If I am being totally honest, grocery trips have been stressing me out lately. Where we live there are a lot of the “traditional” grocery stores such as Safeway, Fry’s or Albertsons. There are also options such as Sprouts, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods which are not always as large as the chain grocery stores but provide great options as well. When my husband and I were first married almost ten years ago we did most of our shopping at Whole Foods but as our family grew that was not very realistic. In the areas we have lived over the past 3 years there have been Sprouts very close by, which I love. It is probably my favorite place to shop but with the rising costs of groceries, I do feel that it can be more expensive at times.
There are so many things to think about when grocery shopping, are these things that my kids will eat? Am I going to go over budget? Is this food organic? Is this healthy? Am I forgetting anything? Most weeks I try to meal plan on Sunday evening when we are planning our week out, and then do two small-medium trips a week. Typically these happen on Monday and Thursday. Sometimes those days may need to shift a little but that is what I try to stick with. I am going to share with you some things that are almost always in my cart! They are staples that we enjoy having in the pantry and I know pretty much anyone in our family will eat. I will also share how I can use them for some of our favorite go-to meals.
- Pita Bread and Hummus: everyone in our family loves pita bread and hummus. In fact, our six year old daughter has it in her lunch pretty much every day. Hummus is great as well because you can grab baby carrots and cucumbers (both of which are affordable) and have a great platter for snacks, or I will even put it out at dinner time. I try to always have something that the kids like at dinner and this is something that will always get eaten. I rely on things like that when I am unsure if any of the kids will enjoy what the main meal is.
- Fruit: our girls love strawberries; which unfortunately are going out of season so they have been more difficult to find. Bananas are always in my cart because we all love them but even if they go bad, we can bake with them! Cantelope and watermelon are enjoyed by everyone, same with apples and grapes! Our older kids know that they always have to have fruit in their lunches and most of the time when the kids want a snack, I have them start with fruit. If we have berries that we do not finish then we always freeze them before they go bad to enjoy in smoothies.
- Bread: Jack and Elizabeth both love sandwiches and they eat one pretty much every day. But we also will typically have one morning where breakfast is toast and fruit. And I recently taught Jack how to make toast by himself so he enjoys that breakfast even more. Yesterday was so sweet, I came home and he was making himself and all of his little sisters peanut butter toast.
- Cereal: we try not to have cereal too much for breakfast, but there is always at least one morning a week where that is what we have planned. School mornings are crazy as it is so having one that we know is quick and simple makes a big difference.
- Meat tray and cheese: my husband and I love snacking on salami and cheese so this is something that I am always making sure we have. Eva and Elisha like it quite a bit as well; and we enjoy having a healthy and light snack that you can grab easily.
We do not use cereal and bread with our dinners but everything else I use for sides at dinner. As I mentioned before I like to have at least one thing out that I KNOW the kids will eat at dinners. Before the twins were born I was finding myself making one thing for my husband and I and a second thing for our kids to eat because “they wouldn’t like what we are having” and it was so much work. I also realized that I did not want to instill in them that there are foods I just assumed they wouldn’t like because they were kids. We started to embrace the idea of introducing them to foods and building familiarity. Two of our girls are definitely picky and as a picky eater myself I can empathize with them, but we have set up the expectation that they need to have food on their plate but do not need to eat it. We also do not rely on “you have to eat dinner to eat dessert” I explain to them that if they are eating sweet food without eating healthy food it will make their tummy hurt, but having things on the table that I know they will eat helps balance out any sort of “you must eat this in order to have dessert” So yes there may be times when one of the kids aren’t eating the broccoli or steak at dinner, but they are eating a lot of fruit or hummus with cucumber.
I would prefer to have fruit or sides that I know they will enjoy compared to making something different or having a stand off at the dinner table. I started out this post with sharing that groceries have been causing me anxiety lately, the cost of groceries has been going up for a while now and feeing the pressure of feeding a family of six, ensuring we eat healthy and have food we enjoy eating can feel like a lot. However I also know that we are so blessed and recently I was listening to a sermon where the pastor shared Proverbs 30:8 which says
“Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread” (NIV)
This verse helped me so much in how I can view our grocery trips. I know we are very privileged to go to a store that has such abundance and that we are able to budget so we can feed our family comfortably. However there is still stress and worry that comes along with serving our home and family. This verse reminds me that God will provide what we need each day and I need not worry more than I need to.
What staples do you have in your grocery cart each week? I would love to see them in the comments below!
