I planned a menu. Did I stick to it? Mostly.

(not this week’s menu plan.   Although, mmm, hibachi sounds good.)

On the menu planning front, I did improve over last week.

However, on the grocery shopping front, there was little improvement. Ahem.

(Although I did manage another low-spending week.)

So.

To start out the week, I dropped into Costco because I was almost completely out of frozen fruit for smoothies, and I needed some snacky stuff for our Sunday night meal.

I spent $60.55 there on berries, ham, apples, bananas, crackers, 4 pounds of butter, and 2 gallons of milk (I think that’s it.   I lost my receipt!)

Then I stayed out of the stores until Wednesday, when I had to pick up some individually packaged snacks for the girls’ ballet party.

Those cost $7.47.  And they reminded me why I almost never buy individually packaged snacks.

That was totally not $7.50 worth of chips.

I also stopped in to Aldi ($31.91) to pick up some necessities, plus supplies for making a big batch of stuffed shells (one for us to eat, one for the freezer.)

But then I ended up not making those.

(More on that in a sec.)

And lastly, yesterday we made plans to go see some Christmas lights and we ended up needing a portable dinner meal. I had to stop at Target anyway to buy an umbrella, so I bought our food needs there.

I spent $40 on clementines, a big box of Goldfish, a package of rolls, 4 bags of flour (on sale for $1.79. Not for our portable dinner.   Ha.), a big box of fruit leathers, and potato chips.

So, I’m in at $139.93, which is pretty good considering that I still have uneaten supplies for a double batch of stuffed shells.

The running tally for December:

Week 1: $215.55

Week 2: $114.52

Week 3: $139.93

What did we eat this week?

I mentioned we had a snacky meal on Sunday night, but here’s how the rest of the week went.

Monday

We had a rehearsal to go to at night, so the kids and I ate breakfast for dinner and Mr. FG picked up two slices of pizza since he had to go straight to rehearsal from work.

The kids were split on what they wanted, and I only had a little bit of buttermilk anyway, so half of them ate French toast and half ate buttermilk waffles.

I thawed some local sausage too, and fried it up.

(On nights like these, I’m always grateful to have started the day with a fruit/veggie smoothie!)

Tuesday

On Monday, I’d thawed, spatchcocked and salted a chicken, so on Tuesday, I roasted it in my cast-iron pan.

I also made two loaves of French bread, cooked up some acorn squash, and made a green salad.

Wednesday

This was the day I’d planned to make a bunch of  stuffed shells.

But my day went kind of bonkers, and anyway, Sonia and Zoe ate at their party, Joshua ate at a friend’s house, and that left only Mr. FG, Lisey, and me.

Fortunately I’d made a big batch of Actually Tasty Chicken Broth that morning, I had some leftover chicken from the night before, and I had a few carrots and some celery.

I used all that and some noodles from my cabinet to make a small pot of chicken noodle soup for the three of us, and I made sandwiches with the leftover French bread from the night before.

I filled mine with the garlic pesto jack cheese from Aldi and it was delicious!

Thursday

We ate ham sandwiches, clementines, and chips/crackers/fruit leathers during our trip to see the Christmas lights.

Friday

It’s pizza night!   Joshua will be with a friend, so I’m going to poll the girls and Mr. FG to see what kind of pizza they might like.

(The last several weeks, everyone has voted for regular crust pizza.)

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How was grocery shopping/menu planning at your house this week?