The temptations begin.....
First of all, we had family in town for Christmas until the 3rd of January. So, in the wake of starting back to work and school, in the wake of hard goodbyes, and piles of laundry spilling out of every hamper in the house, we entered no spend year. YAY. The house looked like a Christmas and New Year Food Network show had been filmed in my kitchen. We had holiday food galore, and no real food to be found. It was Friday. I just had to make it through one normal day before I had the chance to get groceries....I literally poured out curdled milk onto my son's cheerios that very morning. The poor kid had to eat dry cereal and half a bottle of Gaterade for breakfast. That was all that was to be found. I sent him to school with pumpkin bread and yogurt for lunch. Of course, a sugar cookie with sprinkles thrown in there as well. So, my first Friday night exhausted mistake was deciding we had no food and we just had no other choice but to grab something easy out for dinner while we grocery shopped. My husband shot this down. "It will be fine," he said. "I'll grab milk on my way home from work so we have some for breakfast and we can go to the store tomorrow."
"oh.....that will work".
So we did just that, I came up with some leftover chicken wings cut up onto lettuce to make some salads, and more sugar cookies for dinner and we managed with our one leftover egg and more cheerios for breakfast. We entered Saturday in a much better position for good decision making while grocery shopping.
I looked over the sale ads for all the local grocery stores, which I had honestly not ever done before (ain't nobody got time for that!) but it was really interesting. Between the half a bag of leftover baking potatoes from Christmas and the ads, I was actually able to put together some decent meal ideas for the week. I wrote out all the items I found at a killer deal, what store they were located at and we were off. I started with Aldi. I compared their prices to the deals I had written down from HyVee, Sprouts and Price Chopper. I ended up scratching a few items off that were cheaper at Aldi than the competitors sale ads, but decided I would still go to HyVee and Price chopper for a few things. I ended up spending a total of $145.00 on Saturday. This is insane. I would typically spend about $120.00/week at Aldi alone, somewhere between $75.00-$100.00 at Target on "essentials". Followed by filling the truck up with gas, getting a car wash, grabbing lunch somewhere etc. A normal Saturday of errands could cost me around $400-500. Without even really feeling like I splurged on anything. I had felt like I was doing a fairly good job at being frugal. WELL.....
Saturday I spent $43.00 at Aldi on regular weekly grocery items, coffee creamer, some fruit, veggies, orange juice, school lunch items, etc. I spent $13.00 at HyVee buying yogurt that was on sale for .29 cents a container, instant oatmeal on sale for .99cents/box and laundry detergent on sale for $1.99/bottle. I then filled up with gas at HyVee and was able to fill the truck for $40.00. What????
Then I skipped the car wash....this one is REALLLY bugging me. Like, every day when I walk to my truck. I'm one of those people who wash the truck usually once a week. Well, I used to be. Now I'll be known as the lady with the filthy Dodge. That's catchy. Next I went to Walmart to get baby wipes, and medicine. Honestly this did me in. I would have been so much better off on my spending this week if every single family member didn't have a cold. So, $15.00 in medicine later, I was limping to the cash register trying to decide whether my husband really needed the Nyquil (or you know the off brand because we are saving money after all). But, since I love the man, we bought the meds and the kids' meds and the cough drops, and everyone is feeling much better today, so it was worth it! Anyway, Walmart cost a bit more because of medicine, but hey, that's real life. Got out of Walmart for $32.00 and followed it up with Price Chopper because lunch meat was on a killer sale. So I spent $15.00 at Price chopper on lunch meat for the week and some extra for next and my husbands crazy expensive gluten free bread. (but again, I love the man, so you know).
For those that are curious....here's what we ate this week to pull this off:
Friday Night: We cut leftover chicken wings up, peeled off the chicken and put it on salads and enjoyed some chips with it for an easy quick dinner.
Saturday Lunch: Used leftover tortillas from Tacos the week before to make cheese quesadillas. We ate them with chips and salsa and taco fixings also leftover.
Saturday night: We LOVE movie night at our house. We pop a big bowl of air popped popcorn, cut up about 4-5 apples and sometimes we enjoy summer sausage and cheese with it. We literally eat this for dinner. Its perfect! Easy, simple and cheap!
Sunday lunch: We made ham and swiss panini inspired sandwiches using tortillas.
Sunday dinner: Breakfast for dinner, egg sandwiches, leftover bacon from the holidays and oranges.
Kids lunches this week have been:
ham and swiss spinach tortilla wraps, instant mac and cheese packed in a thermos, hot dogs in a thermos, sun butter and jelly sandwich and one repeat. All of these are packed with the .29cent yogurt, carrot sticks, oranges, blueberries, chips, etc as sides.
Monday dinner: Monday's are family nights, so my brother and sister who live in town come over and enjoy dinner and the evening with us. This is one of the highlights of our week. I made chicken enchiladas for dinner this week. All the ingredients came from my Aldi grocery budget. Except I had the flour tortillas leftover. I also made a delicious chocolate chip cookie cake to have for dessert! Maybe I should do a recipe share post soon?
Tuesday dinner: easy philly cheesesteak sandwiches, chips and apple slices. (I used the roast beef I got on sale at Price Chopper)
Wednesday night: shrimp, leftover asparagus and rice.
Thursday dinner: Loaded baked potatoes (again leftover baked potatoes from last week)
Friday dinner: a pot roast from the freezer with the leftover potatoes and some carrots
Saturday dinner: leftover roast made into beef and noodles.
Saturday I spent $43.00 at Aldi on regular weekly grocery items, coffee creamer, some fruit, veggies, orange juice, school lunch items, etc. I spent $13.00 at HyVee buying yogurt that was on sale for .29 cents a container, instant oatmeal on sale for .99cents/box and laundry detergent on sale for $1.99/bottle. I then filled up with gas at HyVee and was able to fill the truck for $40.00. What????
Then I skipped the car wash....this one is REALLLY bugging me. Like, every day when I walk to my truck. I'm one of those people who wash the truck usually once a week. Well, I used to be. Now I'll be known as the lady with the filthy Dodge. That's catchy. Next I went to Walmart to get baby wipes, and medicine. Honestly this did me in. I would have been so much better off on my spending this week if every single family member didn't have a cold. So, $15.00 in medicine later, I was limping to the cash register trying to decide whether my husband really needed the Nyquil (or you know the off brand because we are saving money after all). But, since I love the man, we bought the meds and the kids' meds and the cough drops, and everyone is feeling much better today, so it was worth it! Anyway, Walmart cost a bit more because of medicine, but hey, that's real life. Got out of Walmart for $32.00 and followed it up with Price Chopper because lunch meat was on a killer sale. So I spent $15.00 at Price chopper on lunch meat for the week and some extra for next and my husbands crazy expensive gluten free bread. (but again, I love the man, so you know).
This is such an exciting revelation. I didn't have to use a bunch of coupons, I didn't have to download a bunch of apps and scan a bunch of things at checkout. I simply looked at the ads that are mailed to my house every dang week anyway and used some creativity to build my menu off of the ads. That was all it took to literally take the grocery part of my spending this week to $62.00. Instead of $120+ I seriously cannot get over how easy this was and how ridiculous it is that its taken me 10 years of cooking dinner to figure this out. I cut my grocery bill in HALF you guys. By not just walking through the store and grabbing the same stuff every week, or buying everything convenient. I let the sales tell me what we would eat this week and the results are unbelievable!!!!
Who's going to try this next week????
For those that are curious....here's what we ate this week to pull this off:
Friday Night: We cut leftover chicken wings up, peeled off the chicken and put it on salads and enjoyed some chips with it for an easy quick dinner.
Saturday Lunch: Used leftover tortillas from Tacos the week before to make cheese quesadillas. We ate them with chips and salsa and taco fixings also leftover.
Saturday night: We LOVE movie night at our house. We pop a big bowl of air popped popcorn, cut up about 4-5 apples and sometimes we enjoy summer sausage and cheese with it. We literally eat this for dinner. Its perfect! Easy, simple and cheap!
Sunday lunch: We made ham and swiss panini inspired sandwiches using tortillas.
Sunday dinner: Breakfast for dinner, egg sandwiches, leftover bacon from the holidays and oranges.
Kids lunches this week have been:
ham and swiss spinach tortilla wraps, instant mac and cheese packed in a thermos, hot dogs in a thermos, sun butter and jelly sandwich and one repeat. All of these are packed with the .29cent yogurt, carrot sticks, oranges, blueberries, chips, etc as sides.
Monday dinner: Monday's are family nights, so my brother and sister who live in town come over and enjoy dinner and the evening with us. This is one of the highlights of our week. I made chicken enchiladas for dinner this week. All the ingredients came from my Aldi grocery budget. Except I had the flour tortillas leftover. I also made a delicious chocolate chip cookie cake to have for dessert! Maybe I should do a recipe share post soon?
Tuesday dinner: easy philly cheesesteak sandwiches, chips and apple slices. (I used the roast beef I got on sale at Price Chopper)
Wednesday night: shrimp, leftover asparagus and rice.
Thursday dinner: Loaded baked potatoes (again leftover baked potatoes from last week)
Friday dinner: a pot roast from the freezer with the leftover potatoes and some carrots
Saturday dinner: leftover roast made into beef and noodles.
No comments:
Post a Comment