life | what we eat for (a little more than) $29 a week

*Edit: I didn't realize that the original challenge (you can learn more here) allows for $29 PER PERSON.  $29 for a family of 4 (2 adults/2 children) seemed really tight (though likely doable with sacrifices), but the $29 per person actually sounds quite generous and reasonable to me.  Whoops, guess I should read the original source and not just a repost before writing next time!  The post below was written based off my mistaken understanding of a $29 TOTAL budget.  According to the challenge, our family would actually have a grocery budget of $116 to work with for one week.*

Yesterday, my friend, Julie, sent me a message asking if I would be interested in writing about what $29 buys our family at the grocery store.  The idea for it came from a facebook post by Gwyneth Paltrow:

While I'm sure the intentions behind her post were just fine (uhh, giving the benefit of the doubt here), it struck both Julie and me as a little ridiculous that one would include 7 limes, a bunch of cilantro, and an avocado if you were really trying to feed your family on $29 for a week.

As it happened, I received Julie's message just as I was heading out to Aldi with my meal plan and list in hand.  I usually meal plan and do my initial shopping trip for the week on Mondays, and I didn't change my list at all after receiving Julie's message, so I was interested to see how far off I would be from the $29 mark.  My goal is to keep our weekly grocery budget around $40, but sometimes I'll go up to $50 if I need to replenish a pantry item like olive oil or buy paper towels.  Since we don't have a car here in Germany, I usually shop every other day since I can only buy as much as I am able to carry home.  However, Isaac did airport drop-off for a friend of our family, and that friend loaned us his car while he was traveling - very generous and super helpful especially when it comes to grocery shopping!  So I was able to buy just about all of my groceries for the week all in one trip.

Here's my original meal plan unaltered for the "experiment" (please pardon my hand writing - I'm well aware that it's horrible):

You can print off your own copy of this lovely meal plan (sans my best imitation of dr. handwriting) here.

Unless we have company coming for dinner, we usually eat our main meal at noon (as most Germans do).  Since we live on the seminary campus, it's not a problem for Isaac to come home for lunch between classes and studying in the library.  We then usually eat a lighter dinner of fresh fruits/veggies and Brotchen (German bread rolls commonly eaten for breakfast/dinner) with cheese, deli meat, and a variety of spreads.  

Isaac has been practicing his pizza skills this year, and he now makes the BEST pizza you will ever have.  Promise.  He even makes the dough from scratch.  It's better than any pizza I've ever had delivered or in a restaurant.  I bet you'd like to come visit now, huh?  Pizza day is Friday.....so you can plan ahead. 

Anyway, back on track, here's my Aldi receipt this week:

My total was €35.50, but €3 of that was Pfand (deposit) for the bottles of sparkling water.  I'll get that  €3 back next week when I return the empty bottles so my actual total at Aldi was €32.50 (approximately $34 USD).

Of course, where you live can have a great impact on the cost of groceries.  I've found that while some items are more expensive here in Germany, others are cheaper, and it seems to balance out pretty well in the end.  The seminary my husband attends is located in a nicer suburb of Frankfurt, and the cost of living is quite a bit higher here than elsewhere in Germany.  Nonetheless, I've found that if I buy the bulk of our groceries at Aldi, we are easily able to keep our costs quite low.  If I shop at the main grocery stores, my weekly cost can get out of hand pretty quickly.

Here's what I purchased:

Plus I stocked up on sparkling water since we had use of the car.  I bought 2 cases at €1.15 each.

I also usually buy a few fresh pretzels.  Total cost of 3 fresh pretzels: $1.  Using pretzels for kid bribery: priceless. 

I am able to buy most of our groceries at Aldi, but there are usually a few items each week that I go to Edeka or Rewe (larger/more expensive shops) to purchase.  For example, Aldi (in Germany) only carries one kind of shredded cheese - ementaller (a type of swiss cheese).  Since we're having pizza this week, I walked to Edeka today to buy two bags of shredded mozzarella.  Those two bags of cheese cost €3 (approximately $3.25 USD).  A bit pricey, but the pizza is totally worth it, and it's still way cheaper than ordering one for delivery.

Additionally, I buy fresh Brotchen from one of our local bakeries most days adding a little less than €1/day or around €5/week.

That brings my grand total grocery cost for the week to right around $43 USD.  That's a week's worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a family of 4 for around $1.53/person/day.  More than $29 sure, but we're also eating 4 types of meat this week (salmon, chicken, beef, and ham) which we don't always/usually do, and certainly don't need to do, especially when we want to cut costs.  I could also have purchased less fresh produce, but we like fresh produce (our kids eat it up FAST), so I like to keep plenty on hand.  I also could have saved a few cents by buying regular tomatoes and carrots instead of bio (organic), buuuuut the bio ones taste better.  Plus, Elise will sometimes help herself to an unwashed/unpeeled carrot, and buying the organic ones makes me feel better about that.  Should it?  Eh, maybe not.  Do me a favor and don't tell me if I'm wrong on this one.  Anyway, the point is that I could have cut out a bit more, but this seems to be a good balance for our family between saving money and eating well.  I have fresh rosemary, parsley, basil, and green onions on my window sill that I use most commonly for our seasonings (so long as I can manage to keep them alive).  I also have regular pantry items like olive oil, yeast, butter, coffee, jam, and dry oats that we use regularly but don't need to buy weekly (thus the fluctuation between our usual $40-$50).

Just for argument's sake, had I not bought the salmon (I bought 2 packages since we were having company for dinner on Monday) or sparkling water (both awesome but not necessary to survive for a week), I would have almost perfectly hit the $29 mark.  But hey, I love salmon and sparkling water, and it's the little things in life, guys. :)

Just to break it down a bit further, let's compare......

Produce

Gwyneth bought:
lettuce, kale, 1 ear of corn, 1 onion, 1 tomato, 1 pepper, 1 sweet potato, 1 head of garlic, green onions, 7 limes (?), cilantro, and frozen peas

Not a bad selection, but it won't come close to feeding a family for a week.

I bought:

6 apples, 5 pears, 1 bunch bananas, 1 large bag bio carrots, 1 head broccoli, 3 bell peppers, and a large bag of onions

Dairy

Gwyneth bought:
eggs

I bought:

eggs, 2 liters milk, 1 package gouda slices, 1 wedge brie, 1 container Frischkäse (cottage cheese), a large package of plain yogurt, and the 2 bags of shredded cheese (not pictured)

Meat/Protein

Gwyneth bought:
1 bag black beans  

^^I gotta say, this is a good one.  Beans aren't super popular here, and as a result they tend to be more expensive.  Definitely not the budget-friendly food they are in the US.

I bought:
1 package chicken (2 meals), 1 package ground beef, 2 packages salmon (unless we don't count the salmon to keep us at the same $29), 1 package sliced ham

Dry Goods/Misc.

Gwyneth bought:

1 bag of rice, 1 package of tortillas

I bought:
1 jar pesto, 1 jar tomato sauce, 1 can tomatoes, 1 can corn, 1 bag flour (which makes 2 weeks worth of pizza dough, 500g bag of pasta (2 meals worth), and a week's worth of fresh bread/Brotchen (not pictured)

I do try to keep our canned foods to a minimum, but Aldi's corn and tomatoes have proven to be quite good.

You can draw your own conclusions here, but my takeaway from this is that I don't feel deprived or destitute on around $29/week.  I get the point that Gwyneth was trying to make, but I think it falls short.

Some weeks we do spend a bit more, some weeks a bit less.  We've been blessed to have the flexibility in our budget to do that.  Some weeks we buy a little beer (my husband loves those weeks....and come on - we live in Germany!), and some weeks we add a bottle of wine to our cart.  We're trying to be good stewards of what we've been blessed with, and that means taking care of our family while taking care of our finances.  We're not living this way because we can't afford to spend any more on groceries, we're living this way because we don't need to spend more than that on groceries right now.  There's a difference there, and it's not something we take for granted because many people don't have that flexibility in their finances.  For a number of years WE didn't have that flexibility in our finances.  Isaac and I got married when we were fairly young (21 and 20 respectively), and we've lived our entire marriage (almost 5 years now) on only my income + whatever academic stipend Isaac has received (and he's been in school the entire time).  Just because you can spend more money on food doesn't mean you necessarily have to, and right now we'd rather put that extra money towards paying off the rest of Isaac's seminary student loan debt!