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?