$90 a Week Groceries for a Family of 4

Since I'm starting a $250 a month challenge for May, I decided to do a post showing how we have been feeding our family of 4 on $360 a month - $90 a week.  This is our most recent week, what we spent, purchased and what we ate.  I plan meals for Saturday through Friday, so we are actually in the middle of this week that I'm sharing.  We do stockpile as we can when there is a good sale and it all evens out because some weeks we don't spend the whole $90.

I made some homemade hummus, blueberry muffins and then will also be making boiled eggs for snacks, granola bars, health balls and a few other things.

Dinner Meals

Easter dinner at church (Free)
Chicken w/Noodles & Mixed Vegetables (Crockpot)
Pasta Fagioli (Instant Pot)
Beef & Bean Burrito Bowls (Instant Pot)
Coconut Chicken & Rice (Instant Pot)
Red Beans & Rice (Instant Pot)
Pizza

We utilized what we had in our pantry, some things like coconut milk in my fridge, I wanted to use up, so I found a recipe to use it in.  The Pizza is not a recipe - it's a cheap pizza from Aldi's frozen section and one I don't eat because I can't do heavy tomato meals like pizza often.  You can see that I LOVE to cook with my Instant Pot!  Not only is the food so delicious but it is so fast and easy clean-up as well.


Here's what we purchased from Aldi and Kroger for this week:
  
Aldi

At Aldi, we got frozen broccoli, turkey and beef uncured hot dogs, frozen pizza, whipped cream cheese, uncured turkey sandwich slices, uncured ham sandwich slices, frozen corndogs, yogurt, 1/2 gallon organic whole milk, pasta, egg noodles, head of cauliflower, organic apple juice, condensed cream of chicken (stockup), can diced tomatoes, pickles, cookies, granola bars, crushed red pepper flakes (stockup), Coconut cashew snack, ranch dressing, pretzels, bread and bagels.  We also purchased non-grocery items of zip bags and napkins.


Kroger

At Kroger, we got organic apples, bananas, organic onions, Dr. Pepper (My bad), Soymilk, Burritos and Cheezit's that my daughter begged for.  Because we did U-Scan and spent $35, we got $5 off - so basically the Cheezits were free and then some.  I don't normally spend that much for the Dr. Pepper but I had run out and it wasn't on sale.  I also don't normally buy organic onions but that is all they had and I was kicking myself for not getting the onions at Aldi for $1.49.  We stocked up on the burritos because we all have been having more of them for snacks.  I've tried to wean of us that but they are so convenient and quick and taste good.

So all together we spent $83.60 but we also purchased (not shown), 4 2-liters of soda for our Easter dinner at church, so right under $90 for this past week.

Is $250 a Month Groceries for a Family of 4 Possible in 2019?

We have been very loose with our grocery budgeting since moving to Ohio but we tightened it up last year and started saving money easily.  Now, we spend $360 a month to feed our family of 4 (no babies or toddlers - teenager and a hearty 6yr old snacker).  That is $90 a week and we eat good.  However, I heard that a lot of families, even families of 6 - are making it on $250 a month!  I'm wanting to see if this is possible for us.

Since I started not being able to eat tomato products a few years ago, it became very difficult to cut our grocery budget.  Up until my health problem with tomatoes, we were easily making it on $150-$200 a month groceries because tomato-based meals (spaghetti, etc.) are very cheap to make.  Most of the frugal meal plans across the internet that I came across always had tomato-based meals most days of the week.  So, it has been a process to find cheap meals minus most tomato products!  I do still make meals with some tomato products in them, if they are very minimal but most of the time, I don't eat them but my family does.

Having gave that caveat - let's find out in this month of May, if it is truly possible to for a family of 4 like us (with food/health issues) to eat on $250 a month!