Monthly Archives: February 2023

February in Review

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Not sure how I feel about this entire month!  I am exhausted and excited. We are counting days till Disney. We need to stay the course and keep working toward our goals!

Groceries- Budget = $975.  Goal Met!  We spent $739.93 on groceries including our subscribe and save from Amazon and a trip to Costco.  An even bigger deal is that when we combine both January and February, we are at $959 for the year which is less than one month!  I know that we will have some spending in March due to our trip preparation, but I am going to focus on controlling what I can and celebrating the small wins!

Auto/ Gas. Goal -= $600.  Goal Met!  We have spent $445.41 this month!  I am excited that we were able to contain this cost. We are heading into baseball season, and I know this will increase our gas. But again, I am choosing to celebrate the small wins!

Blogging- 15 post per month.  This is post number 12 not at goal but not horrible either. Especially considering that I have been at work all month!

Exercise- Does tripping and falling count for the month.. Nope then the answer is NONE.

Expenses:  Matt required surgery this month for skin cancer and a second surgery is scheduled for March.  He does not have insurance. Very expensive but again I am going to focus on the small wins and we covered it!

Monday Menu Plan

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I have a feeling that this is going to be the end of evening at home and easy menu planning, so I am going to enjoy this week!  I already have most items prepared so I can heat and eat most days!  I also want to enjoy the sunshine.

Breakfast- Saturday-French Toast and sausage. Sunday-Cinnamon rolls and eggs.   Monday, Tuesday Wednesday and Friday- find it including oatmeal, omelets, cereal and milk, French toast sticks, bagels, The goal is to make at least one breakfast ahead of time, but we will see about that this week.

Lunch- Saturday-Finished up breakfast and left-overs Sunday Panda Panda , Monday-Tuesday, Wednesday- left-overs, salads, soup or sandwiches, Friday- out to eat.

Dinner- Saturday-soup Sunday-Breakfast Casserole or Dutch Pancake Monday-Sloppy Joes and tator tots Tuesday- Taco pasta (left-over version), Wednesday- Baked Potato Casserole and Salad Thursday- burgers and fries?  Friday- RIce and Kielbasa.

Saving on Saturday

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So, an interesting fact is that I have not done a “Saving on Saturday” since December 10th!  That is 11 weeks!

Today we focused on food!  Not wasting and making the best possible use of the space and food we have.

To start the day, I found a container of “French Toast” mixture in the freezer.  I combined it with half a loaf French bread purchased at Walmart yesterday.   I knew that I needed to clean out both the refrigerators today as well. I did have to throw out a couple of serving of chocolate pudding and Almond milk that expired in October 2022.  I did find several containers of taco dip from “Junk Food Sunday”.  In order for this not to go bad, I decided to make some elbow pasta and combine with some canned beef, to make a taco pasta.  I will count this as a win!

We have decided to can up some ground beef for convivence and to free up space in the freezers.   We currently have 23 pints of canned beef and 1 half pint of beef.   I also made 14 bacon cheddar burgers and froze those for our Disney Trip.

When I put it on paper it does not look like a lot but I am exhausted so I know it was work!

5 Things Friday

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  1. One of the things that I have realized while participating in the #3RiverPantryChallenge, is that over the past several years I have spent alot of money “stocking up” and really have not been making using of the items I already have. For example, in April 2020 I purchased 90# of chicken. I processed all but around 20#.  I currently have 3 or 4 bags of this processed chicken left.  I also realized that I am a food hoarder, even if I have a lot of stuff when finding food on sale I purchase. This is not neccessarily a bad thing, but I am spending money on items that are not really getting used. My goal for this year is not only to reduce the amount of money I spend on groceries overall but to use items we have in addition to only purchasing items that I know we will eat within a year.
  2. Our chickens are currently producing exactly the amount we need!   I have been able to use all the eggs we are getting and honestly have not put a single dozen in the fridge it.   The debate is currently do we just keep what we have with exactly enough or do we attempt to purchase more chickens?  This is a work in progress and a decision that I don’t have enough data to really decide at this point.
  3. Our living room is currently home to a table full of dirt. The hope and goal of this dirt is that we will have pepper and tomato plants to plant in the garden so far, our only seeds that have germinated have been a lettuce mix.
  4. We have decided not to plant sweet potatoes this year.  I realized that some of the potatoes we harvested back in October were beginning to sprout.  Matt and I spent several evenings baking the remaining sweet potatoes and bagging up in 1 pound bags. We currently have 13# of baked sweet potatoes in our freezer for use during the next year.
  5. I stopped at Walmart on my way home from work today. I decided to check out the marked down bread. I grabbed a loaf of French bread for $1.03. Half was used for  our garlic bread tonight and half is drying to use for French toast tomorrow. I was also able to find 2 bagels of everything bagels for $2.20. But overall my best find was bathroom cleaner with bleach for $0.98 each!

Menu Planning

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The menu plan last week was just that: a meal plan. It really did not happen at all. We were given a meal on Tuesday, made Breakfast for dinner on Wednesday and squeezed in some leftovers. But we have two very big positive take-aways. One is that we did not eat out at all and two we manage to use up most of the leftovers from Junk Food Sunday.  This week we are making a plan once again which uses some of the same items.   We did have a large Costco grocery purchase in February, but we are also continuing to try to eat what we have with some supplements of diary and vegetables.  Next week we will start repeating meals that have been successful. The idea is to get us through the end of March on a limited budget.

Breakfast- Saturday-Gravy Biscuits (3 containers of gravy where frozen to use with breakfast bowls and burritos.) Sunday-Cinnamon roll waffles Monday, Tuesday Wednesday and Friday- find it oatmeal, omelets cereal and milk, French toast sticks, bagels, I am also encouraging hot sandwiches for breakfast to use up bread and protein.  and. Thursday- zucchini bread. Or homemade bagels or baked oatmeal.

Lunch- Saturday-Hawaiian slider burgers Sunday Applebee’s , Monday- leftovers Tuesday- leftovers, Wednesday- salad Thursday- soup of some kind Friday- out to eat.

Dinner- Saturday-leftovers Sunday-Hot Sandwiches Monday-Pork Fried Rice and Chicken fried rice (the purpose and goal of this meal was to use up a lot of left-over veggies and make enough for lunch for several people several days.  Tuesday- Broiled Fish, green beans and salad. Wednesday- New chicken pasta recipe Thursday-Hamburger Help Beef Stroganoff, Friday-Spaghetti and garlic bread.

 

5 Things Friday

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  1. This has been a very long stressful week!  Matt’s surgery was on Tuesday and with me having a half a day workday on Thursday, I have remained confused and exhausted all week. Wednesday we attended a student’s vs staff basketball game at Zach’s school. Thursday, I delivered a meal to a friend. I am looking forward to a slower weekend.
  2. The meal plan was totally derailed however I am happy to report that we have not gone out to eat during this stressful week. Today, I stopped at a bakery and purchased several pieces of cake instead.  We have been using up left-overs and eating at home!
  3. It is time to start thinking and planning for our garden this summer. In fact, we already have some lettuce growing and have planted green peppers. No green peppers have sprouted but I am hoping this was not a waste of time. We plan to start tomatoes from seed on Monday.  I have decided not to plant sweet potatoes this year. We have been cooking up and packaging the remaining ones from the garden. Currently we have 11 pounds packaged up with another 4 or 5 pounds that need to be cooked and packaged.  This is more than enough to last us another year.  Now to decide what to plant instead!
  4. I do have plans for outside tomorrow. Matt’s building for his beetle needs two more pieces of tin placed on top. I need to trim the rose bushes, plant the strawberry plants and raspberry canes that arrived in the mail today. These are both replacements for items I purchased last spring that did not survive.
  5. The chickens are laying! We are currently receiving 4 eggs on a daily basis. On Wednesday, I made a huge breakfast bowl. After dinner I was able to package up 10 additional burritos that we can enjoy in the weeks to come!

Monday Menu Plan

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We are entering week 7 of the pantry challenge. It is also the week of Junk Food Sunday. I hope to keep spending at a minimum as we continue to make progress toward the overall goal!

Breakfast- Saturday- eggs, grits, sausage, bacon and biscuits Sunday-Grits and eggs Monday, Tuesday Wednesday and Friday- find it oatmeal, omelets cereal and milk, French toast sticks, bagels, and. Thursday- homemade bagels or baked oatmeal.

Lunch- Saturday-left-overs Sunday Gregg’s, Monday- leftovers Tuesday- leftovers, Wednesday- leftover Thursday- soup of some kind Friday- out to eat.

Dinner- Saturday-Pizza from Dominos   Sunday-Junk Food Sunday Monday-Left-overs Tuesday- Gift of dinner   Wednesday- Egg Rolls and pot stickers Thursday- Breakfast burritos  Friday-Steak and salad?

Pantry Challenge Thoughts/ Update

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I was very proud of how we stuck to the pantry challenge in January. We ended up spending only $218 on groceries for the month.  I also realized that we were beginning to finish up and need to restock some necessary items in February.  Things like toilet paper and bread flour that yes can be bought in a small quantity but the whole idea behind the challenge is to save money not increase your spending.

So, in order to purchase items at the best price for us we headed to Costco. I am proud to say that we pretty much stuck to the list except for a couple of items that we needed for our Junk Food Sunday this week.  Nothing will go to waste!  I ended up spending $349 at Costco. This did include a chicken that was used for 2 full meals and we also made 9 pints of chicken stock.  I grabbed 200 paper plates as well.

While in Winston, we also made a stop at Target. I needed to get some hair spray.  This is also a need not a want. While at Target, I found and purchased 4 boxes of pint canning jars. The jars end up costing around $1.00 including the ring and lid.  I have not been able to find jars for less on Marketplace or in the Goodwill stores. In fact, $1.00 a jar is less than most of the jars I have found on Facebook Marketplace.  This Target stop added an additional $80 to my grocery total.

This places my grocery spending at $450 for the month of February. I know that I will likely end up spending at least another $50 if not $100 in February. However, adding the two months together still places us less than our grocery budget for one month.  So I am going to revise my goal for the rest of February and March. I have budgeted $975 a month for groceries this year.  My goal for the months of January, February and March is to stay under that total. I am currently at $675 which leaves an additional $350 in the remaining two weeks of February and March. This will not include my trip to Costco prior to our Disney trip.   I honestly think this is a very doable goal and will in the long term save $1800 for the first quarter of the year.  We are going to continue to eat what we have and buying/ restocking only items we are completely out of.  I have a list of 20 meals that we will begin to repeat and use next week to help continue to use our items. I am running low on sausage and chicken but will hold off buying these unless absolutely necessary. The chicken have significantly increased their production of eggs so that we should not have to purchase any for quite a while!

In the long run this allows us to enjoy food and save money.  The goal for the second quarter of the year will be to restock and replenish will continuing to stay under our grocery budget each month! .