Grocery Shopping Day

Well I forgot veggies. Not sure what were's gonna eat veg wise this week. I'm sure I can find something in the bottom on my freezer. I went to three different stores today, and I think I did pretty good.

From Store 1:
14 Dannon Yogurts .33 ea -1.00 Q -.75Q
4 Lean Cuisines 1.67 ea.
2 limes .40
Cook This Not That. 14.99 (I LOVE this book series! Had to have it!!)
Total: 26.28

From Store 2:
Freschetta Brick Oven Pizza 3.99 -1.00Q
Knorr Rice sides 1.00 x2 -.60Q
Gushers 2.00
2 golden del apples .64
1 gala apple .35
1 Lean Cuisine 1.78. I couldn't find this flavor at the other store.
Total: 9.48

From Store 3:
Turkey- FREE!!
2 Twix bars .59 ea-B1G1 Q (hey the Q was gonna expire tomorrow!)
3 Luna bars 1.00 ea -B2G1 Q
Total: 3.38

Final Total: 39.14
Total Savings: 52.54
Not too bad. And part of my grocery bill was a book that doesn't come out of my grocery budget!

Meal Planning Monday

Christmas is officially over! New Years is right around the corner, but that is much less of a hassle. I do love Christmas, but... I'm glad it's over. I don't have much left in my budget this month, so a lot of our meals will come from the pantry/freezer.

Tonight: Russ made sandwiches

Tuesday: Spaghetti, garlic bread, zucchini

Wednesday:Chicken Cordon Bleu, salad, 

Thursday: Honey Ginger Pork chops, rice, corn, tomato wedges

Friday: Dinner at a friends

Saturday: Stroganoff, rolls, veggie sticks

Food Waste Wednesday

Today I cleaned out my fridge and took an honest look at what was in there, and what I would eat, and what was really was waste. Then I started going through the cabinets and pantry and made the same tough decisions. Sometimes it's just easier to leave in the pantry (or the fridge) and tell yourself that you will eat it eventually.

I did take a photo but for some reason it won't load.

I was going to take inventory to list all that was gone but it made me depressed, so I didn't do it. Now I wish I had, since I don't have the photo.
I remember there was applesauce. It was a 6 pack, and I ate two of the cups and thought it was gross both times. I know I'm never going to finish the other 4, so even though they technically weren't spoiled, I knew I need to get rid of them. There were 2 half boxes of cereal. I bought them and didn't like them, but kept them around thinking I would get to them some day, but I also have other (yummy) cereal I keep eating instead. I'm never going to eat yucky cereal. Out they go. There was a lot of stuff in tupperware at the back of the fridge- scary. some moldy cheese. a protein shake that was gross but decided to put in the fridge instead of the trash. Just gross weird stuff. I'm not going to eat it, and I have TONS of food in the house, so it's just better than I throw them out than hang out to them (and feel guilty whenever I see them.)

Meal Planning Monday

This week is going to be really crazy/busy. Then Christmas. So I'm going to try and make really simple meals this week.
Tonight: Chili dogs and salad
Tuesday: Honey ginger pork chops (from freezer) with rice and veggie sticks
Wednesday: Linguine with alfredo sauce and chicken. garlic bread (and probably more salad)
Thursday: Not sure if I'll be here or gone yet, plans are still tentative.
Friday: Off to California for Christmas
Saturday: Still in CA

Not quite meatless

One of the first budgeting tips you'll find is to go meatless at least once a week. And I really love reading Cate at Budget Confessions chronicle her meatless meals.  I'm really bad at planning meatless meals. Mainly I switch between either French toast or soup and grilled cheese. Honestly, we don't go meatless very often in this house. But this week I've tried another tactic. I made One pan taco dinner with one pound of ground beef.  The recipe says it feeds 4 but it really makes a TON on food. Not only did I freeze half of it, I had leftovers! To those leftovers, I added diced can tomatoes and stuffed the mixture in roasted red peppers and topped with cheese. Yum! So it may not be meatless but it's only 1 lb a meat that made (at least) 2 dinners to feed 2 people. Then tonight I made BBQ chicken sandwiches. I put 1 chicken breast in the Crockpot and poured BBQ sauce on it and let it cook. So simple and the smell brought me right back to an annual work party/picnic at my dad's work that my family and I LOVED! When it was cooked through, I shredded the chicken and added a bit more sauce. Then I served it on hamburger buns with homemade potato wedges. Probably the easiest dinner ever and since we only need 1 chicken breast (instead of the usual 2) it was frugal too.
The whole point? It may be hard for me to go 'meatless' but that doesn't mean I can't stretch out the meat! I'd normally use 2 chicken breasts or 1 lb ground beef per meal.  By cutting those in half I saved approx 2.85. K, not a fortune, but everything adds up, right? Isn't that why we do this?

Food Waste Wednesday

Not the best week for me. I cleaned up my kitchen earlier in the week and honestly didn't want to make dinner and mess it up! I've learned my lesson. This week waste:
Packaged salad- about half is left
2 tomatoes
1 lemon
1 pk thyme- I bought this specifically for a chicken recipe and never made the chicken!
I gotta stop doing that!
Not in the picture is 3 green onions that I thought I could just peel off the top skin part and use, but when I went to do that for a salad I was making, I saw that they were too far gone.
I gotta stick to my meal plans!

Meal Planning Monday

K this week my goal is to use up what's in the freezer/ pantry and to buy as little as possible.

Monday: Chicken fettuccine with salad and garlic bread

Tuesday: Chili dogs

Wednesday: Teriyaki chicken, rice and corn

Thursday: Fish fillets, broccoli and cheese

Friday: Honey Garlic Pork chops, rice pilaf, veggie sticks

Saturday: soup and grilled cheese

Food Waste Wednesday

So the only food I wasted this week were the 4 chicken thighs I had to throw out after my Spicy Honey chicken fiasco and then some leftovers of a foil dinner I had for lunch that didn't turn out that good. I ate half of it, and then just threw the rest away. I feel pretty proud of this actually- especially compared to last week. Next week is gonna be tough; we have a lot of things that could go bad, so I'm gonna have to be pretty watchful. Lots of dairy products that need to be eaten.

P.S. I FINALLY organized my freezer! I have a deep chest freezer that I absolutely love but it gets so messy and disorganized and everything gets lost in the bottom. So now it's nice and organized and it turns out I have SO much food! Next week, I'm really gonna try and use up a lot of that food.

Meal Planning

Ok, so last night I finally made spicy honey chicken I've heard everybody raving about, and I don't know if I messed up major, or if everyone else is crazy but it was awful! It tastes super weird and made a HUGE mess. So I wasted 4 thighs and I'm not happy about it! Plus, I was so concerned about the chicken I forgot about the rice, which turned into a soggy mess. We gave up and went to In and Out.
My goal is to find a good oh 20 recipes that I can just rotate, cuz right now I'm pretty much scouring the internet for a recipe that sounds good and sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just ok, not 'rotate worthy' and sometimes it ends up like last night. So here's the plan
Monday: Chicken/ bacon swekers
Tuesday: Biggest Loser Finale!
Wednesday: (I work till 8 so it's gotta be something quick...haven't quite thought of it yet)
Thursday: Sweet and Savory steak
Friday: (ok I had a whole plan for this, and bought all the ingredients, and just went to look for the recipe to know the title and I can't find the recipe!)
Saturday: chicken and rice pilaf

Food Waste Wednesday

This was a bad week for us! It all started when I got sick on Tuesday night.
In this picture:
 1 apple
just over 3/4 of an onion
almost a whole yellow peper
2 greek yogurts
1 yoplait yogurt

The onion, pepper, and one of the greek yogurts was supposed to me made into a dip for thanksgiving, but I was too sick to make it. I haven't made dinner at all in these past 2 weeks, and I really haven't been eating much of anything, so a lot of things went bad. I'm almost back to normal, so hopefully next week won't be so bad.

Meal Planning

Over this Thanksgiving holiday, I got the flu!! I'm still really woozy and icky and so I can't even think about food, let alone what to eat and make all week! Russ is on his own tonight, I'll probably have some soup. The rest of the weeks just gonna be touch and go till I get better.

Meal Planning

No meal plan this week. I work late Mon and Wed. Tues I go straight from work to my parents house where we'll have dinner there. Then, of course, Thursday is Thanksgiving at my parents house, where we'll stay the rest of the week and munch on leftovers. I just need to pay close attention to all the produce in the fridge and make sure to eat it all before I leave. I'll use the citrus fruits in a virgin sangria like drink for the holiday. The onions I'll make into a French onion dip, and some of those veggies will be great with it, like the yellow peppers cut into strips. Now I just gotta find the time to make all these things!

To-do before the thanksgiving madness

This is going to be one crazy week! Russ and I, both, need to be in two places at once! I work every day till Thursday, but then I have the rest of the week off to enjoy the holiday. But before this little vacation, I have a BIG list of things that need to get done. Here's the (tentative) plan: On Tuesday, my grandparents are coming up and before he rushes of (hopefully hopefully) Russ will meet them. Then his brother Brian and his sister-in-law Ashley and super cute nephew Corbin are coming in to town and they will pick up Russ and go to their sister's house up north for the holiday. Then my sister comes up, my aunt and uncle come down and maybe a family friend will come in. After I get off work on Thursday, I will head straight over to my parents where we're having dinner. So before this parade of family comes through, I need to get this house in order.
1. Write thankfuls
2. Do every dish in the sink, that's been piling up for.......
3. Take out the trash
4. Clean the bathroom
5. Wipe down the kitchen counters and clean up the clutter and piles of old mail
6. Pack (probably for both me and russ)
7. Make the fruit salad and dessert for my family's dinner.
8. Use up all the produce in the crisper before it goes bad during the long weekend we'll be gone.
9. Deep condition hair and paint nails so I look fabulous to the fam.
10. Pick up the towels off the floor and FINALLY find a place for them

Food Waste

I've been meaning to take more pictures, but apparently my camera is dead. This week I wasted:

1 FiberOne strawberry yogurt. I bought these because they were $2.00 for a 4 pack and I had a dollar off. The Key Lime ones are good. The strawberry ones aren't as much. 

A few leaves of Romaine. We were out of bread all week, so I couldn't make sandwiches like I planned. Dang!

3 strips of bacon. A while ago (not quite sure how long ago) I made BLT's. These few strips surfaced today and I'd rather not risk these. Besides, I have a fresh pack of bacon in the fridge that needs to be eaten. 

Ah! I'm so mad my lettuce is gross. We finally got bread, and no lettuce for BLT's. Isn't that the way it goes. 

Help!

So I bought a whole package of tortillas with the best intentions of using them up. We had quesadillas for dinner last night and I planned to make fajitas later in the week. So I'm talking to Russ about whether he wanted fajitas or fish tacos and he tells me he doesn't like either! So now I'm trying to find a way to use up the tortillas before they go bad. Can you freeze tortillas? Any suggestions? Thanks!!

Using up veggies

I'm loving this food waste thing! The more I document how much I've wasted, the more I focus on using up more of what might get wasted. Produce is the easiest thing to waste, since it has a short shelf life. Fruit's not that hard for me to use up- but veggies are! Russ isn't a big vegetable eater, he only eats what I put on his plate. But I'm realizing that it's not as hard as I thought. 

1. Sandwiches. What veggies can go in a sandwich? ANY! I used to put on the standard tomato, lettuce and onion on my sandwiches, but really experiment with any veggies that need to be used up. Peppers- yellow is my favorite! Avocado, cucumbers...

2. Salads. It may sound silly that you can add veggies to a salad. But like sandwiches, I was in a salad rut. Lettuce, tomato, green onion, cucumber, banana peppers. But, again, you can use whatever you have! Add corn, chopped up baby carrots, jicama...tonight, we ate a salad with yellow peppers, red onion and avocado (on top of our Romaine lettuce). Yum! 

Then I'll use up the pepper in the fajitas on Friday, and I'll make the rest of the avocado into gaucamole and eat it with chips for lunch tomorrow. (I'll squirt a bit of lemon in there, to keep it fresh). 
How do you use up your veggies?

Menu Planning Sunday

Sunday: leftovers

Monday: French Toast and grapefruit

Tuesday: out w/ mom

Wednesday: bacon quesadillas & avocado ranch salad

Thursday: Rotisserie style chicken, mashed potatoes and corn

Friday: golden chicken and noodles and veggie sticks

Saturday: Fajita burgers

There's a lot of chicken this week, which I don't mind, but Russ might. So I might have to make some adjustments.

Not Food Waste Wednesday

So, it's been a crazy day (a crazy week!) and I just couldn't get to the food waste this week- I know there is some cheese in there that's moldy and a zucchini thats beginning to wrinkle- but I do know one thing. In my journey to eliminate my food waste, I've gotten pretty creative. I love it. There's a sense of pride I get- and I'm sure you as well!- when you see your waste pile shrink, and you know you've done your part. So here's what I haven't wasted lately:

1. Sun chips. Russ likes to get those big boxes of sun chips from costco- that has all the different kinds. Well he likes all the flavors except the original. So we're left with a bunch of little bags of sun chips he's never gonna eat. (He's not quite as concerned about waste as I am.) So I'm left finding ways to eat them, and I'm not a chip person. Yesterday, I used them to scoop up tuna salad and today, bean dip. I bought that DElicious Zesty bean and cheese dip by Tostitos (ohmygoodness! It's so good) and I went to the cupboard and that little space where I keep my tortilla chips was empty! But I remembered those chips and they were a fine substitute. What's that saying, necessity is the mother of invention. K maybe it wasn't a 'necessity' but it sure made me see there's another way of using things up!

Plus I used up the last of the tomato and red onion in the salad for dinner- both of which were about to 'expire.'

Meal Planning Sunday

This week my goal is to do no grocery shopping. I want to use up the stuff in my freezer/ pantry.
Monday:
Lunch: Frozen pizza, yogurt, fruit leather
Dinner: Lemon Chicken, rice, zucchini
Tuesday:
Lunch: Lean Cuisine meal, fruit cup
Dinner: Italian Pot Roast, mashed potatoes, veggie blend
Wednesday:
Lunch: pb&j, yogurt, canned peaches
Dinner: (working late- some frozen meal)
Thursday:
Lunch: soup, fruit cup
Dinner: Frozen pizza, green salad
Friday:
Lunch: Big salad, applesauce
Dinner: Hamburger Helper, corn, rolls
Saturday:
Lunch: out w/ Russ
Dinner: (working late- some frozen meal)
Sunday:
Lunch: tuna salad, yogurt
Dinner: Spaghetti

Food Waste Wednesday

Here's my food waste for this week. (Sorry about the late posting, but at least it's actually on Wednesday this week!) In the picture is 1 apple. 3/4 a zucchini and 2 gogurts. Russ and I are always trying to agree on veggies. I'm a really picky eater, so we tend to have salad a lot, and that gets boring. He likes zucchini and I can tolerate it okay, but this past week I really was not feeling it. Sorry. I'm really sad about those gogurts though. I know you can keep products longer than the expiration date, and I've gotten much better, but these expired in the beginning of October, so I really couldn't bring myself to eat them. I do love gogurts though. I read somewhere (where was that?) that if you like those GU energy gels--which I used to buy for like 1.79 each(!) --that gogurt is just as effective at giving your body energy, plus a pack of 8 is around $2.50- and I ALWAYS use a coupon. A Much better deal! They're really good frozen too! A better alternative for ice cream with built in portion control!

Menu Planning Monday

Yes, I'm a day late, but I couldn't even begin to think of what to eat yesterday, let alone the rest of the week. But I'm here now and my plan is:
Monday:
Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and green salad
Tuesday:
Lunch: lunchables, greek yogurt, apple
Dinner: fish fillets, rice, zucchini boats
Wednesday:
lunch: turkey sandwich
Dinner: pork chops cresent rolls, corn, pork and beans
Thursday:
Lunch: tuna salad
dinner: (work late)
Friday:
Lunch: soup
Dinner: pizza and green salad
Saturday
dinner: italian pot roast

Food waste...Friday

Boy have I been slacking lately! Sorry about the late (and non existent) posts. I've just been in one of those funks lately...
This week I wasted 1/2 a zuccini, 1/2 a stoffers lasagna--one of the small ones at least, about 4 oz strawberries and about 1 bowl of soup- It was progressos creamy chicken and rice, and it was so gross I couldn't even finish it!
What's not in this pile: the last of the orange pepper! I made chili this week and the recipe called for green pepper. I had used 1/2 an orange pepper earlier this week, and was about to get in my car to buy a green pepper when I realized what I was doing! I switched out the orange pepper and my chili was delicious- plus it made a great lunch today. I was so proud of myself!

Debt Confessions

Yeah, I made a $350 payment on my loan! Of course, it went up $80. That's okay. Only $2730 to go.

Meal Planning Sunday

K, here's the plan this week:
Sunday:
dinner: Chicken cordon bleu pasta (I never ended up making last week, so I'll try again tonight)
Monday:
lunch: pb&j, yogurt, apple
dinner: Ranch burgers and sun chips
Tuesday:
lunch: soup and a pear
dinner: out w/ parents
Wednesday:
lunch: tuna and crackers, fruit cup, yogurt
dinner: cross rib roast, mashed potatoes and corn
Thursday:
lunch: Roast beef sandwich, pear, chips
dinner: dijon pork chops, green salad, rice
Friday:
lunch: steamed chx breast w/ sweet potato
dinner: chili w/ rolls
Saturday:
lunch: work buffet
dinner: out w/ friends

I really want to stick to my plan this week. I've been slacking lately and have noticed this (unfortunately) in my food waste--which I will hopefully post soon.

Meal Planning Sunday

I've written a few posts now about my trouble cooking the meals I've planned, and here I go again. I'd rather plan a dinner I don't end up making, than not planning and end up struggling over what to make for dinner. This week's plan is:
Sunday: Pork chops with honey mustard sauce, mashed potatoes and corn
Monday: Lasagna with cresent rolls and zucchini
Tuesday: dinner w/ mom
Wednesday: BLTs
Thursday: Herb and garlic tilapia with salad and seasoned rice
Friday- Chicken cordon bleu pasta
Saturday- soup in bread bowls

Menu planning

So, last week I made all these grandiose meal plans, and then the week happened. I did make dinner on monday, but Russ made plans to hang out with friends, so I made the sandwich for 1. (It didn't taste very good anyway. Eh, I tried.) For some reason, I forgot that Tuesday was Biggest Loser night with my mom, so I planned a meal I didn't have to. Plus, when I got home, Russ told me that his family reunion is on Friday and Saturday. So, I won't be cooking on those days. Thursday, my mom called and invited Russ and me out to dinner--who could refuse a free meal? So not much cooking in our home this week, but I guess it's better to plan and then be flexible, than not plan at all!

Food Waste Wednesday

My only waste this week was 1/2 an avocado. (Sorry, no picture this week.) I'm super excited about how much I salvaged from ending up in my waste pile. My carrots were getting a little dry, so I just swapped them from the cellophane bag they were in, to a ziplock bag and just added more water, and now they're just fine. I used up the last of my tomato in a sandwich yesterday and stuck the rest of my produce in those Debbie Meyer green bags. Have you ever tried them? They really are great for making your produce last. I got them at Ross for about $6 for a pkg of 20 bags, plus you can rinse off the bags (and make sure they're dried REALLY well) and you can reuse the bags. I'm pretty proud of my progress.

Menu Plans

Menu planning is hard! I want to use up all the produce items so they don't go to waste, but I also don't want the same veggies every night. Plus the microwave at work is busted so last week, I was at a loss at what to have for lunch that didn't need nuking. This led to me buying lunch way too often! I decided the best way to avoid this is to start planning lunch as well. It's taken most of the afternoon, but I finally think I've come up with a (healthy) easy plan I can actually follow.
Monday:
Lunch: Chicken Tuscany soup with carrot sticks
Dinner: grilled veggie sandwich
Tuesday:
Lunch: Chef salad
Dinner: Chicken pineapple kabobs
Wednesday:
Lunch: veggie and cheese bagel sandwich with grapes
Dinner: (I work late)
Thursday:
Lunch: Broccoli and cheese soup with crackers
Dinner: Herb and garlic tilapia with seasoned rice
Friday:
Lunch: green smoothie
Dinner: BBQ pork ribs with potatoes and corn
Saturday:
Lunch: deli plate with apple
Dinner: Bruschetta Chicken and side salad

Grocery Shopping day

Grocery shopping day!
Roasting pan (set of 2) 1.47
2 gala apples .59
2lbs green grapes 2.04
Blue Bunny Sedona Ice cream bars 4.49-2.00Q
Fiber one yogurt (4 pack) 2.00-1.00Q
Yoplait Delights 2.00-1.00Q
6 yoplait yogurts .50 ea -.50Q
Sour cream .82
2 progresso soups 1.50 ea -.50Q
Larabar 1.25 -.40Q
Betty Crocker mashed potato pouch .68-.55Q
tortillas 1.58
2 Mr Clean Magic Erasers 1.96 ea -B1G1Q
Crystal Light Rasp Lemonade 2.50
Tyson grilled chicken strips 2.50 -.50Q
Pumpkin (not pictured) 3.98
Grand total of $28.60
Savings (approx) of: $10.58

Food Waste Wednesday

LOOK! Look how small my pile is today! Ok, it's still waste but I've come a long way and I'm proud. In this picture is:
1 Grands biscuit I didn't want to eat after I finished off my freezer jam
1/4 (less than that even) yellow onion
and the worst part: about 3/4 taco blend cheese. Which was sad because I had planned to use this for dinner, but when I opened the package there were little green flecks all over. Not so good.
But I've seen much improvement and soon, I will have a no waste week, I know it!
I've paid much more attention to what needs to be eaten and I've bought so much less! The less stuff you buy, the less you have to worry about spoiling!

Dinner Tonight

Tonight I did make dinner and it was Parmesan-garlic Chicken I got off the Kraft recipes site. I had planned to eat with my mom today, but I decided to have dinner with Russ today and then I went over to my mom's for dessert. (We watch The Biggest Loser together every Tuesday). I was going to make the Farmhouse chicken I couldn't bring myself to make yesterday, but honestly, I couldn't bring myself to make it! So I found this recipe which was handy because I had all the ingredients on hand, there's only 4. The chicken was $2 and I 'breaded' it with 1/4 c Parmesan and 1/2 envelope Italian dressing and a pinch of garlic salt. I served it with yummy Rhodes garlic rolls I got for $1 and the other half of the zucchini so it didn't end up in the food waste list tomorrow! Yeah! I'm not as exact as Erin over there at $5 Dinners, but I'm pretty sure this came to about $4 which makes me happy!

Meal Planning Conundrum

So I try and plan meals for the week and then when it comes down to it, I don't want to cook/eat what I've planned. Like last night, I got home from work at 6:00 and just didn't want to use any of the energy I had left cooking. I usually try to plan around this, but I guess I had more hope for Monday. I ended up making Top ramen and Russ has a bagel. but hey, it was cheap. Today I did make Parmesan Garlic chicken which was super easy and everything was right on hand. (I ended up eating before I went to my mom's and we had dessert together.) So that wasn't the plan either. Do you just make a plan and stick to it, no matter if you don't want to eat that today? I'm really bad about that. I need to make my master menu plan, but I also need to make a list of quick and easy recipes that I can switch out in a pinch. Tomorrow, I had planned to make chili but now I think I'm going to cook Enchilada bake. But we'll see what really happens tomorrow!

Menu Plans

So last week, I didn't quite have a menu plan and I am sure how important a plan is. Russ and I ate out twice this week! Luckily, we had discounts and coupons, but it was still pretty unhealthy and chaotic. So this week:

Sunday: dinner with my parents
Monday: Farmhouse chicken with zucchini
Tuesday: dinner with mom. (every tues my mom and I get together and watch the biggest loser!)
Wednesday: Chile con carne
Thursday: glazed pineapple chops
Friday:Frozen pizza (I work till 9:30, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to want to cook a huge meal)
Saturday: Golden chicken with noodles

Dinner Tonight

made a quick dinner for russ and myself tonight. I made four cheese lasagna hamburger helper with italian sausage with Pillsbury grands biscuits and salad. So... thats:
hamburger helper: .75
1 lb Italian sausage: 2.00
biscuits: .50 (well we only ate three, so that's not quite .50 but I don't wanna do that math)
salad- ok here's the hard math
Romaine 1.00. I used 2 leaves of what 16? So thats about .12
3/4 a roma tomato which was about .20 cents so that makes it about .15
2 stalks of green onion which was .69 and how many of them were there? 8? about $0.16
1 baby carrot and dressing. yeah I'm not counting all that. I'm rounding off the whole salad to .50 cents

Total: $3.75
plus lots of leftovers. Not to bad.

Food Waste Wednesday

Not the best week, but I think I'm improving. I see improvement at least. In the picture:
1 apple
1 banana
3/4 yellow pepper
8 oz mozzarella
just a little over 1 cup bagged salad.

I can never(!) eat the last banana. I don't know why. It doesn't matter if I buy 8 or 2, the last banana never gets eaten! The cheese I'm actually proud of because I've had this for a while and it was good for a long time. I used 1/2 the block then it finally turned. I bought the yellow pepper and have been adding little bits to salad, but couldn't use it up in time I guess. But you know what's not in this picture:
The tub of cottage cheese Russ finished!

Debt Confessions

Okay, so I have debt. As much as I try to be frugal, I have debt. (Actually...my debt inspired my frugality) and I had a plan to help ease my debt but that didn't work. I was declined. Sad. My mom loaned me money for school, about $1000 (I did pay off about $400 already) and then my credit card debt just started somehow racking up. To the tune on $2300. I finally (!) came clean to my mom about my debt and she immediately took action and transferred $2400 into my bank account. So yay! my credit card is finally and officially paid off. I thought this was going to take years! But now I owe my mom just under $3000. Luckily for me she gave me a really low interest rate- because yes, I made her put interest on my loan. Now, I'm going to pack away my credit card and use it only for emergencies! My new debit card is in the mail, and I will try and use cash much more often!
Debt: $3000

Menu Plans

K, here's a super rough draft of my dinner plans this week:

Sunday: Work till 11
Monday: (If this is gross, I'm giving up on my slow cooker!) Italian chicken
Tuesday: Dinner with mom
Wednesday: Lemon Chicken
Thursday: Italian Sausage Lasagna Hamburger helper
Friday: Farmhouse chicken
Saturday: Soup in a bread bowl

Dinner Tonight

I love my slow cooker. I love coming home knowing dinner is already cooked. But tonight, well...dinner was gross. I made 20 garlic chicken which came to a rough total of $3.50 and it was not good! So I made myself chicken nuggets and russ ate a bagel.
I served the chicken with knorr's alfredo pasta sides and zucchini. The only thing we ate was the zucchini!

Dinner Tonight

Made dinner tonight. Somehow I got the dates wrong on my meal plan post- I worked last night and made dinner on Wed and well, I just didn't wanna make french toast so I made the pork chops instead. I just breaded the boneless pork chops with an italian crumb/parm seasoning blend and pan fried them in olive oil. Then I made a sauce out of 1 c chicken stock and 1/3 chive and onion cream cheese till it thickened into a sauce. I served it with biscuits and veggie sticks.
Pork chops: 4.00
chicken stock: 1/2 a .83 can- .40
Cream cheese: 1/2 a 1.99 tub- 1.00
veggies: carrots and radishes: roughly .25
biscuits: 1/2 a .50 can- .25.
The meal was about $6.50. Not terribly expensive, but I really want to try and make sure dinners cost less than $5 in the future!

Dinner Tonight

Dinner tonight was pretty good, if I do say so myself! We had Italian Pot Roast and mashed potatoes and corn and salad.
The Pot Roast was a Hormel Refrigerated Entree I got at Albertsons for 4.99 -1.ooQ 1.00DQ=2.99
The mashed potatoes were Country Crock for 3.99 -1.00Q -1.00DQ= 1.99
The corn are these great little individual cups at walmart, a pk of 4 is 1.60 so 1 is a little less than .50 cents. Russ likes corn and I do not, so I ate the leftover packaged salad.
I was skeptical about those Hormel entrees but it was really good! With a coupon, I highly recommend.
the total came to about 5.50, plus I have leftover potatoes for tomorrows lunch.
Plus, it came together iin like 10 min!

Grocery Shopping day

Since my schedule is so irregular, I have to shop when I get the day off. Today was my day off and I think I did pretty good.

ALBERTSONS:
2 lean cuisines 1.88 ea
1 Rhodes Garlic rolls 2.69 -1.00Q -1.00 Double Q
1 Can Soup at Hand 1.00 -.50Q -.50DQ
2 pkg Hormel Fridge entree 4.99 -1.00Q 1.00DQ -(another) 2.00Q
1 1lb bag baby carrots 1.00
2 Luna bars 1.29- 1.29 B1G1Q (not pictured)
TOTAL: 13.79
TOTAL SAVINGS; 22.39
(I Love saving more than I spent!!)

HARMONS:
(Sorry no picture, I took one and put everything away, then went to upload the pic and couldn't find it!)

4 Diet coke 12 pks 16.00 -2.00Q
3 Progresso soups 2.00 ea -1.10Q
1 Blue Cheese dressing 1.00
1 womans world mag 1.79 (it had Tara from the biggest loser on the cover. HAD TO HAVE IT!!)
Green Giant frozen immunity boost blend 1.50
3 Hamburger helpers 1.50 ea -.75Q
Betty Crocker Garlic mashed potato mix 1.50
2 Pilsbury Grands Biscuits 1.50 ea -1.00 Q
Fig Newton snack pack 1.00
Yoplait delights 2.00 -1.00Q
1 orange .93
-5.00 betty crocker coupon
-.10 bag credit
-10.00 Gift Certificate (I won this buy helping a customer and my name got put in a drawing that, yup I won)
TOTAL: 19.13
TOTAL SAVINGS: 24.38.
Yeah! I saved more than I spent again!

Food Waste Wednesday

Yeah! Look how little my food waste is. It's not perfect, but I sure have come a long way. This makes me happy! In this picture:
1 Lime
1 Fruit Snax bar- I can't even remember when I bought this; found it in the back of my pantry and since it's organic, (w/ no preservatives) I figured I better throw it out.
Leftover pizza fondue
The pasta sauce I didn't use to make pizza fondue.
I know I should have used up that sauce, and eaten the leftover fondue, but I am still pretty impressed with my progress!

Dinner Tonight

Tonight I made Asian beef patties with Peanut Ramen noodle salad...well, that was the intention. I made the sauce for the ramen and it was gross. Instead, I just used the regular old seasoning packets.
The cost breakdown:
Ground beef: 2.00
Ramen noodles: .16 ea x2
green onion: .20
Salad .75 plus fixings. rounding to 1.00
The sauce I threw out:
peanut butter ~.25
Teriyaki Sauce ~.20
Garlic ~.05
Cider Vinegar ~.25
= .75
Okay. I feel better. If my numbers are correct I only wasted about $1.
Total cost of dinner (including waste): 4.27.
Plus I have lunch for tomorrow.
This dinner was cheap, but only so-so. The salad was the best part. Anyway, I'm glad I used some of the meat in the freezer and the ramen I bought back in January!

Menu Plans

I always plan on all these fancy dinners to make and when it comes right down to it, I never wanna cook! I'm gonna keep trying though. Here's this week's plan.

Sunday: Asian Beef patties with Ramen noodle salad.
Monday: I work 3-11 (so I'm off the hook for cooking dinner)
Tuesday: Dinner at my moms
Wednesday: Work 3-11
Thursday: Pork chops with a parm chive sauce. Mashed potatoes and salald.
Friday: French Toast
Saturday:20 Garlic slow cooker chicken. Rice and zucchini.

I'll post about how well the meals turn out and how much they approx cost in my efforts to save. And don't be surprised to see that my plans have changed and I've made something else!

Grocery Shopping day

I went to the grocery store today and was pretty proud of myself (...at first.) I had a grocery list and everything! And my new coupon binder.
ALBERTSONS:
Kikoman's Teriyaki sauce 2.29 -.55Q
Sanitas tortilla chips: 1.88
Rice cakes 1.89
V8 blend juice 2.00 ea. 4.00- 1.00Q
Country crock mashed potatoes 3.99-1.00Q
Turkey lunch meat 4.99-1.00Q
green onion .69
radish bunch .69
plus Albertsons has those great Double my coupon coupons so that's about -3.00Q!
Total: 14.39
Total savings: 12.65

WALMART:
Ok, here's where I got a little off track. Still pretty happy though; I got lunch for like a month!
Dozen eggs (not pictured) .98
Zucchini .55
Red onion .54
Tomato .36
Dole salad 1.98
Spinach 2.38
Hairspray 3.22
Shaving gel 2.24-1.50Q
Shampoo 3.08
Luna bar .75
Wanchai Ferry Garlic Chicken 6.00-4.00Q
Marie Calendars Pot Pies 2.00x 3
Marie Calendars Frozen dinners. 1.67x3
Lean Cuisines 2.00x3-1.00Q
Total: 37.03
Total Savings: (approx) 13.54

Dinner Tonight

I made dinner again tonight! yeah! I'm on a roll. I made Brown Sugar Chicken. The chicken was just okay; Stephanie at A Year of Slow Cooking raved about it, so I was expecting something different, I guess. Russ said he'd eat it again.

The chicken was from a bag of thighs I bought at Costco a LONG time ago, and russ has been after me for a while to make them. (He said he was proud of me for cooking them tonight!!) They cost like $8 and there's like oh 15 in there so that's like um.....54 cents each. I used 4 of them so that's 2.16.
The brown sugar, vinegar and soy sauce are (I consider) pantry staples plus I have no clue how much I bought them for, nor how much 2 tbsp would be so...
The lemon-lime soda was 1.39. The recipe only calls for about 1/4 c but I never would have bought it otherwise (yet...I did drink the rest).
I served it with Chicken and Garlic Rice-a-roni that was 1.00. I severely overcooked it, so look for it in future food waste blogs.
And bagged salad that was 1.67 and this was the third and forth servings of the bag, so that's about .83 plus fixings. I'm rounding to 1.00
SO
my total was $5.38.
I would have made it under $5 if I didn't wreck the rice! (It made about 6 servings but I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna eat the rest, so I'm counting the whole dollar. ) Sad.

Dinner Tonight

I made dinner tonight...sorta. Tonight Russ and I went to my store party. I've mentioned before the perks and (many) downfalls of working at a grocery store. Well, one of the perks is that we had a party today. Russ and I went and there was a prize drawing and Yours Truly won the Vizio 22" Flatscreen TV!! I was super excited.
Then when we got home, it was late and I was not about to cook a whole dinner, and my mom had just given us a can of chili, so we made chili dogs!

Chili- FREE
hot dogs- .11 ea. x2
hot dog buns- .25 ea x2
cheese- the whole 1lb bag was only 1.99! We used about 2T of that, so that's like...what?
Total: Just over .75 cents!!
I think that makes up for the chicken fiasco yesterday!

Food Waste Wednesday

(Sorry, my phone's in my car which is in Vegas, so no pictures.) Wednesday seems like a good day to do food waste. Last night, Russ and I had a talk about food waste. I tried to get him on board but it didn't quite go the way I'd hoped. He's pretty good about eating what needs to be eaten anyway. This week was another disappointing week however. I wasted
1 chicken breast (that Russ thought was bad, but I maintain was perfectly fine...)
2 chicken breasts that I had defrosted in the fridge overnight but could just not get myself to cook it the next few days and then my small window closed and into the bin they go.
2 c pasta. I made this from a kit that was on sale, but it was so gross Russ and I couldn't even finish what was on our plates. I put it in the fridge knowing I wouldn't eat it. Not to upset about this one.
1 green pepper. I don't even know why I buy these.
Jello cups Raspberry Goji flavor. I did not like these. I ate one of six and let the rest sit in the fridge for who knows long. I finally decided to toss them.
Almost a whole block of cream cheese. I can't even remember buying this!
1 bag (about 1 cup) broccoli. These were for the 2 chicken breasts above. I didn't make that so I didn't make this. Then it turned brown.
Mozzarella
Parmesan- these were both from the back of the fridge. Both were shredded which of course has a smaller shelf life that block. both were moldy.
So that's my list. Pretty bad, I know.

Trying to Save money

I have decided to make a conscious decision to save my money and eliminate waste. I have blogged about it-somewhat randomly- in the past, but now I will have a whole blog devoted to my efforts. Right now I do have some credit card debt (The worst!) and school loans I'm trying to pay off and I don't make all that much! So stretching my money is very important for me. Hopefully this blog with help motivate me to stay on task and save my pennies!