[quote=Anonymous]OP here thank you everyone!
So I went to the grocery store yesterday with an actual hand written list and stuck to it.. I let me kids add whatever snacks they thought they wanted at the house and then told them that we stick to the list. If there is something we don't get this week they can add it to the list for next week. Yesterday will be our one and only grocery store run for the week, as opposed to 3-4 times between me and my husband. I think that alone is going to help cut us back and stay on budget! I spend $255 so I feel good about things and I will see how it goes. I made a big pot of chilli yesterday so we can have left overs at least one day and maybe use it for tacos another.
Thank you all very much for the comments, it was truly helpful I think .. [/quote]

I know someone who used to go to Costco once a month. She would let her kids pick out 2 bulk packages of snack items that they wanted and it was up to them to make those snacks last all month. If they invited a bunch of friends over and they all devoured the chips and popcorn all at once, that would be it for the snacks until next month.

I keep meaning to do something similar with my own kids as I think it's a good lesson.

OP here thank you everyone!
So I went to the grocery store yesterday with an actual hand written list and stuck to it.. I let me kids add whatever snacks they thought they wanted at the house and then told them that we stick to the list. If there is something we don't get this week they can add it to the list for next week. Yesterday will be our one and only grocery store run for the week, as opposed to 3-4 times between me and my husband. I think that alone is going to help cut us back and stay on budget! I spend $255 so I feel good about things and I will see how it goes. I made a big pot of chilli yesterday so we can have left overs at least one day and maybe use it for tacos another.
Thank you all very much for the comments, it was truly helpful I think ..

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here - I appreciate everyone's feed back and I totally agree I am totally over spending and wasting so much food and $. I have 3 very little kids .. one 1 year old and 2 5 year olds .. they literally eat toast and cream cheese and fruit ... and somehow we blow through $300 a week and then throw food away every week. I think also the problem is my husband and I both randomly pop to the grocery store.. like 3 times a week and don't even know what the other got. I am going to start by cutting this out, only go one time a week if we didn't get something we can manage for 6 days till the next time we go etc. Thanks very much for all the advice. [/quote]

OP, but for the ages, I literally thought I wrote this post! We are also a family of five with 5yo twins and a 3 yo. I waste so much every week and I hate it. Every week I say I am going to cook on Sunday but then something will always come up and by the time we get back from the birthday party/game/whatever, I'm trying to get kids ready, wash clothes etc. My kids are also very picky and I feel like we eat the same thing every week. The times I do venture out and try to introduce new foods they don't eat and I'm made that I've wasted even more. I also make a meal for them and one for my husband and I and he and I eat after he gets home later in the evening. Ugh!!

[b]Is anyone willing to post their weekly menu/food shopping list[/b]? [/quote]

I can give you our menu from last week. Haven't done next week's -- that's for tomorrow!

Sunday: beef & bean tacos with cheese, salsa, sour cream.
Monday: Crockpot chicken with mashed potatoes.
Tuesday: chicken pot pie (with leftover chicken) and salad
Wedneday: spaghetti & meatballs
Thursday:leftovers!
Friday: baked salmon with mashed potatoes, salad & green beans
Saturday: grilled shrimp with lime, cous cous and green beans

Almost all of my proteins come from Costco and are frozen until we need them. I put together a big batch of meatballs about once a month and freeze them, them pull them out as we need them. My kids are on a mashed potato kick. They'd eat them for breakfast if I let them.

I don't have my whole shopping list, but I can tell you how I do it. First, I read the circular and think about what we have in the freezer. Then I figure out whether we have anything crazy going on during the week. I usually run the crockpot on nights that swimming/lacrosse/soccer overlap! Then I put the meal plan together and build the list as I do it. So, if we want to have pork chops and applesauce, I add those items to the list if I know that they're not in the freezer/pantry. I try to vary the proteins and not do the same one 2 nights in a row or more than 2x a week (we had guests one night this week and needed the pasta on Wednesday).

Some folks like more structure when they start meal planning and like a frame work -- something like Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, Pasta Wednesday, Chicken Thursday and pizza Friday.

My 20 month old baby boy/human tank eats like a grown man. DH and I are going to go broke feeding him.

I also recommend using apps. My DH enjoys cooking as a hobby, so there is only so much I can do to rein in his somewhat extravagant shopping habits. But, we have found that having a shared list app on our phones works, so that we can both add to it and whoever goes to the store gets what is on the list. DH will deviate (SIGH) but when I shop, I don't.

On the plus side, DH meal plans. I figure out what to do with the leftovers. So, roast chicken with potatoes and a side vegetable the first night. Any leftover chicken is then cut up and made into a gravy, served over biscuits. Another night, grilled chicken pieces with rice & beans on the side. The next night, leftover chicken and rice & beans into a tortilla for burritos. Any random leftover meat or veggies usually find their way into homemade quesadillas at some point. Panko chicken cutlets, as PP mentioned above, are good on their own or as part of chicken parm-type pasta dishes. Leftover rice can be stir-fried in a pan with frozen veggies (the $2/package mix in the freezer aisle at the grocery store) and a couple eggs cracked in. These are all my relatively non-creative ideas, I'm sure better cooks have others.

Speaking of the freezer aisle, both Costco and regular grocery stores typically have pretty cheap frozen vegetables. I currently have a five lb bag of green beans in my freezer that we are working through. They can be quickly steamed in the microwave and served as a side, or sauteed/stir-fried, whatever you like. This definitely helps me both have produce on hand, and not waste as much.

Finally, I can't say this works perfectly but I think it would if we were more disciplined: we keep a list taped to the outside of the fridge with the produce purchases we made that week, with a date on it. I check it periodically to see what's in there, and make a point to use up the older stuff first.

[quote=Anonymous]OP here - I appreciate everyone's feed back and I totally agree I am totally over spending and wasting so much food and $. I have 3 very little kids .. one 1 year old and 2 5 year olds .. they literally eat toast and cream cheese and fruit ... and somehow we blow through $300 a week and then throw food away every week. I think also the problem is my husband and I both randomly pop to the grocery store.. like 3 times a week and don't even know what the other got. I am going to start by cutting this out, only go one time a week if we didn't get something we can manage for 6 days till the next time we go etc. Thanks very much for all the advice. [/quote]

OP, but for the ages, I literally thought I wrote this post! We are also a family of five with 5yo twins and a 3 yo. I waste so much every week and I hate it. Every week I say I am going to cook on Sunday but then something will always come up and by the time we get back from the birthday party/game/whatever, I'm trying to get kids ready, wash clothes etc. My kids are also very picky and I feel like we eat the same thing every week. The times I do venture out and try to introduce new foods they don't eat and I'm made that I've wasted even more. I also make a meal for them and one for my husband and I and he and I eat after he gets home later in the evening. Ugh!!

Is anyone willing to post their weekly menu/food shopping list?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IME kids (I have boys) don't eat very much until around 5- there is an increase every year, but by age 6 or 7, they eat like adult and by age 10 they eat like 1.5 adults and when they are in MS and HS, they eat like 2-3 adults. YMMV

My daughter is now 10 and I hae to agree. Its stunning.

yes my 14 year old ( who weighs about 125) eats more than his 3 girl/cousins combined

[quote=Anonymous]OP here - thanks for the posts... It actually looks like my weekly budget of about $300 for groceries/ monthly supplies ie TP and Paper Towels is pretty on point. Which is good and bad I suppose.. I was hoping that I could spend less but also seems like with 5 mouths to feed I am going to be in the $1100 a month range regardless if I want to keep buying high quality foods that we are used to.. I would like to be able to not waste produce so much. I feel like every Sunday we "clean out" the fridge and there is food that was perfectly good that has spoiled cause we didn't use it .. it is a terrible waste. Any food storage ideas out there!? thanks for all the info[/quote]

I SAHM too, 3 kids, and one thing that helped me not waste food was I made the move to clear glass containers. Pyrex. It helps to be able to see all the stuff, and easy to reheat in the microwave if it's already in a glass dish. I grill a lot of Panko chicken and leftovers can be used in multiple ways, especially if it's seen as soon as I open the door. I also organize the fridge better - fruit and veggies on one shelf, leftovers on another, smoothies and yogurts on another. I no longer shop at WF - lots of great healthy options as Costco for much less.

OP, you can get your number way down! I feed the 5 of us on about $800-$835/mo. This includes paper towels etc that I buy at Costco, but not alcohol. My kids are 6, 8 and 11. I eat lunch out once per week and DH pays for lunch 1-2 times/week (he eats out more, but it is for work and paid for. He packs 1-2 per week.) Some suggestions for you:

Start with the kids! They are eating toast and cream cheese because they're allowed to. Tell them that you're done making everyone separate meals. You make a meal, they eat it. You can accommodate some preferences by serving the meatballs and sauce separately from the spaghetti or not putting Cajun spices on all of the pork chops, but you're not making quesadillas for Larla while everyone else eats salmon. If they don't eat the meal that it offered, then they wait until the next meal/snack time. Someone will test you at the start and then it will improve after about a week. (you might keep the full dinner plate sitting on the counter that first week instead of scraping it right away -- I had one kid who would decide around 730 that she really did need to eat dinner after all and then wolfed down her meal.)

Second, use your deep freezer! Find some meats on sale or at Costco and put them in there so you have an arsenal to pull from. At night, put tomorrow's chicken breasts into the fridge to defrost. This will free up room in your regular fridge to see the produce and other fresh food that you have available.

Third, get yourself organized. Pick a grocery app on for your phone. Many of them let you share between users if both you and DH shop. Some of them include a meal planning feature, tho that usually isn't in the free version. I use the free AnyList and really like it, but check out what works for you. It lets you go to the store with a definite list in mind and keeps you focused while you're there. My kids know that if it isn't on the list, we don't buy it!

And then sit down to do a meal plan for the week. Take into account what activities you have on various nights, how much time there is and who is cooking. Build in a leftover night. Plan for the weekends, too. And always have an easy fallback meal in case your original plan cannot come together. We can always do beans and rice. The Costco frozen salmon fillets are also easy -- they defrost in about 30 minutes and cook in 8.

Make use of your time in the kitchen, too. Chop the entire onion and put what you don't need now into a Tupperware to pull from for the next few days. Make a big salad tonight and eat the rest tomorrow. I don't like to do too much with fruit in advance because I feel like it spoils, but YMMV.

Anonymous wrote:We're about $250-$300 a week, ages 5, 8, and 11.

Mine are the exact same ages as yours and we spend right around $300/week, and this does not include 3-4 lunches out for DH each week, but does include every other breakfast-lunch-dinner-take out.

OP, I sympathize. I have one very picky eater who eats 5 things, and one with a lot of food allergies who gets a separate meal. So basically 3 separate breakfast/lunch/dinners. Its a drag and I'm envious of those who can plan one meal per mealtime.

The 11 year old grew 5 inches this past year and eats like a condemned prisoner at every meal.

We're about $250-$300 a week, ages 5, 8, and 11.

[quote=Anonymous]OP here - I appreciate everyone's feed back and I totally agree I am totally over spending and wasting so much food and $. I have 3 very little kids .. one 1 year old and 2 5 year olds .. they literally eat toast and cream cheese and fruit ... and somehow we blow through $300 a week and then throw food away every week. I think also the problem is my husband and I both randomly pop to the grocery store.. like 3 times a week and don't even know what the other got. I am going to start by cutting this out, only go one time a week if we didn't get something we can manage for 6 days till the next time we go etc. Thanks very much for all the advice. [/quote]

We recently started using a grocery delivery service (Peapod). It has really helped us to budget and actually have a plan for what we are buying. It's amazing what we were buying in the store (especially if the kid was WITH us asking for random stuff) that we had no plan for and that would usually just end up going to waste (or unnecessarily to our waistlines!). You can get free delivery for like 60 days if you sign up for Peapod (or comparable services). It's worth doing if you can, just to see what you are actually buying and limiting your trips to the store. It has definitely been a worthy exercise in our experience! Good luck.

OP here - I appreciate everyone's feed back and I totally agree I am totally over spending and wasting so much food and $. I have 3 very little kids .. one 1 year old and 2 5 year olds .. they literally eat toast and cream cheese and fruit ... and somehow we blow through $300 a week and then throw food away every week. I think also the problem is my husband and I both randomly pop to the grocery store.. like 3 times a week and don't even know what the other got. I am going to start by cutting this out, only go one time a week if we didn't get something we can manage for 6 days till the next time we go etc. Thanks very much for all the advice.

[quote=Anonymous]OP here - thanks for the posts... It actually looks like my weekly budget of about $300 for groceries/ monthly supplies ie TP and Paper Towels is pretty on point. Which is good and bad I suppose.. I was hoping that I could spend less but also seems like with 5 mouths to feed I am going to be in the $1100 a month range regardless if I want to keep buying high quality foods that we are used to.. I would like to be able to not waste produce so much. I feel like every Sunday we "clean out" the fridge and there is food that was perfectly good that has spoiled cause we didn't use it .. it is a terrible waste. Any food storage ideas out there!? thanks for all the info[/quote]

You are spending a ton. I feed a family of 5, all men, except myself. Ages 18, 12, & 8 for $250/wk.

You have little little kids who barely consume together as much as my 12yr old. If you don't figure out how to be less wasteful, your grocery bill will he $500 /wk when your kids start eating real meals. Id bet you are wasting a good $100 a week.

Anonymous wrote:IME kids (I have boys) don't eat very much until around 5- there is an increase every year, but by age 6 or 7, they eat like adult and by age 10 they eat like 1.5 adults and when they are in MS and HS, they eat like 2-3 adults. YMMV

My daughter is now 10 and I hae to agree. Its stunning.