This Week’s Menu

Monday

Breakfast: Green smoothies

Lunch: Leftovers from last week

Dinner: Thai basil beef with cauliflower rice

Tuesday

Breakfast: Green smoothies

Lunch: Leftovers from last night

Dinner: A riff on Belgian drunk food involving Italian sausage, beet pickled fennel, sweet potato hash, and sriracha mayo (recipe coming soon)

Wednesday

Breakfast: Green smoothies

Lunch: Delivery due to poor planning – I ordered a grilled split chicken large enough for 4 lunches and a side of sweet potato fries

Dinner: Avocado Chicken Burgers with sautéed broccoli and onions

Thursday

Breakfast: Green smoothies

Lunch: Grilled chicken

Dinner: Tonight’s dinner was supposed to be a green bean/chicken/bacon/avocado bowl, but the hubbs felt duped last night when I said ‘burgers’ and they weren’t of the beef variety. Luckily, I keep ground beef on hand for just such an occasion. Beef burgers it was – with sunchokes

Friday

Breakfast: Green smoothies

Lunch: Grilled chicken

Dinner: Out

Saturday

Breakfast: Grabbed a bar out

Lunch:

Dinner: Game night party – beer-braised brisket with paleo crepes & buns for those eating bread, plus lemon curd with paleo lemon poppyseed bread for dessert

Sunday

Breakfast: Out

Lunch: Out

Dinner: Delivery

This Week’s Grocery List

Hot Italian sausage, 1 lb. ($5.99 @ Amazon Fresh)
Carrots, 1 lb. ($1.29 @ Amazon Fresh)
Kerrygold unsalted butter, 8 oz. ($4.99 @ Amazon Fresh)
Green beans, 1 lb. ($1.69 @ Amazon Fresh)
Scallions ($0.92 @ Amazon Fresh)
Just BARE no antibiotics boneless skinless chicken thighs, 20 oz. ($5.49 @ Amazon Fresh)
Meal Mart Kosher Brisket, 1.5 lbs. x2 ($44.98 @ Amazon Fresh)
Fennel ($1.99 @ Amazon Fresh)
Pasture raised eggs, 12 ($4.49 @ Amazon Fresh)
Broccoli, 1 bunch ($2.50 @ Amazon Fresh)
Applegate Naturals bacon, 8 oz. ($4.59 @ Amazon Fresh)
Organic air chilled ground chicken, 1 lb. ($7.99 @ Amazon Fresh)
Grass fed ground beef, 1 lb. ($9.99 @ Amazon Fresh)
1 head cauliflower ($2.34 @ Amazon Fresh)
1 yellow onion ($1.18 @ Amazon Fresh)
Poland Spring sparkling water, 6-pack of 16.9 ounce bottles ($2.99 @ Amazon Fresh)
Gotham Greens basil, 1 ounce ($4.49 @ Amazon Fresh)
Reynolds aluminum foil, 75 sq. ft. ($2.99 @ Amazon Fresh)
Sunchokes ($9.34 @ Whole Foods)
Mixed Nuts ($7.99 @ Whole Foods)
Pistachios ($8.99 @ Whole Foods)

Smoothie Supplies

4 Apples ($3.16 @ Amazon Fresh)
3 lbs. mixed lemons and limes ($7.04 @ Amazon Fresh)
4 Avocados ($4.49 @ Amazon Fresh)
Bagged kale, 1 lb. ($2.99 @ Whole Foods)
Bagged spinach ($2.99 @ Whole Foods)

Totals

Amazon Fresh: $130.12
Whole Foods: $32.30

Budget Breakout

This week, I spent $162.42; $62.42 over budget. Aaaaaaand there goes my surplus for the month. This week, I needed extra supplies for a party I’m hosting on Saturday, so things got a little expensive. And we needed snacks. Plus I impulse bought $10 worth of sunchokes because I thought I needed another side.

Leftovers From This Week

At the end of the week, I have carrots, some rapidly aging celery, a few sweet potatoes, Italian sausage, chicken and ground beef left over. I need to incorporate these items into my menu for next week.

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Think eating healthfully is too expensive for you? Think again. According to the USDA, to ensure a nutritious diet as of December 2014, a family of two aged 19-59 years should spend between $388.90 and $776.10 on food per month, or $89.80 – $179.30 per week. Source 

For my family of two adults, I spend roughly $400 a month on groceries or $100 a week – and we eat well. Not caviar and lobster well, but I do manage to serve a predominately paleo diet with little to no processed foods, and I get to throw in a few luxuries here and there (like expensive snacks for the hubbs and the occasional ridiculously expensive bag of coffee). We even manage to buy “good” meat (grass fed beef and free-range chicken) most of the time – and I make this budget work even on the weeks we pay for convenience by getting delivery groceries. I make: 10 breakfasts, 5 lunches, and 10 dinners a week – plus enough snacks to satisfy and fuel two active adults.

I’m hoping that this series will help shed a little light on the day-to-day things a “paleo” person really eats — and how that way of eating can work on a budget. I want to nudge anyone sitting on the fence right over the edge by showing that it *can* be done and that you don’t just eat meat, meat, meat and more meat.