After Week 1 the stats are:

Out to eat= $0
Starbucks= $0 (unfortunately I couldn't talk Cale into this morning, I realize I'm a terrible person)
Groceries= $48.20
I'm fully aware this will be my easiest week to keep the grocery bill in check.  I have food in the freezer and since we've been planning this for a little while now, I've been secretly buying a little more food than average the last 2 weeks.  I realize this kind of artificially skews the numbers but I was willing to do that for a little budget moral these next two months.  This upcoming week is pretty typical other than Cinco de Mayo and family coming down on Sunday.  And I realize that Cinco de May is kind of an American celebration (is this true??) but we will use any excuse to eat guacamole and tacos.  Cinco de Mayo must be celebrated with guacamole and tacos and since we love Mexican food we're having fajitas on Sunday for dinner too.  I will not lie.  Cale and I could eat a mixture of beans, rice, meat, and spice every single day of the week.  

Anyways, the menu is below:

Tonight: Salad (we call it 'The Ultimate Salad' because everything and its mama gets put on it)

Tomorrow: Shrimp tacos or burritos or fajitas & guacamole 

Sunday: Repeat substituting chicken for shrimp and adding some beans and rice on the side

Monday: Baked potatoes and chile

Tuesday: Salad with leftover fajita fillings on top

Wednesday: Homemade pizza

Thursday: Quiche

Friday: Beans and Rice

I know, I know, you want to come to our place to eat.  

Ha!  It may not be exciting but it still tastes good and is cheap!  Yes!  And lunches are always made out of leftovers from the days before.  Therefore, usually on Sunday and Monday I'll make a family sized meal because it guarantees leftovers for the rest of the week. As soon as we're done eating for the night, we package all leftovers either in freezer containers or lunch sized portions.  Then when we wake up all we have to do is throw a salad in a container, grab a piece of fruit, and whatever container we want from the top and we're out the door.  This system has worked great for us the past [almost] 3 years.  Below is a real time picture of our fridge.... Usually there are more containers on the top but since we only have 1 day of work left this week, we're almost to the end of our leftovers.  Perfect.  We're kind of anal about not wasting food and planning meals perfectly to only have enough containers for the number of lunches remaining.  Especially since we're on such a tight grocery budge.. everything we throw away is wasted money.  That makes it sound like we're way more anal than we actually are.  In reality, we throw away some fruit and vegetables at the end of some weeks but we really try not to.

Enough of my blurbing... this is how the money was spent this week:

3 lb bag of onions- $1.69
Cucumber- $0.49
Pineapple- $0.97
2 lb of apples- $2.06
Pint of grape tomatoes- $1.25
3 green peppers- $1.47
3 avocados- $2.64
3 limes- $0.50
2 Mangos- $1.76
3  orange bell peppers- $2.97
1 lb Roma tomatoes- $0.93
Head of Romaine Lettuce (I think I actually got green leaf.. whatever)- $0.88
3 bags of snacks- $2.97 (on sale from $2.49 each!)
Chocolate syrup- $1.79
Corn chips- $1.99
5- 2 Liters of Coke (I know this is terrible)- $5.00
1-1 Liter of Coke (I know even worse.. but it's movie night tonight)- $0.99
Tortillas- $1.29
2 bags of shredded cheese- $3.99
1 dozen eggs- $1.63
1/2 gallon almond milk- $2.69
5 lbs chicken- $4.93
Carton of fresh salsa from the deli- $2.50

TOTAL= $48.20

This was really exciting because I was aiming to be under $50 bucks.  And I could have easily eliminated the snacks and soda to save about 10 extra bucks.  I definitely didn't go as cheap as possible but we're not trying to torture ourselves with potato only diet for 2 months and we love having people over and we're not serving them only hard boiled eggs and beans.  Not only would that make a mess of their digestive system... they'd probably never come over again.

P.S.  The only way to get the soda for that cheap was to buy it in bulk.  Excuse yes... but I still made it under budget!