Category Archives: Menu Planning

Grocery Budget Buster

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I will be the first to admit that I don’t grocery shop like most people but I do shop in a way that over a period of a year, saves money and feeds us well.  I did excellent in the month of June of keeping cost low and even decided to reduce our monthly budget. I knew that sometime this summer, I would need to restock on meat and some other items, even last Sunday I had high hope of holding down our spending for the month. We had been to Costco twice and spent a total of $497 . But as of today that is not possible.

Last Friday, Matt texted that we were out of toilet paper so I stopped by the CVS, where I thought our preferred brand was on sale. It was on sale but not what I thought so I just grabbed one package.  The sale I was thinking about started on Sunday. Sunday night Lily and I headed back to CVS to grab the toilet paper of course and a couple of other deals. I was disappointed that I had to get a couple of rainchecks which threw off my savings. My goal is always 60% but with buying the needed toilet paper and also some additional sunscreen I ended up spending $27.25 and saving 48% or $24.71.  I did start this trip without any ECB and ended with $2 so not a complete fail.

Next, the one store in our area that doubles coupons started a super sale, which doubles coupons up to $2. I looked over the list and realized that many of items we need were available so last night we headed out. I was also able to grab drinks that we will be taking with us for our beach trip.  I did hit my 60% mark, spending $77.97 and saving 140 or 64%. I used three rainchecks that included 10 packs of hot dogs, flour and sugar, all items that I did not have coupons on but were a great deal with the rain check.

Finally, we are still following our monthly plan with lots of different items on the weekend. We decided to have Hamburger Helper on Monday since both girls had cheerleading. Matt and I realized that we were using our last pack of ground beef.  Typically we purchase between 30 and 50 pounds at a time and fry and place in one pound bags which make meals really quick and easy to fix. Zaycon Foods is where I always purchase chicken breast and I have been pleased with the ground beef in the past. I got an email this morning with a pick up for ground beef next week and an additional 12% off code. We decided to go ahead and purchase 80 pounds of ground beef. We plan to fry up 50 pounds and just freeze the other 30 pounds to use as raw meat. Total cost for 80 pounds of ground beef $215.38 or $2.69 a pound which is the cheapest I have seen this year.

Currently I have spent $818.07 so a total budget fail but it should allow us to eat well through the rest of the year. My goal will be to lower the grocery budget to $400 for both August and September to keep us on track for the year.

Saving on Saturday-7/16/2016

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I have said many time that it is the little things that save money. So after realizing how far behind I am on blogging this month, I thought I would make a list of things we are doing this summer to get our budget back under control.

  1. Menu planning- We have switched to a month long plan. One of the best parts of this is that we can switch around days without having to worry about if we have certain ingredients or not. Our menu plan is based around the meat in our freezer’s at the first of the month. Fruit and veggie are most like what we have either in cans or fresh or as in today on sale.
  2. Not shopping- This one sounds so very simple and actually makes the most sense. I know that if I go to Costco, I can always find a good deal on snacks and cereal or other foods that we don’t usually buy. Sales are great but I realized in January that we needed to consume the great deals. I have been able to reduce our food budget by over $150 by simply not shopping. I have a list that can be added to if we run out of something and my goal is to shop Costco once a month. I also have been stopping at Aldi about every other week to grab things in smaller quantities or pick up fresh items. Yesterday, I grabbed 2 containers of blueberries along with some lettuce, poptarts and sausage.
  3. Planning ahead which really goes along with menu planning. We have a pool membership that we pay yearly and this year, we purchased season passes to the water park.  I have purchased chips and cookies and other convenience foods to take with us as treats. We will usually take either a pasta salad or wraps or sandwiches for lunch. I did some research on our last visit to the water park and the best deal was $25 for a pizza and 4 drinks. I spent $24 at Aldi yesterday and grab more than enough stuff to finish out 3 meals instead of one. The kids are enjoying our special treat such as a package of cookies and we are not breaking the bank.
  4. Not eating out. This by far is our biggest down fall. We enjoy eating out. At the beginning of our budget journey we would honest eat out 3-4 times a week. When our income was reduced to one, we have been slowly decreasing the times we eat out. I was so excited to find out that we have eaten out twice in July. Once for Kendall’s birthday with my parents and once yesterday.
  5. Stockpiling- When I do shop, you will find that I don’t shop like a normal person. I shop the deals and then stock up. It is not usually for me to purchase 10 2-liters at a time or 10 bottles of ketchup if the sale is the right one. I am finding that sales are becoming fewer this year but I am still able to shop with my price list.
  6. Wasting as little as possible- This week on Wednesday evening, I saw three very wipe bananas on the cabinet. I knew we needed to use these ASAP. I was able to make banana bread and top with strawberry jam for breakfast on Thursday. We also are trying to preserve as much of our garden harvest as possible. This week alone I have made 2 batches of spaghetti sauce and a batch of frozen cucumber relish. This does requires some flexibility with our menu planning but it seems to be working for us.

How are you saving money today?

Menu Plan for 7/11/2016

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This is honestly one of the busiest weeks this summer. The kids and Matt have Vacation Bible School every day from 8-1pm, swim practice on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, swim meet on Tuesday and swim dinner on Friday. On Friday, we also have piano and Matt is scheduled to work both Friday and Saturday. It will be busy and just in case we get a storm on either Monday or Thursday, the girls have cheer practice. The good news is that we have been planning ahead so this week should not blow our budget.

Here is the plan:

Breakfast–  Saturday- Gravy Biscuits, Sunday- Chocolate Banana Bread.   Choices will include  cereal, toast, grits, breakfast bars, granola bars eggs or left over baked oatmeal or breakfast burritos-previously made  The focus this week is quick and simple to get everyone to church and work on time.

Lunch- Sandwhiches, left-overs, chicken nuggets.  This should be the biggest struggle of the week.

Dinner-  Saturday- Lunch- Sandwiches.   Dinner- Pasta salad
Sunday- Lunch- Pork roast, potato salad and deviled eggs.   Dinner-nachos made with Taco Rice
Monday- Hamburger steak and French fries or left overs from Sunday.
Tuesday-Wraps during swim meet
Wednesday- Cheeseburger Pizza
Thursday- Chicken and Broccli in crockpot with rice
Friday- Baked spaghetti.

The plan for dinners this week is to prepare ahead as much as possible. I did go ahead and make the Baked spaghetti on Sunday. Each night if we can prepare the next day, we should survive this crazy week.

Summer Saturday-6/25/2016

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IMG_2604This is a picture that I took last night of Zach. I am truly amazed at it. Zach is the only one of my children who did not like the water. We spend a big part of our summer at the pool most years but Zach has always preferred to play on the edge or just watch others until this year. He decided that he was going to swim on the swim team and then decide he wanted to play in the deep end. When I arrived after work yesterday, he wanted me to watch him go off the diving board, so of course I had to take a picture.

The weather today is different, it is less humid but very cloudy. We spent the morning outside working in the garden. We were able to pick another couple of family servings of green beans, which have already been cooked and placed in the freezer. We also unfortunately had to pull some plants like our snap peas, which have stopped producing and several of our squash plants which have been attacked by the squash bug. We also tied up tomatoes which I really really hope start to produce in the next couple of weeks.

Lily will be arriving home from camp this afternoon so the current plan is to wash her clothes and we may end up renting a movie.

I have several items that I need to take care of on this not the best of days to go to the pool including a monthly calendar and menu plan for the next couple of weeks.

Bring on Summer play!

Random Thursday Post-6/02/2016

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  • imageOur first official harvest from this morning. We have been collecting and freezing  basil for the past few weeks and have used a couple of squash, but this is the beginning of what I hope to be a very productive season for us.
  • Our new freezer arrived today, which gave me a chance to do some arranging and make a list of all the meat that we currently have on hand. I am excited and pleased to report we have meat for 75 meals in our freezers.
  • The bad news is that we also have a delivery of 120# of chicken breast coming a week from Tuesday. I need to get a plan in place of how I want to prepare and use this.
  • Given the above information, I am setting the grocery budget at $150 for the month of June.  I will need to make some purchased to help prepare the chicken but otherwise I am going to stick to Aldi each week for $10 worth of extra health options!
  • All three kids are going to participate in swim team this summer which is my favorite activity to watch. The only down side to this is that I have to find Zach some trunks that he can wear.
  • I will receive my extra paycheck the first of July, our initial intention was to make an extra payment on both the house and van with this check however given our current situation, we will be using this money to help keep things on an even playing field for the summer.
  • The kids have one more week of school left, I think we are all excited to have some extra time.

 

5 Things Friday- A Day Late

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  1. We decided to go strawberry picking with the kids this morning. The local nursery offered BOGO on pick your own strawberries. We picked 4 gallons of strawberries for $18.  I did share some of these with both my mom and Amanda.
  2. After getting home and trying to decide where to put the strawberries, we discovered that our stand up freezer had stopped working. I was able to save milk and about a fourth of what was in the freezer.
  3. I found 3 gallons of half thawed strawberries so I decided to cook with these instead of the fresh one. I did end up flash freezing at least 2 gallons for future use.
  4. I made strawberry lemonade muffins, strawberry cream cheese coffee cake, and a double batch of strawberry jam. They all turned out awesome but my favorite is the strawberry jam.
  5. We will be having a yard sale hopefully next Saturday so this coming week is incredibly busy.

Grocery Shopping- My Way

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I have been getting a couple of questions about the way I shop, so I am going to try and explain it along with the example of my shopping today.

Meat- My first choice is Zaycon food. Typically we buy chicken breast once every six months and other items usually about once a year. We currently have pork roast and pork chops in the freezer. The purchases of the other foods depend heavily on our need and ability to pick up when things are offered.  My second choice which is also more convenient is the “meat store” which is in the next town. Over the past three years we typically go and purchase meat about once every 5-6 months. We always buy ground beef in bulk and process by making several items but a lot of packages of pre-cooked meat. Other meat is typically purchased at Costco on an as needed bases.  Today I purchased 5 bags of shrimp at Harris Teeter, this should last a minimum of 6 months if not longer.

Health and Beauty Items, including toilet paper, I purchase on sale cycles at CVS or Harris Teeter. CVS is my only “weekly” trip because it is in town. I try and spent $1 or less on most items.  Toothpaste is always free and I currently have around 20 tubes in the stockpile. I always watch sales and try to keep things pretty well stocked up. For the first couple month of the year, we were able to reduce spending significantly and just use what we had. My goal is to try this again this summer.

Drinks- I am addicted to Diet Coke and I fully admit it. I usually purchase most of my drinks both can and bottles at CVS.  I try always to combine an ECB deal with free 12 pack coupons from Coke. Today however was the exception, we purchased 10 cases of soda at Harris Teeter on a Buy 2 Get 3 free sale. I also currently have 3 rain checks for cokes. Typically price for 2L is less than $1 and cans- 25cent each or less.

I purchase the majority of the rest of my groceries at Costco. Just like regular grocery stores they run sales and I tended to stock up on good deals. Today we purchased 3 boxes of Cheez-its and 2 boxes of gummies. These should last through the summer. I do also keep a watch on sales. I typically go to Harris Teeter every other month depending on when Super Doubles or great sales occur like today.  Food Lion is the only grocery store beside Walmart in my town so I will shop there for great deals and for their annual sale which is typically an additional 25 cent off house brand purchases. Aldi is also local and we grab our vegetables, canned foods and snack items there. I usually go to Aldi every two weeks.

Our Costco trip today ended up totaling close to $500 but this was a stock up trip because I honestly don’t plan or want to go back till at least the first of August if not the week before the kids return to school.  I enjoying shopping at Costco but tend to spend more than I should. Today’s trip included 8 gallons of milk, 7 dozen eggs and 4 packs of shells.

How different are your shopping trips than mine?

Monday Menu Plan

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Things in our world are starting to get a little bit slower. We have another week for cheer and two weeks of soccer. Then we should get about a 3 week break prior to swim team. The other exciting news is six weeks till school is out.  We do have 3 days of extra activities at school this week during the day so the plan is simple.

Breakfast–  Saturday- Gravy Biscuits, Sunday- Bagels( Originally purchased for Matt’s birthday.  Choices will include toast, grits, leftovers French toast, cereal, breakfast bars, eggs or baked oatmeal.  We have several left-overs that need to be eaten this week and I hope to add some muffins as well.

Lunch- Kids have 3 days of chicken nuggets, a grab and go day and a veggie dipping day. I will be eating in the car 3 of 5 days this week travelling to the school so it should get interesting.

Dinner-  Saturday- Lunch- Sandwiches.   Dinner- Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza
Sunday- Lunch- Veggie plates (tomatoes, mac n cheese, cream corn, green beans.   Dinner- Grilled Chicken
Monday- Cheeseburger pie with slaw or cucumber relish
Tuesday-Leftovers
Wednesday- Pork chops with carrots and fruit
Thursday- ?? not sure but may be leftover or sandwiches or breakfast casserole
Friday- Baked ziti

How is your menu looking this week?

 

Saving on Saturday-04/09/2016

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Today has definitely been a day about saving, really more about saving time than money but they both are pretty important around here. First a little of the background, one of the ways that I have been trying to control our budget and spending this year is with grocery purchases.  We have only spent $1250 for the first three months of the year,   I focused on using the items that we had on hand and we were able to clean out and reorganize a lot of our freezer space.  In March, we used up all of our ground beef, so we need to start replenishing our supplies. On Thursday, Matt and I managed to make a huge grocery trip which included our local “meat market”.  Now back to today, we need to “process” the thirty pounds of ground beef we have purchased. I decided that since the weather outside was cold and windy, I would prefer to spend the day in the kitchen. I am very pleased with the results. Total time spent was approximately 7 hours, but this includes lunch and snacks for the kids as well as clean up and a couple of breaks. We were able to make the following:

3- cheeseburger pies (This are a quick and easy dinner to reheat)
4- Baked Ziti- We are sharing one with our friends for lunch tomorrow and another is already on our summer beach list. The other two will be easy Sunday lunches for this summer.
4 sets of Salisbury steaks- (a little bit more work than the cheeseburger pies but can turn out a dinner in 30 minutes).
20 one pound bags of pre-cooked ground beef. This is one of the easy ways to plan ahead and can be used in everything from spaghetti to Hamburger Helper.
Breakfast casserole for Sunday morning
Mexican rice and sausage dip for snacks and dinner today.

We will need to purchase chicken for delivery in June but otherwise we should be stocked up for the summer.

Did you save today?

Monday Menu Post 3/21/2016

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I can’t decide if I was excited or fearful when started pulling out food of the freezers for the next couple of weeks.  We did realize, we only have 1pound of uncooked ground beef.  Fortunately, we still have plenty of pork and quite a bit of chicken left. April will mean that we will need to buy meat to give us a good variety again. We did have to make a couple of changes in our monthly plan for this week but we should still be able to maintain the lower than normal grocery budget for March. I was excited to have time yesterday to re-stock some of our breakfast foods in addition to continuing to use items out of the freezers.

Breakfast–  Saturday-Matt was in charge, bacon biscuits, Sunday- Breakfast burritos with leftovers for the week. Monday- Apple muffins or Banana oatmeal cookies, these will also be leftovers. Thursday morning- Strawberries and cream baked oatmeal.  Other days choices will include toast, grits, leftovers French toast pop-tarts or grits,

Lunch-I was able to get the kids lunches packed for the three days they will be attending school this week. I have some soup that will be my main lunch meal this week.

Dinner-  Saturday- Lunch- Matt was in charge again.   Dinner- Shrimp Alfredo
Sunday- Lunch- Taco Soup.  Dinner- Grilled cheese sandwiches
Monday- Rice Creole
Tuesday-Grilled Chicken, green beans and squash casserole
Wednesday- Eating out for Haley’s Birthday
Thursday- Slow cooker beef and broccoli
Friday- Left-overs

The kids are out of school starting on Friday for an entire weeks so meals should get interesting!