Feed Your Family on $70 Week 2 (With Teens)

Feeding your family, especially when you have teen boys can be pretty difficult.  Costs can skyrocket, but with a little planning, you can feed your family for $70 a week.  This week, I shopped at Aldi and Kroger.

One thing you can do to help your budget is to buy a month's worth of the meat special.  You may not be able to do this from the start, but if you can pick up 2 weeks worth it will help you in the long run to manage your costs.

My rules are:  as few prepackaged foods as possible (no ramen, no hamburger helper and no kraft mac n cheese)  If you want to make your budget lower, you could include those, but I prefer healthy foods to premade ones.

Menu:

Chicken drumsticks/macaroni and cheese/broccoli

Hamburger/cheeseburger on bun/corn on cob/salad

Bbq pork/tomato grilled corn salad/potato wedges

Spaghetti with meat sauce (and lentils)/green salad or green beans

Mahogany chicken made with turkey breast/mango and pineapple salsa

Turkey stew with leftover turkey (carrots and potatoes) biscuits

Breakfast for dinner- bacon, eggs pancakes

Here are some of the prices I paid for this week's food:

Kroger:

Boneless pork loin 1.79/lb (I bought a whole one which is huge)

Milk 1.99

Turkey breast .99/lb ( I bought 2- one for now, one for later)

Kroger cheese 1.88

Peaches  .99/lb

Corn 6/$2

Potatoes                     

Green beans 99cents/lb

 canned tuna

peanut butter

bread

bananas

mozz cheese 1.89

pizza sauce 1.00

Aldi:

Hamburger 1.89/lb

Salad greens .69 and 1.49

Chicken drumsticks .69 a lb

Pineapple 1.19

Mango .49 each

Onion .78/2 lbs

Tomatoes .99/lb

flour 

eggs

carrots

For breakfast, we eat oatmeal or eggs and toast.  Sometimes we have cereal but the kids are tired of it right now, so I didnt buy any.  We have some leftover cereal from last week. 

Lunches:  Sandwiches, leftovers, tuna,  we have bananas and peaches and pineapple for fruit snacks this week as well as some leftover apples (there may be a mango leftover).  Homemade pizza

When I make homemade pizza, the costliest ingredient is the yeast.  I try to buy that in bulk.  I buy a jar of premade pizza sauce and freeze what I dont use.   I get 2 to 3 pizza's out of a jar of sauce, and 2 to 3 from the block of mozz cheese.  We like our pizza with pineapple.  When I buy one, any we dont eat right away gets frozen and used for things like this. 

The key is to use everything.  Do not waste food.  I rarely throw food out.  I try to buy a different fruit each week depending on what is on sale.  I freeze anything we dont eat and if we get enough, I make smoothies for breakfast.  

If we have leftover veggies, I either serve them again, or make broth out of them.  I also make and freeze chicken broth (or turkey).  

I bought a turkey breast this week. I will cut the meat from it, cube it and freeze it and use it in recipes that call for chicken breast.  I will boil the bones for the turkey stew and use any leftover meat from that I can salvage.  I may add some additional meat if needed.  

What foods help you stay in budget?