas were gone by Wednesday, and we missed fresh fruit and anything green by Thursday. A $50 week has almost no room for lettuce, berries or a bag of spinach, and I don't think it's a healthy way to eat long term. Greg also noticed the meat. "That was a lot of beans," he said Tuesday night, and then ate every bite of his quesadilla, which is about as close as he gets to a review.
What I'll keep is the planning. Writing out seven dinners before I went to the store, and building each one partly out of the one before it, is the real reason the receipt was so short. Most weeks I shop with a vague idea and then buy for that idea twice.
So my plan is to do a $50 week once a month, probably in the week after a big Costco or Kroger stock-up, when the pantry is full. The other three weeks I'll aim for about $90 and buy the fruit and vegetables we missed.
The kitchen is going to be a little busier soon anyway. Josh graduates at the end of the month, and he'll be home for a few weeks before he starts his job. A $50 week would not survive him, so I'm glad I tried it now.
