Grocery Spending, Menu Plan....the usual Saturday stuff.
I had a better week this week as far as my budget goes. I spent $38.65 at Aldi($2.50 of which was a grill brush, which is not really a grocery item!). And then at Weis I spent $25.07 so I'm at a mere $63.72 for this week. Yay!
I've had a really busy weekend...I played(piano) for a choir yesterday afternoon andthen I went straight to a wedding rehearsal(where I played the piano). Then today I have to play for the actual wedding, and tomorrow I will play for church, as usual. I've had busy fingers lately(which is good news for our emergency fund!).
Happily, the husband and I get to go out to dinner all by ourselves tonight, though! Some friends of ours are graciously taking our four kids for a few hours, and I am very excited. 🙂
Saturday
- I'm not cooking! We're eating out, and we have $50 in gift cards, so I think our meal should be free.
Sunday
- French Toast
- OJ
Monday
- Chicken and vegetable stir-fry(veggies will be green beans, onions, carrots, and some green onions)
- Brown rice
- grapefruit halves
Tuesday
- Grilled Bratwurst(on purchased buns. Can you tell I've been busy? I actually bought some bread this week!)
- green salad
- fresh pineapple
Wednesday
- Chicken and Bacon panini(made with french bread)
- Sweet and Spicy Carrots
- grapes
Thursday
- Fajitas made with chicken and grilled vegetables
- whatever fruit is on sale next week!
Friday
- Thin Crust Pizza(and I will endeavor to take pictures this go-round so that I can post the recipe)
- Root Beer
- green salad
I just about fell off my chair when I saw the store-bought bread!! yes, you have been busy, indeed. 🙂 Keep up the good work twinkling the ivories...
Hope you enjoyed your dinner out!! You deserve it 🙂 Do you only buy one liter of Root Beer a week? I'm buying soda all the time 🙁
Excuse my newbieness - but I don't understand your menu plans - you have 4 kids and you eat one meal a day? Or is there a master menu plan I am unaware of? Love your site - I have visited it often in the past month - thanks for blogging!
Hee. This week should be better, so don't expect so much purchased bread in next weeks' photo!
Susan, yes, I just buy the one bottle of soda each week. It's our splurge with our pizza....normally, we drink water almost 100% of the time.
Mona, I keep forgetting to include that! lol We do eat breakfast and lunch, never fear. We eat cereal, bagels, or hot cereal for breakfast, and at lunch we eat leftovers, or bread, fruit, and yogurt smoothies. Sometimes we have pancakes for lunch too.
Kristen it is so wonderful your talent is in demand!
Pancakes for lunch sounds like an excellent idea- i like pancakes or breakfast for dinner. Actually Boyfriend usually has breakfast for lunch while I'm having a salad. Odd hours create unusual meal times!
No time for bread making? You must be sleeping to much. Kidding. But really, how can you eat store bought plain jane white bread when you are so used to homemade yumminess?!
On another note, I'd love to hear more about your sweet & spicy carrots.
I've been sick with a horrible flu, so I've been buying a lot of convenience items too! In fact, yesterday was the first time I'd been able to actually cook anything since April 6th. I'm hoping to be back in the swing of things this week...My laundry situation is truly an emergency!
I just found your blog - one of the people following my blog has a blog and you are on their blog roll 🙂
I have a site dedicated to workouts that can be done anywhere with little or no equipment or expensive gym memberships so saving people money is something we have in common. Anyway I just wanted to formally say hello and say that I really admire what you are doing with your site.
Best,
Zuzana
BodyRock.Tv
Another week with no spider! Thanks again for crushing my one joy in life. 😉
Oh, shoot! I forgot!
You DID see the spider in the flour picture back at Easter time, right?? It was blurry because I had a very wide aperture when I took the shot, but he was there.
Hi Kristen,
I really enjoy your blog and was hoping you could comment on your food choices and quality. I have a hard time buying cheap quality food such as meat that comes from crowded, mass-produced farms(for us, it doesn't have to be organic but at least higher standards than these farms offer) or dairy that has growth hormones added to it. I also stay away from hydrogented oil and high-fructose corn syrup in our food. These choices put our food costs a bit higher than yours and was wondering wear you stand on these issues?
Thanks for your work on this website!
Mary
Mary, I avoid hydrogenated oil and HFCS most of the time(although there IS our one weekly 2-liter of soda that has HFCS!). I can generally manage those two things without spending a lot of money.
We do normally get milk straight from a cow on a local farm, but she's recently calved and so we have to buy milk from the store right now. I make my own yogurt, so when we can get that milk, we have local, hormone free milk AND yogurt.
When I can get organic/not-mass-produced meats for a good price, I do, but so often, I can't really fit those into my budget. So, we end up just not eating a whole lot of meat.
I think that you have to come to your own compromise between financial concerns and taste/quality concerns...it'll be different for every family, I think.
Root beer is my favorite soda too, but I haven't had any for a long time because of my teeth. Did you know that chicken and turkey are now steroid and hormone free by law? I think beef still has all that stuff, though. Why does beef have to be so good?!