Here’s How I Ate For A Whole Week On A $25 Grocery Budget

I always look for deals on everything I buy, I get clothes from thrift stores unless I have a gift card, and I enjoy checking menu prices before I go out to eat at restaurants. I even write about budgeting and share money-saving tips on my website, Choose Frugal.

I planned on having the same thing for breakfast every day, leftovers for multiple meals, and two types of snacks: one sweet and one savory.

Lately I've been eating the same thing for breakfast anyway, so I knew that wouldn't really matter to me. I'm also not really into cooking, so having lots of leftovers meant I could spend less time preparing my meals — win!

Once I'd decided on my menu for the week, I listed out the ingredients with their online prices based on the two grocery stores near me that I know are cheap: Aldi and the 99 Cent Store. The Aldi website doesn’t show prices so I actually had to check using Instacart. I had a pretty good idea what the 99 Cent Store prices would be though (obviously).

I estimated being a little over $25, so I hoped my actual spending would end up being less!

Some notes about what I chose:

• I have no dietary restrictions (meat, dairy, and grains are all fair game for me).

• The majority of these ingredients are staples that can sit in the pantry for a while, like the canned non-perishables, oatmeal, pasta, etc. I like keeping these kinds of items on hand so I always have meals I can cook at home.

• I opted for frozen vegetables because they last longer (I don't like stressing out about making sure I eat veggies stored in the fridge before they go bad).

• I picked recipes that didn't require weirdly specific ingredients — a lot of them use spices (which I already had at home) to add flavor.

• I'd made all these recipes before, so I already knew roughly how many meals I could get from them.

• I didn't want to spend hours in the kitchen cooking, so I chose simple meals that wouldn't require much chopping/prepping. (It took me less than 30 minutes to make each meal.)

• I didn't track calories nor macros, but I still wanted to be relatively healthy. I tried to make sure I didn't get anything that'd make me feel like my arteries were clogging up.

There were a few notable differences from my estimate:

• I found pasta sauce for $0.99 at the 99 Cent Store, so I didn’t need to buy the tomato sauces and tomato paste from Aldi for $1.56 (savings = $0.57).

• 99 didn’t have peanut butter nor oatmeal, so instead of the estimated $2 for both, I ended up spending $3.88 at Aldi (over estimate = $1.88).

• I estimated $2.49 for sweet potatoes but they ended up being on sale for $0.79 (savings = $1.70).

• I found frozen stir-fry bell peppers for $0.99 at 99, so I didn’t need to buy a bag of peppers for $3.25 at Aldi (savings = $2.26).

• The cantaloupe was on sale for $0.25 — YAY (savings = $0.64).

But the big question is...how much did it all cost??

A couple of quick things:
• I didn't buy any additional spices since I have a TON.

• I also didn't buy any staple condiments since I had those at home. The specific condiments I used were soy sauce and Stevia (or sugar).

• I normally just use nonstick oil spray when I cook, and I had some on hand so didn't need to purchase more (you could use any type of oil you already have in your pantry).

Then, it was time to prepare the food!

For my breakfast, I prepared one serving of oatmeal and added one tablespoon of peanut butter, some Stevia, and cinnamon. Please note the picture above is about one-third of my breakfast portion (I just used this bowl for the ~aesthetic~).

I ate this oatmeal for breakfast all week. I’ve been doing that for months anyway, so it really wasn’t different from what I normally do.

I cut up the cantaloupe to eat throughout the week. I also boiled one dozen eggs, so that equated to about two eggs per day, except for one day when I knew I wouldn't eat any. If you're curious, I eat my hard-boiled eggs with soy sauce (don't @ me).

For the first two days, I made chicken curry with rice by (loosely) following this Ambitious Kitchen recipe.

Here are the substitutions I made:

• Instead of garlic cloves, I used garlic powder

• I replaced the fresh veggies listed in the recipe with my frozen stir-fry veggies

Snack update: I didn’t actually have any snacks on day one because I was so full from the portions of curry I had for lunch and dinner! On day two, I had some cantaloupe and two eggs. I actually ate the same size lunch and dinner portions, so theoretically I shouldn’t have been hungry? Who knows.

By day three, I was super glad to be eating something new. (The curry was good and it normally doesn’t bother me to eat leftovers, but four big meals in a row was a bit much.)

I actually thought about making both the pasta and my next meal (sweet potato chili) to alternate but…laziness won out so I made just the pasta.

I didn't follow a recipe for this dish, but here's how I cooked it: I boiled the pasta according to the directions on the package. While that was cooking, I browned the ground turkey in a separate pan, and then added the pasta sauce and a generous amount of spices (I used Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, black pepper, and a bit of basil). That's it!

Snack update: On day four I actually finished all the cantaloupe. Probably should’ve portioned it out instead of eating it right out of the container ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

By day five I was, once again, eager to eat something new. I used this Sweet Peas and Saffron recipe as a guide to make this meal.

Here are the substitutions I made:

• Since I didn't end up getting tomato sauce, I used the leftover pasta sauce. (I figure it's all just variations of tomatoes, right?)

• I didn't have adobo sauce so I omitted it

• Instead of stock, I just used water

• I replaced the garlic cloves and the two small onions with the spices I had at home (garlic and onion powder)

• I didn't buy fresh carrots so I just added about half the bag of frozen mixed vegetables

Even with the substitutions, it turned out tasting just fine!

Snack update: On day six, I was wishing I still had my cantaloupe. I ate my hard-boiled eggs between meals if I got hungry, but I was more just...bored. My mouth was lonely for more variety of food.

For day seven, I made chicken fried rice with some of the frozen chicken and vegetables. I actually had another portion of the sweet potato chili left, but I wanted to mix it up!

I didn't use a recipe for this either but here's how I made it: I pan-fried the chicken and vegetables with soy sauce, ginger powder, and garlic powder. I cooked the rice in my trusty rice cooker, then simply combined it with the chicken and vegetables.

Snack update: I ate the last two hard-boiled eggs while feeling incredibly excited about the thought of snacking on something new the next day.