Category: bargains–score (Page 3 of 5)

This challenge is harder than I thought it would be. Even though I know I CAN eat strictly from my pantry and food storage, the hard part is making me DO it. This week Macey’s had captain crunch on sale 5 boxes for $5. I Really REALLY wanted to go and stock up on Captain crunch and granola bars, since that’s a very good price, but I didn’t do it. I also did NOT go to Walgreens, even though I had coupons for items that were on a buy one get one free sale, and I could have stocked up on the cheap.

We did have to go and buy some fresh food, though. Here’s what $25 will buy.

Ok, not TWICE that, but one of those pictures. ( I’m having some technical difficulties, but I don’t want to take the time to figure it out and fix it. Maybe my administrator can see to that later.)
Actually, as you can see by my receipt, I spent $26.

Saturday, however, we encountered a problem. We went to Costco. I know, I know, I said I wasn’t going to go to Costco while doing this challenge, but we were right there, and we needed milk. In total, I spent over $100 at Costco, but that wasn’t all food. As I add up the actual Groceries from my receipts, I see that I spent $20 on cheese, ham, clementines, bananas and milk. Ugh. But if I count that as this weeks shopping trip, then I’m still within my limit.

Saturday night Ryan and I went out on a date, and afterward we had to run to walmart for some paint for our little mudroom improvement project that’s going on. While there, we also picked up birdseed, and I realized we were almost out of bread, so we added two loaves of bread to the cart. Ryan was teasing me about “cheating” and that he was going to add that to the total for me, but I’m coming clean. We also bought some soda, but that was FOR A SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT, not just for drinking, so it doesn’t count.

So, there you have it, folks. As long as I don’t spend any money this week (ahem), I’ll still be on track.

Of course, I’m planning a birthday party for the end of the month, and I can’t possibly be expected to pull that off without spending additional money, can I?

So, we’ll eat from our freezer and pantry this week. I’ve got a turkey in the freezer I’ve got to thaw out so we can cook that on Sunday. Then we can have leftover from that for the whole next week! So, I think we can do it.

One week down, and I’m proud of how we’ve done. We’ve eaten soup, corn dogs, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti,meatball sandwiches, meat gravy over mashed potatoes, and some leftovers.

Around Thanksgiving, I bought a HUGE bag of yukon gold potatoes, and I’m having a hard time eating them all. This week I noticed that they are starting to sprout, so I took action. I cooked up three big pots of potatoes, then mashed them, adding only chicken broth. Then I froze them in freezer bags so that I can have quick mashed potatoes later. I also made up a big batch of potato salad for Megan, my potato salad lover. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get through all of these potatoes before they go bad, but I’ll try. This week we’ll bake them up as fries, or maybe loaded potato skins.

I’ve also gotten some “help” in my challenge.My neighbor called and asked if I needed fresh eggs. I had JUST gone to the store, so I told him I could only afford 18 eggs, and he said, well, how about if I give you two dozen, but only charge you for one dozen? Well, that’s a good deal for me, so I got two dozen fresh eggs for only $2. Yes, it went over my $25, but I’ll try to cut back by $2 this week. My sister-in-law even gave us her leftover ham from Christmas! Hey, we’ll never turn down ham.

By Friday night I was kind of tired of cooking, and I told Cole he was in charge of thinking of something to have for dinner. He said How about Ramen noodles? Sounded great to me. I like it that the kids actually WANT to eat ramen noodles. And since Ryan was out of town, there was no need to make a “real” dinner. Although last night we did have a roast (from the freezer) with sweet potatoes, yukon gold potatoes, and carrots. So we’ll have some leftovers from that dinner to use up this week.

I only went to the grocery store one time this week, and I almost stayed within my $25 budget. I did go over by a couple bucks, but I actually put some things back, when I realised I hadn’t bought the right item that was on sale and went with the coupon I had.

That’s not a whole lot of food, is it?

This week I’ll need more fruit, as I was getting tired of apples and canned fruit, but I guess that’s the point, right? We had bread in the freezer, but we’re almost out of that, so I’m going to have to make my own bread or buy some more this week. This week we also ran out of the cheese that the kids like. It’s the presliced American cheese that I buy in a huge block at Costco. But I don’t think I can go into Costco and ONLY spend $25, so that cheese might just be a no no.

We also did some baking. I brought out a bag of muffins I had stored in the freezer. The kids gobbled up those muffins and asked that we make some more. So on Sunday we made a bunch of two different kinds of muffins for the kids to grab and eat.

The hardest part for me is seeing the deals on cereal and other stock up items that I can’t buy right now. We do NOT need cereal, as I buy lots of it when it’s on sale, but I hate to pass up a deal. I’m also getting low on diet coke, so I’m going to have to add that to the list this week.

How are you doing? Did you eat from the pantry this week and avoid going to the grocery store? Well, if you didn’t, it’s not too late to try.

Money Saving Mom is working to encourage you to shop less. The idea is that we all have so much food in our pantries already that we regularly forget about. Instead, we end up shopping and spending more when we don’t really need to. This month, the goal is to try and use what you have on hand, which will force you to be a little bit more creative than usual and will help you save money in the process.

I’ve decided to join in this challenge. My goals are:

* To reduce our grocery spending to $100 in January

* To “clean out” our freezer and pantry

* To learn to “make do” with what we have!

I think that we have enough food storage that I should be able to “get by” with just buying a few fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, and maybe bread.

I’ll try to post once a week about what we’ve eaten, if we’ve had any failures or successes, and what we really need to add to our food storage for next time.

If you’d like to join this challenge, it’s not too late.

Here’s to a healthy and frugal 2010