Large familes & groceries & meals

So my sis has a grocery shopping survey going on with 2 other friends and I because we have "large" families (ie more than 2 kids!)  Sis has 4 boys, friend A has 3 kids, I have 3 kids, and friend B has 2 or 3 of her own plus 2 foster kids.  I thought it would be interesting to share this info and get input from others with larger families.

Sister's message:

I shop on Wednesdays because that's "payday" and we do all our bill paying and purchases on that day to make sure we don't miss anything !  This week I shopped at  Walmart and my bill was $134.02 HOWEVER.... they were out of homo milk so I had to stop somewhere else and spend another $6.00 on homo milk.

 For the weeks menu lets start with today and go to next Sunday....

Breakfast : Blueberry pancakes with syrup, milk (M has his with pb and jam)

Snack : Bagels from Tim Hortons

Lunch : Kelseys ... a whopping $50 which we were not expecting to have to get but were in a difficult situation today and after 1:00 the kids couldn't wait anymore... Tim Horton's lavish spending also a result of the days events....

Dinner : pasta and plain canned sauce and cheese, milk (I am a bad, bad mother....).

My tip .....hmmm.... I bring water in reusable bottles and some sort of snack if I go out and anticipate being gone for a couple of hours . I brought them today but it wasn't enough :(    Drinks and snacks are wayyyy too expensive !

Also - In  the grocery picture (not included) I should have propped up the 5 bags of milk !!!! We also go through about 4 loaves of bread which we receive for free so they didn't make the picture :)

My message:

First, I must say that dh does all the grocery shopping and cooks pretty much all the dinners.  Breakfast is usually toast, cold cereal, or waffles (usually with no name "Nutella") and a cup of milk, lunch is usually reheated leftovers from the previous day's dinner.

Dh shops on Saturdays at No Frills.  Our total this week was $105.11 but I had to return the lettuce mix ($3.97) because it was bad, so total of $101.14  We also go through about 4 loaves of bread a week but (so far) it has been free, so not included in total.  We earn PC points because because we use No Frills, AND because we use our President's Choice mastercard.  You earn 10 PC points for every dollar of every purchase made with your President’s Choice Financial MasterCard so we earned about 1,011 points.  The minimum redemption is 20,000 PC points (worth $20 in free rewards) and in increments of 10,000 PC points thereafter, which we will then use towards groceries on a week where the budget is really tight or if we need extra items for a birthday.  We pay off the balance on our card each month so no interest is accrued (otherwise it would make our total $120.36 if we weren't paying it all off).

Our family consists of 3 adults because we have a 22 year old student staying with us, and 2 kids.

Sunday meals:

Breakfast: coffee for me & dh, milk for the kids, toast with cream cheese, toast with butter, cold cereal (no name "Cheerios")

Lunch: I had a (no name) PB sandwich x2 on free bread and a cup of milk, others had leftover chicken parm from the night before, and tuna.  We serve water at all meals, except the children get a cup of milk at breakfast.

Dinner: steak (cut up in little strips to go farther), seasoned fries, Keg style mushroom & garlic mix, garden salad.  Water.

Snacks: sour cream, salsa & cheddar with tortilla chips; bananas (x3) and yogurt (x5); package of 14 rice cakes (on the 1 hr drive home from church around 1pm); 2 snack cups of "Bits & Bites" (for the boys at church).

My tip: use a PC credit card and earn points!  Just make sure you pay off the balance so you're not paying 19% extra for what you buy!

Posted on an old blog Feb. 22nd, 2010