So, two weeks into recovery from foot surgery, I got a low grade fever. This was on March 30th. Save for about three days in the mix, I had that low grade fever until April 10th. And then the sleeping beast awoke, and my fever roared to 103 degrees and stayed there until antibiotics finally kicked in on April 14th. I was miserable. Turns out, I had post-operative pneumonia. Honestly, I don’t remember much of what happened in April until this week because I was so sick. My husband did all of the shopping, my mom took care of the kids, and I just slept and fevered my way through.
I’m on the road to recovery, now, though, so I am hoping by the end of April, between the foot, which is almost recovered, and the pneumonia, I’ll be back to myself again.
Details of Our Grocery Reports
One of my goals this year is to lower my grocery bill and be more cognizant of my spending. I spent a lot of my Christmas break watching YouTube videos of bloggers who have an uber frugal grocery bill each month.
Let me be clear–that’s not what you’ll find here.
Our family of 5 chooses to eat mostly organic produce and grass-fed and pasture-raised meats. I’m Paleo, my daughter is semi-Paleo, and the rest of us are gluten free. Everyone except my husband is dairy free. We also don’t eat beans because we’re currently intolerant to them.
My husband and I set a goal to keep our monthly grocery budget in between the USDA Thrifty and Low Cost Plan. That is currently $784.70 for the thrifty plan to $1,058.30 for the low cost plan.
Even though our monthly grocery expense is our highest expense after our house payment, I’m choosing to share it here for two reasons.
First, I’ve scoured the internet for grocery reports from people who follow a Paleo diet or a specialty diet due to food allergies and intolerances, and no one seems to be sharing. I’d love to know what others on particular diets buy and spend when it comes to their groceries.
Second, I want to hold myself accountable so that we don’t go over our budget. Plus, I want to find new places to buy my groceries that will help reduce our overall cost while still letting us buy the best food for our bodies.
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This is what we bought over the last two weeks:
Natural Grocers – $23.27
Fry’s – $5.39
Sprout’s & Costco – $76.09
U.S. Wellness Meats – $116.01
Sprout’s & Trader Joe’s – $62.72
Sprout’s – $42.66
Sprout’s & Natural Grocers – $50.89
Total for this Week & Last Week: $377.03
Week 14 Total: $138.37
March Total (Including this week): $1078.55
Week 13 Total: $190.60
Week 12 Total: $268
Week 11 Total: $182.34
Week 10 Total: $437.61
February Total: $1,068.39
Week 9 Total: $281.39
Week 8 Total: $238.48
Week 7 Total: $235.91
Week 6 Total: $312.61
January Total: $1,060.06
Week 5 Total: $75.69
Week 4 Total: $132.29
Week 3 Total: $684.53
Week 2 Total: $115.50
Week 1 Total: $52.05
We made it through grad school on $100/week groceries, but we are heading in your direction ourselves. I am now eating low-carb, gluten free and we are trying to make 100% of meats/dairy/eggs organic and grass-fed. We started getting Green Bean Delivery and are supplementing with shopping at the store, and it’s nearly been $200/week for the 5 of us since we started this experiment. I’m glad to see my totals aren’t too far off from yours. We’re lucky my husband is an engineer and we have enough disposable income to help absorb the cost.
It is amazing to me how much money it costs to buy quality foods. Six years ago when we didn’t have such dietary restrictions, we spent much, much less on groceries. But then on the other side, we also had to spend a lot on the medical side.
What is Green Bean Delivery? Is it nationwide? I’ve never heard of it.
Glad to hear that our costs match.