My First Grocery Haul

     The poverty line comes to something like only being able to spend $1.50 on food per person, per day. That’s not a lot at all. So I want to share with you all what I buy, how long it should last me, and how to make that work the best we can.

So first some simple math. $1.50 a person, for a week. Now for me, I personally work away from home for days at a time. Normally 3 days a week I don’t even see my house. So I’m going to plan for a week, even though I might not take things up with me. Some food travels better than others.

1.50x7=$10.50 per week for food.

I personally am aiming to stay right around there, give or take a bit depending on what I already have at home. I also highly recommend shopping at Aldi if you don’t already. Their selection is amazing and their prices are really hard to beat. Another tip, one I will go into more detail in future posts, is to buy what’s in season.

Here is what I got:

Blueberries .99

Navel Oranges 1.99
Blueberry Bagels 1.89

PB Crackers .89

Turkey lunch meat 4 at .49 each

Sliced Swiss Cheese 1.79

Cereal Bar 1.49

Cream Cheese .79

Total spent $11.79. So not to far off from poverty line. Let’s look at how many meals I can get out of that.

Breakfast. I already had eggs, so between those and the bagels I can have breakfast for more than 7 days. Six bagels with cream cheese and some eggs to finish up the week.

Lunch. I have enough meat for four sandwiches. I can also make grilled swiss cheese sandwiches as well for between those days. So there’s at least 7 days worth.

Snack. There is at least 7 oranges in the package I bought. I could also swap out some blueberries or some of the peanut butter crackers. The cereal bars are also great for between meals.

Dinner. Now yes, you have noticed that I have used up everything I bought already. That’s because I am lucky enough to have rice on hand, a few eggs left over, and some frozen veggies that I can easily make a weeks worth of dinners out of.

This first run wasn’t bad, I’m fairly proud of myself that I at least have breakfast and lunch now for the next week. Those are the meals I normally skip most often.