Updated 1/28/2023: As I continue to edit older posts and get ready for new posts, this topic is especially popular. Living on a grocery budget with CKD is difficult due to the food limitations one might follow. We have in the last few months had to increase our food budget to $100 dollars per week. It is still difficult, but with some effort it is doable. It is hard when you have a family with others that don’t need to follow the same restrictions or even worse you have several people in a home on varying restrictions. I look forward to enhancing this topic in 2023.
Hello, hello. You may have noticed I have not written anything in like 10 days. I took a much-needed break from blogging. I still have not had time to take the new AKF Kidney Coach Class, but I hope by the end of May I will have it done. Then I can edit the old posts, and post the new slides. I have not been feeling great the past couple of days. My new job has a lot of mental stress and it is wearing me out. You know they say the grass is not always greener on the other side. I can say for sure that is true. While my old job had become toxic in many ways, there were things I appreciated about that job. Switching to a new job did not necessarily change some of those toxic issues. Health care is a very stressful, and mentally challenging profession these days. I hope to have my certification in Medical Billing and Coding by the end of the Summer, and I can begin transitioning into that.
Back to the topic at hand. Is it still possible to create 5-dollar dinners with inflation? In November of 2020, I did a blog post with a whole list of possible 5 dollar dinner ideas. So, I decided to try and recreate them to see if they can still be made for 5 dollars or less. The first one is Chicken Fajita wraps. I have no idea why Chicken Fajita Casserole is on the list because I don’t know as I have ever made that. I am going to straight-up say this may not be doable unless you can find a really good deal on chicken since it is so expensive right now. You can always use beans instead of chicken. Anyway, I searched all of my local grocery stores to see if I could find chicken on sale at a decent price. The only place that did, and it is only a 2-day sale was my local Hitchcock’s. They have chicken leg quarters for 98 cents a pound. So, if you bought 2 pounds it would cost $1.96. Flour tortilla wraps you can not get any more for less than a dollar. In my area, the Dollar Tree has them for the best price of $1.25. The Great Value brand of Fajita seasoning mix is .62. one green pepper is .72, and one onion is.78. If you want the cheese to sprinkle on a block of Great Value cheese is 1.86. We will use sour cream instead of cheese, at 1.16 for a smaller container.
The total if you use chicken and cheese would be $6.57 and honestly, I don’t think that is all that bad considering.
The total if you use chicken with sour cream would be $5.87
To keep it closer to 5 dollars use a can of black beans at .72 for a total of $5.25 with sour cream but no cheese.
You can always make your own fajita mix if you have the 3 main ingredients, cumin, oregano, and chili powder already on hand.
I am making these tonight for dinner with chicken and sour cream. I par-boil the leg quarters for about 10 minutes. This makes it easy for me to remove the meat from the bones, plus if you have CKD it will reduce the fat, potassium, and phosphorus in the chicken.
We are still sticking by our 75 dollar per week grocery budget, for 3 people, and while it is not as easy as it was, it is still doable. Meat is super expensive right now, and we have cut back even more on meat.
Have an awesome Saturday!
My disclaimer is very basic and easy to remember. I am not a doctor or a dietitian. None of the information I share is intended to be medical advice or nutrition advice. All information shared is my personal opinion, personal experience as some living with CKD, or information I found online.
Living Life With CKD 