Hi Friends!
The #surviveon35 challenge has come to an end so it seem’s like now would be a good time to do a recap of the entire challenge! I was selected to participate in a challenge sponsored by Anytime Fitness and given $70 to buy groceries for this challenge.
I introduced the challenge over a week ago. CLICK HERE to read the intro post where I explain the challenge. The challenge kicked off last Wednesday and finished up last night!
I started by giving you guys a breakdown of how I planned my meals for this challenge and recapped my trip to the grocery store. CLICK HERE to read that post.
In summary, I made a meal plan and used that to make a grocery list. Then I visited two grocery stores to compare prices and chose the store with the best prices overall to do my shopping for this challenge. Based on the prices I recorded, I made some adjustments to my grocery list and then headed to the store.
The trip to the store took me a while because I found myself having to weigh all the items in the produce section AND I was constantly checking and double checking what I put in my cart.
I spent $56.87 during my first trip to the store and here’s what I came home with:
In my next post, I gave a detailed breakdown of everything I bought, including the prices. CLICK HERE to read that post.
In that same post, I showed you guys some of the prep work I did to make cooking the meals easier during the week and I shared some of the things I thought about while I was at the grocery store.
Then I recapped my daily eats for each day of the challenge. In each daily eats post, I included recipes for what I ate that day.
Day 1 Eats
Banana Berry Baked Oatmeal
Tuna & Black Bean Lettuce Boats
Plain Greek Yogurt w/ Berries & Cereal
Vegetarian Cabbage Rolls
CLICK HERE for larger pictures and recipes from Day 1.
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Day 2 Eats
Toasted Oats Cereal w/ Blueberries & PB Toast w/ Bananas
Hard Boiled Egg, Triscuits & Carrot Sticks
Burrito Salads
Celery Sticks w/ PB & Applesuace
Lentil Pot Pies w/ Strawberry Spinach Salad
CLICK HERE for larger pictures and recipes from Day 2.
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Day 3 Eats
Berry Breakfast Couscous
Hard Boiled Egg & Triscuits w/ PB
Lentil, Veggie & Brown Rice Soup w/ Blueberries & Applesauce
Green Monster Smoothie
Black Bean & Sweet Potato Quesadillas
Toasted Oats Cereal & Skim Milk
CLICK HERE for larger pictures and recipes from Day 3.
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Day 4 Eats
Scrambled Eggs, Whole Wheat Toast and Black Bean & Potato Hash
Side of Blueberries & Sliced Bananas
Fish Chowder w/ Hummus & Carrots
Plain Greek yogurt, Applesauce, Blueberries & Cereal
Black Bean & Brown Rice Burgers
Leftover Black Bean & Sweet Potato Quesadilla
CLICK HERE for larger pictures and recipes from Day 4.
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Day 5 Eats
French Toast with Sliced Bananas & Melted PB
Leftovers Day!
Leftover Lentil Pot Pie & Fish Chowder
Leftover Black Bean Burger Wrap
PB & Banana Quesadilla and a Hard Boiled Egg
Leftover Lentil Veggie Soup w/ a side of Beans, Lentils & Rice
Leftover Black Bean Burger w/ Beans & Rice (not pictured)
Banana Fro-yo w/ Blueberries
CLICK HERE to see larger pictures and recipes from Day 5
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Since I only spent $56.87 on my first trip, I returned to the store on Sunday to restock a few items. Going into this challenge my plan was to have about $10 leftover from my first trip so I would be able to restock a few things near the end of the week. Here’s what I bought:
I restocked some basics like fruit and milk,
And picked up some stuff for our last two dinners.
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Day 6 Eats
Oatmeal Smoothie Bowl
Tuna & Brown Rice Wrap
PB Chocolate Chip Larabar
Plain Greek yogurt, Applesauce, Blueberries & Cereal
Lentil Veggie Mac & Cheese w/ a side of Green Beans
CLICK HERE to see larger pictures and recipes from Day 6.
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Day 7 Eats
Eggs & Toast with a side of Strawberries
Leftover Lentil Mac & Cheese, Rice & Beans and PB Sandwich for hubby
Sweet Potato Oatmeal with PB & Cinnamon for me
Banana Berry Snack Balls
Fish Cakes with Rice & Beans, Green Beans & Roasted Carrots
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Since I didn’t do a separate post for Day 7 Eats,
I’ll share a few recipes with you here:
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Sweet Potato Oatmeal
For the sweet potato oatmeal, I microwaved a sweet potato,
saved half for later and added half to my oatmeal.
You could also diced it up and cook it right in with the oatmeal.
Top with pb and cinnamon!
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Fish Cakes
1/2 c cooked sweet potato, mashed
3 Tbsp onion, diced
1/3 c cooked black beans
1 clove garlic
2/3 c cooked, flaked fish
1/2 c breadcrumbs
1 egg
Old Bay & Cayenne pepper to taste
Mash the sweet potato, onion, black beans and garlic in a small bowl.
Mix in the fish, breadcrumbs and egg.
Form into 4 cakes.
Bake at 425 for 14 minutes, flipping once.
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Banana Berry Snack Balls
1/2 a banana, mashed
2 Tbsp peanut butter
1/4 c oats
1/3 c blueberries
Mix all ingredients in a small bowl.
Scoop into balls and refrigerate or freeze.
I tried them both ways and prefer them frozen,
and then slightly thawed! SO GOOD!
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Between my two trips to the store, I spent a grand total of $69.66.
For your reference, here’s a list of all of my #surviveon35 posts:
Menu Planning & Grocery Shopping
Grocery Breakdown and Food Prep
Day 1 Eats
Day 2 Eats
Day 3 Eats
Day 4 Eats
Day 5 Eats
Day 6 Eats
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Now, let’s recap some of my thoughts about the challenge!
Some things I noticed & learned:
- I did less mindless snacking. Usually I’m always grabbing a handful of cereal here, some crackers there…I did less of that because I simply didn’t purchase as many snack-type foods.
- I did less overall snacking. Usually I tend to eat several small meals throughout the day. During this challenge I found myself eating 3 main meals and one or two snacks. This means my 3 main meals were larger than I’m used to eating. I was eating more at meals and less between them.
- I was constantly thinking about how much food we had, re-evaluating my menu plan, worrying about whether we would run out of stuff.
- It’s tiring to cook every single meal. Typically we go out to eat at least once a week, sometimes twice. We couldn’t do that on this budget.
- When I think about it, $70 per week isn’t all that much less than we typically spend per week. However, I have a well-stocked pantry and freezer so I have more money to spend on things like fresh fruits.
- Planning is KEY. There’s no way I would have made it through this challenge without doing the amount of planning I did.
- There were things I missed, but they weren’t necessarily things I NEED for a healthy diet, just things I’m used to having like red peppers, coffee, almonds, avocados…
- I did go without some of my favorite items this week, but I do think they could be purchased on a similar budget..perhaps not every week, but you could definitely incorporate them into a multi-week rotation.
- Having a limited supply of foods to work with helped me come up with some combinations I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own.
- I never felt like I wasn’t getting enough food or that I was missing out on any nutrients.
- Frozen vegetables are awesome. I don’t know why I never bought them before, but I’m definitely going to start- they’re perfect for things that are going to be cooked anyways like soup and pot pies.
- There’s nothing wrong with store brand. The cereal and the tortillas I bought were both as good, if not better than the name brand kinds i’ve bought in the past!
- That it IS possible to eat healthy, nutritious meals on a limited budget.
- That eating on a budget doesn’t have to be boring. There are TONS of possibilites out there.
- That planning is critical for successfully eating well on a budget.
- That you shouldn’t be afraid to try something new! You just might like it 🙂
One whole wheat tortilla
Some hummus
About 1/2 cups of cooked black beans
About 2 cups of cooked lentils
A few cups of homemade veggie broth
About 1/4 gallon of milk (our second gallon)
1/2 a box of pasta
An 8 oz can of tomato sauce
1/4 pint of blueberries (our second pint)
About 1/4 jar of peanut butter
4 oz of cheese
2 zucchini
2 carrots
1 tomato
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Thanks so much for all of your support during the challenge! I had a great time sharing my eats with you! Big thanks to Fitfluential and Anytime Fitness for giving me the opportunity to participate. If you have a moment, I’d love for you to tweet and share this post and go through and like some of the photos I’ve posted on Instagram and Facebook over the past week if you haven’t already! The winners of the challenge will be chosen tomorrow!
If you enjoyed the campaign, please join Anytime Fitness and all of the #surviveon35 challengers for a Twitter Chat tomorrow (Thursday July 26th) at 7pm EST/6pm CST! Winners will be announced, so come find out who gets to give $1,000 to their favorite food pantry!
Enjoy!
–Lindsay–
Fitfluential compensated me for this campaign. All opinions are my own.
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This is a great post Lindsay and great lessons. Throughout the week, I was truly impressed with the incredible meals that you and the other #Surviveon35 participants came up with! Planning is key and I think that’s where I fall down in terms of keeping our food budget in control. Great job!!!
absolutely love this! truly shows that you CAN eat healthy on a low budget. i’m deff going to use some of your recipes! ps IM OBSESSED WITH ALL OF YOUR PICTURES!
This was so eye opening! You did a great job in showing that it is possible to eat healthy on a budget.
WOW
I have loved learning from all of you doing the challenged.
It really did turn out better than Id even imagined.
This is an epic post! Great thoughts that you observed throughout the week. I made a similar Tuna Lettuce Boat meal for dinner last night, inspired by you. It was a delicious, filling meal (I have leftovers) and not expensive to make at all. Thanks for recapping each day in this convenient location. I’ll use it and reference these recipes in the future. Great job on the challenge and way to help promote awesome cause. Wishing you the best.
It’s really awesome how you demonstrated that you can, in fact, eat healthy on a low budget! Great job!
Amazing & great recap – we can all learn from this!!!
Great Post Lindsay! You did an awesome job & I am so trying most of the meals you made. You are right it can be difficult to cook on a budget & make it nutritious but if you plan it out it’s actually not as hard as people think. Again great job :-D!
great recap! I love the photo with the cat. I agree I would get tired of cooking, we both work hard and eating out sometimes is our treat! (well mine so I dont have to cook!)
I think you did an amazing job with this challenge and I love the meaning of it!!! I am so impressed with all your planning that went into and it seems like you got a ton out of it! Great job with it! I’ve loved watching your journey through it!
Congrats on succeeding in the challenge! I think it’s interesting how you didn’t snack as much. Also, I love that you say the limited supply of foods to work with helped you be more creative with meals. I find the same thing to be true with I’m following specific nutrition plans. It’s kind of fun!
GREAT POST LINDS! You did an amazing job with this challenge! So proud of you!
Congratulations! Y’all did an outstanding job. Now go buy yourself some coffee and avocados 😉
ps: This should be featured on Oprah or in the newspaper- to show people it IS possible!
great job on the challenge & woah major recap post! haha! it’s nice to have all of the info together in one post.
Hi from Kansas LOL!! 🙂
I loved your IG pics and your food looked like recipes my kids would eat (not easy sometimes LOL) I think I am going to start eating more sweet potatoes. I love the sweet potato oatmeal idea 🙂
See you at the twitter party!
Fantastic job! Love the planning that went into it.
You really created a ton of meals for that amount of money. impressive.
And thank you for the Banana Berry Snack Balls recipe.
BTW, cute cat.
I’m so impressed with the meals you came up with during this challenge. Yours was one of my favorites to follow along with. I would never have had the patience to do all that research and planning but I LOVE that you proved the general thought of “it’s impossible to eat healthy on a budget” mentality wrong. That makes me SO happy. Awesome job, Lindsay!
You seriously did AMAZING on this challenge. I loved ALL your recipes and was drooling each time you posted a pic! ;D
I think you did a phenomenal job given the budget that you were given! You guys ate better than we do some weeks and I spend a lot more than $35 each. I admit that I am one of those people who previously said that it’s tough to eat healthy on the cheap and I am so happy you proved that theory wrong!
Awesome job, Lindsay! You had a fab attitude going into it, too, which I am sure is HUGE.
Yay! I’m glad you did this challenge. We’ve learned to rotate some of our favorite things and to pick up sale items (like chicken breasts!) and to follow our store’s ad weekly. I still can’t coupon. I never find them for things that we buy.
You killed this challenge!! And totally proved that it is totally possible to eat healthy on a very limited budget. I think it’s so interesting that you found yourself snacking less and eating bigger meals instead. I never thought of that as a side effect but now that you explain it, makes total sense!! AND I must say, your recipes were all so original and to-die-for looking! Major kudos my dear. PS I love the pic of Marcus in the midst of your food purchases, such a cutie pie!!
i really enjoyed seeing this process. It was so well planned and very DO-ABLE! Thank you linz for inspiring us to LIVE well, EAT well, and SPEND WISELY!
It was definitely really interesting to follow a few different bloggers who were doing this challenge and see how they each took it on in a different way but were able to eat nutritiously regardless.
You did amazing on this challenge! You have mad shopping skills for sure, and your meals were very creative. I know there are lots of weeks when I spend less than $70 to feed four of us – but that’s because my pantry and freezer are well stocked, and all I need is dairy and produce.
Eating healthy on a budget is tough, but doable, and you proved it.
I’ve followed your posts on this challenge pretty regularly and even made your lentil pot pies last night. Having not read extensively on the reason for the challenge I can only guess its to promote awareness about being healthy while on foodstamps. Its no big secret that poor eating choices often go hand in hand with low socioeconomic status.
I wish we could implement a mandatory class on budgeting and food before being awarded food stamps. In my line of work I often see people who get on them, and simply never get off. I myself have considered applying for them at different times in my life. I hope that the data collected during this challenge goes toward educating people in a positive way.
i think a mandatory class would be a great idea!!
You did a great job this challenge 🙂 Well done lady!!
I totally agree with you on the frozen veggies. I’m a grad student and don’t make a ton of money, so frozen veggies are my best friend. I’m intrigued by your sweet potato oatmeal; I’m definitely going to have to try that!
Great recap. We tend to spend about $80ish per week and I feel like that’s tight. That does include tho gs like coffee, almonds and avocados though hahah. I just don’t know if I could give them up.
This definitely seems like a good challenge. I know the place where I spend the most money is those random “oh, I should buy this and make that.” thoughts or the impulse buys like triscuits or fancy cheese or something. Nice work!
i am still so impressed! this is amazing that you were able to do this! definitely makes me think twice about my impulse buys at the grocery store 🙂
I have a lot of friends and family members who shop on a very tight budget (as a grad student, I often do too) and this is such an awesome recap. It has been great to see the ways you have shopped and prepared meals on a budget and I think this will be very helpful to a lot of people who are trying to learn to eat healthy without a lot of money.
I actually attempted this challenge this week. On Sunday, I went to the store and spent $62.74 at the grocery for the hubby and I. Your meals are soo creative!! I purchased mostly store brand, and you’re right! You wouldn’t know the difference. Except my Cheez-its…Cannot be replaced;). I def haven’t been snacking as much, and I feel like I’m figuring out all these creative ways to make the most out of my leftovers. However, I don’t think we can make it through Sunday…If only the hubby will eat less..I think this is a great opportunity to “make” him decrease his daily food intake. That man eats way too much!
I am SO impressed with this and what you learned!! I think I would have realized some similar things – less snacking, bigger ‘main’ meals and tons of planning ahead. I definitely load up on extra fruits and veggies (Such a hoarder I am!) so I would miss extras of that, but could PROBABLY do this as well, though tight, it is totally manageable and healthily so!
congrats girl on the challenge!! I loved reading your posts, so interesting to really think how much we can survive on.
Great post! Lots of good tips. I was thinking about this challenge while I was at the grocery store restocking our fridge after vacation. I wasn’t trying to feed us on a budget, but it did make me stop and think about what I was going to do with what I did buy.
And I could never live on a budget that didn’t include good coffee.
You did a fantastic job! It was fun keeping up with it. Lots of great ideas!
Now how do you make those awesome images for each days eats? I have a lot to learn lol
On the computer I use ipiccy to make collages, on my phone I use diptic!
Wow! You were very thorough! Great Job!
Congrats on successfully completing the challenge! Loved your thoughts at the end!
WOW-great job! You made some tasty stuff on such a limited budget. I love that! I think i’m gonna have to take some of your tips–I never really meal plan. Hah
AWESOME POST!! great job – love the ideas I have gotten from here, and recipes!! 🙂
You did an amazing job on this challenge girl! You were so creative, and your meals didn’t seem like “budget” meals. Forget being an RD.. come be my personal chef??? Puhleeeeasseeee???
I like how you summarized with what worked for the plan and what didn’t. Would you do a price comparison to of you just went to the grocery store and bought the things you wanted since you said they were similar in price anyways!! My only problem with this is I wouldn’t stay within the budget if it meant buying mon-organic for things that really need to be organic, like apples and peppers. Other than that, it’s definitely a challenge to think about!!!
Lindsay- I’m SO impressed and proud of you for all of the dedication you put into this challenge. And I’m SO INSPIRED!! I spend WAY too much money on groceries and really need to get a handle on it. I think I may need to do this challenge for myself!!
You were so detailed I truly enjoyed following this project! Well done Lindsay!
I love this idea.
I have tried to cut my grocery budget to $100 a week, but I learned there are some things I cannot do without like fresh fruit, bananas, almond milk, and fresh greens. Since we are a family of four, I think that I’m doing pretty well keeping it at about $125 for the past few weeks.
great job!! keep it up!
This project has been eye opening and inspiring. I spent over $100 at the grocery store today and was just thinking about how little I came out with. I believe if I start taking more time to plan out meals for the entire week, I can do much better! Well done!
I can’t believe all the work you put into this! Great job!
Congratulations on making it through the challenge (and a bit under budget)!
Congratulations on being selected as one of the two winners of the #surviveon35 challenge!!!! I loved seeing your pictures and reading your tweets about what you were eating. Your enthusiasm for eating healthy is contagious and I absolutely love the recipes that you share. 🙂
thank you so much! that means a lot!
Fish cakes for the win! Saw you post on IG this or last week, need to make!! What a great post girl!
I know this post was from quite some time ago, but I just wanted to say..wow. This is an extremely thoughtful post, Lindsay! I’ve truly enjoyed reading it. Today, are you more conscious of how much money you spend on the foods you buy?
so glad you liked it! i’m definitely more conscious of how much i spend now! it was an eye-opening experience!