Spending Less than $1000 in April | The Grocery Diaries — Week 2 Wrapup

This is week 2! Here are the previous posts if you missed them:

Intro to the Grocery Diaries
Week 1 Grocery Diaries Wrapup

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Well, I came into week 2 hoping that I could only spend $200 so that my average would be $250 for the first two weeks. I didn’t do it. I spent $300 again, as I will share below. That means I only have $200/week for the last two weeks of the month, which includes spring break. That’s usually a tough week for the budget because my kids aren’t eating lunch at school, and they also seem to snack more when they’re at home.

Let’s dive into what this week looked like in terms of buying, making, and eating!

🛒 Grocery Haul

I had 4 in-person store transactions this week and 1 meat order from Butcher Matt (our neighbor and friend). Last week I had 7 transactions total, which included an extra Costco trip and an Amazon order. I successfully avoided Amazon this week!

I shopped at Costco, Kroger, Aldi, and Publix — one time each.

My Aldi haul this week—lots of produce as well as a few things that were cheapest there compared to other places

🗂 Breakdown by Store & Date

Here’s what I bought and spent during each of those 5 different transactions.

📅 Kroger - 4/10/25

• Smoked turkey sausage

• Ice cream

• Chick-fil-a sauces

• Coffee

• Cheese sticks

• Fruit cups

• Bananas

• Granola bars

• Blueberries

• Pork sirloin roast

• Blackberries

• Salad dressing

• Soda

Total: $96.35

📅 Aldi - 4/11/25

• Coleslaw mix

• Cheese slices

• Tater tots

• French fries

• Buffalo chicken strips

• Chicken nuggets

• Yellow potatoes

• Tortilla chips

• Apples

• Low carb tortillas

• Carrots

• Yellow onions

• Bell peppers

• Organic 2% milk

• Cutie mandarin oranges

Total: $62.85

My Costco haul this week. I’m hoping I can skip a Costco trip during week 3 because even when I only get a few things it’s still a big chunk of the budget!

📅 Costco – 4/11/25

• Dishwasher tabs

• Eggs

• Frozen broccoli

• Chicken breakfast sausage

• Pepperoni

• Egg whites

• Chicken nuggets

Total: $84.66

📅 Publix - 4/12/25

• Butter

• Smoked sausage

Total: $14.52

📅 Matt - 4/10/25

• Pork chops

• Ground pork

• Summer sausage

• Garlic ground chicken sausage

Total: $43

I was already near Publix, so it wasn’t anything out of the way to only go in for two different items that were on deep discount!

🍽️ What We Ate This Week

It’s all well and good to see what I bought, but what did we actually eat?

I’ve already shared my approach to breakfast and lunch for my kids. We have a pretty set routine during school mornings, but I sometimes mix it up on the weekends.

Buffalo chicken dip (before cooking it) made with leftover rotisserie chicken

For dinner, I have a bunch of meals I rotate through depending on what I’m in the mood to make. Once a week, Christian and I have date night at home and make something yummy while the kids eat something from the freezer.

For the second week of April, here were our dinners:

• Chicken enchiladas and frozen corn

• Dinner made for the kids by my mother-in-law while Christian and I were out of town (we ate at Buc-ees on the way home)

• Taco bowls

• Pork chops, rice, green beans

• Pesto shrimp pasta for me and Christian for date night; buffalo chicken dip and fruit for the kids

• Tater tot casserole, fruit, and leftovers

• Anniversary date for me and Christian; I got Little Caesar’s pizza for the kids (this comes out of our eating out budget!)

I also made some energy bites to keep in the fridge for snacks as well as some hard boiled eggs.

Over the weekend, I made curry pork and cabbage (no recipe—it’s literally just ground pork, coleslaw mix, and curry powder and seasoning) that made 6 servings for Christian and I to eat for lunches during the coming week.

💰 Running Total for April

I spent $301.83 this week, and $300.75 during the first week. That makes a total of $602.13. That leaves me about $400 for the last two weeks of April.

📝 Notes & Reflections

I went to Publix specifically because butter was on sale for only $3.60/lb. This is a great price. Then I immediately went to Aldi and found it was even cheaper. I wasn’t too upset because the difference was obviously pretty negligible, but it just goes to show again that you can’t always catch all the best deals, even if you try!

This was a week where I felt like I did a good job making do with what I had when I had either forgotten something or just didn’t think ahead. For example, I usually make sauteed peppers and onions for our taco bowls, but I only had onions.

One great deal for this week happened at Kroger. I was looking at the bone-in pork roast on salefor $2.49/lb and was about to buy some when I spotted two pork sirloin roasts next to them in the case that were only $1.99/lb. I got both of them! There was no special sticker and the sell-buy date was still a week away so I have no idea why they were marked down — but $8 for a dinner’s worth of meat is a great deal for our family. I’ll be turning those into pulled pork at some point.

🔭Looking Ahead

I have $400 left for two weeks. This coming weekend is Easter, and I’ll be making extra food for an event in our neighborhood. I do have an Easter “budget” that I use for Easter basket goodies and extra food, so that will be somewhat supplementing our grocery budget, but I’ll be sure to make it clear in my post next week.

I am out of meat reserves in the freezer so will probably end up doing a larger order from Butcher Matt, but I hope that I can buy less of other things due to stocking up in these early weeks. See you next week for another update!

I know some of you are doing your own challenge. I’d love to know how it’s going!