Saving on Saturday 7/15/2017

I am sitting in a really quiet house, except for the occasional dog bark, it should stay this way for at least the next twelve hours or so. Lily left this morning for a missions trip to Mami Florida, she will not be returning until next Sunday.  This afternoon, Amanda, Haley, Lily and Zach left to camp overnight and play at Sliding Rock NC. We do have an Amanda dog but that is really not a big deal. In the past, we would have taken advantage of the kidless night to go out for dinner most likely a very expensive dinner just because it was two of us instead of five. But not tonight!! We have definitely tighten the budget this month as we enjoyed Michigan in June and have plans for  Myrtle Beach in August and Disney in November.

Tonight, Matt and I saved money by eating at home. Our menu was T-bone steaks (from freezer), baked sweet potatoes (last year’s) and a strawberry cheesecake. I made the cheesecake in my new Instapot that Amanda bought me for my birthday.  We even chilled a bottle of wine from the wine rack to make the meal complete.  The meal cost us zero out of pocket and was honestly one of the best I have eaten in a while.

Busy Weekend

We are having fun and checking several things off of our to do list this weekend. On Saturday, we spent most of the morning sorting through clothes  Zach was excited to “find” 7 new pairs of jeans that he can wear. He is finally in a size 7!  Everyone else realized that except for swim team bathing suits, we don’t have any need of summer clothes. I am sure that we will purchase a few items just for fun but we do not need anything which is awesome!

Lily and Amanda went to help pack backpacks of food. My niece Brooke was also helping. I think they would make good lunch ladies with their hair nets.
IMG_8228IMG_4191 IMG_4217Saturday night we attended a dance party for one of Kendall’s cheer teammates who also is good friends with Matt. My plan is to post these pictures on Wednesday!

Today, Sunday, we enjoyed watching snow fall for the most part of the morning. We are leaving at lunch to head to a cheer competition so I have spent most of the morning, fixing hair.
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Wordless Wednesday- Family Pictures

I wanted to share some of our pictures.

The whole gang….

 

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Now some for the kids…the ladder is my FAVORITE!
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Everyone loved the Tire swing..

Finally happy middle school girls…
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Wordless Wednesday-Family Pictures

We had family pictures made on Sunday. I am sure I will be posting more as we get them for here is a sneak peek. The other pictures the kids took while getting dressed!

 

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Menu Planning

We survived the last couple of weeks!  This week things are a tiny bit slower with no baseball game on Monday!  We have changed to a monthly menu plan and I am really enjoying the way it is working. First, Matt and I both know what is on the plan for dinner but we also know that if something changes grab another night. Second, it allows us to know what items we need to purchase and what things can wait. My goal for the last 3 months of the year, is to keep our grocery budget to less than $300 a month. This is a low low number for us but we have several large meat orders that we are working our way through which helps to significantly reduce the budget in addition to several family birthday and trips that mean we get to eat out more. Finally, we are finally not wasting food, or at least wasting a small amount which gets tossed in the compost bin so not really a waste. In fact that is the theme of this week’s plan… eating up leftovers!

Breakfast–   Saturday-Cereal, Sunday- Trisha Yearwood Breakfast Casserole.  The rest of the week will be a choice of leftovers, cereal, fried eggs, yogurt or breakfast bars.

Lunch- This week, I will have already made a chicken salad for Monday, and Tuesday- salad. Wednesday and Friday will be leftovers.  Zach and Kendall have 2 days of chicken nuggets, 2 Uncrustables with cheese crackers. and a sandwich. Lily and Matt will have frozen burritos or leftovers or pizza or chicken nuggets.

Dinner-  Saturday- Lunch- grilled cheese sandwich. (Trying to use up some bread)   Dinner-Leftover of choice
Sunday- Lunch- Friends provided . Dinner- Pick your left over meat, I cooked green beans, stuffing and fried apples to go along with this.
Monday- Chicken Fried Rice
Tuesday-Amanda’s birthday- Eating out to celebrate
Wednesday- Hamburger Helper
Thursday- Turkey pot pie (To finish up the left over turkey)
Friday- Homemade pizza night

One other important note, Lily is enjoying cooking and is making usually one meal a week. This past week, she actually made stuffed green peppers on Thursday, a cake on Friday and the breakfast casserole on Saturday for Sunday morning.