Yes this is definitely a day late post. I had planned to write this yesterday but now I want to include my clothes saving today so it is just a saving on Saturday post a day late!

Groceries remain our highest expenses next to out mortgage.  One of my summer goals is to prepare easy meals to use during the school year. It is one of the ways that i am able to maintain our grocery bill.  We typically only eat out once a week.  However between school and sports this puts a strain on my abilities. By having at least 100 meals in the freezer that can be heated and served this prevents lots of pizza and drive thru runs. This year I am also trying to make a comprehensive list of all the meats/ingredients in the freezers as well. My family LOVES baked ziti’s. I would like to make 8-10 of these and have one a month for the entire school year.  But  Italian sausage is expensive and each one requires a pound.  I was excited  to find  it on sale at $2 off a package. I ended up buying 10 packs so I hope to make these in the next couple of week. I am currently waiting on tomatoes in order to make more sauce as we are down to 5 jars.  We are currently working on the end of the whole cow we purchased two years ago.  I was glad to find some meat on sale as well. But to be honest spending $229.00 at Food Lion was a shock to my system.  However that is meat for 12 meals so at 19.50 a meal to feed 6 people is not horribly bad.  I also purchased alot of ice cream as treats.  I continue to monitor the cost of soda and when I saw that Dollar General was not only placing soda’s on sale but giving two $5 off 25 this week, I had to take advantage of that. I ended up spending $59 for sodas this week but that should last us a while and can were around 37 cent a piece and bottles were 65 cent each.

I took advantage of half price offer on Walmart + this week. This included a peacock tv subscription as well as 10 cent off a gallon for gas at Walmart. I am going to keep up with what I spend this year to see if it is actually worth it.  So far we have saved $9 in delivery fees and I am not going to include the cost of Peacock as we did not need it but it was a nice extra that the kids and Matt have already taken advantage of.

Kendall had requested Olive Garden for lunch today and we ended up shopping at a couple of stores in the same shopping center after eating. My family has discovered that they can eat “lighter fare” which is less than $15 a plate and includes soup, salad and breadsticks as well! Total cost for 7 for lunch today which included 3 additional meals of leftovers weas $120!  Belk’s had a good sale going on as well. We were able to purchase t-shirts for $10 each ! Matt also found  shirt on clearance for $18!  Our final stop of the day was a shoe store where I was able to purchase new tennis shoes for B and E and a new pair of dress shoes for Matt. I count spending $60 for shoes a win as well!

I have said several times today that I buy things on sale so we don’t have to pay full price when we need items!