week 5: budgeting explosion

well, i guess we saw this coming.

i knew i was going to be over budget this week.

i had to buy about ten dollars worth of cheese for a specific recipe i'm making someone and i also needed a couple of extras like chip clips, and an avocado saver. i also knew i needed several pounds of organic meat (that was my big purchase...about $17 worth!). however...i confess...i got carried away with the 93 degrees of hotness outside and went a little crazar over all the delicious summer foods!


let's see...pale ale (okay not technically a food....or a regular purchase...), half a gallon of ice cream, sorbet (raspberry), a watermelon, herbed goat cheese, a pint of blueberries and two pounds of peaches for cobbler making and iced teas, a giant basil  plant, white corn on the cob, lots of fresh avocados and tomatoes...

the grand total was $127. that's $77 over my budget. YIKES!

it's funny because it doesn't even seem like that much, on the table, but i assure you, it cost all of $127.

ha!

here are some recipes i'll be making this week:

tomato, goat cheese and avo salad (tossed with lemon juice, sea salt and evoo)
mexican street corn (btw, i use vegannaise and parmesan)
blueberry and peach cobbler
avocado cobb with kale
emily's baked spaghetti


thanks for reading! and for sticking with me through my summer instant gratifications.

Week 5: Menu Planning and Grocery List

I know I said last week was week 3, but it was a lie. Yep! It was Week 4. And now it's week 5! BAM.

I went to Sprouts on Wednesday for double coupons (woohoo!) and came away spending only $50.70! I didn't even keep track of where I was this time, which was a bad attitude to go in with, but I knew I needed everything on my list and that it shouldn't be too far off. Maybe I am getting the hang of this?

                       

 

All in all, it's not that much compared to the other weeks. I did get a couple of Rotisserie Chickens that kind of put me over the edge, spending wise. So here's what's on our list this week, menu-wise.

Breakfasts:
Whole Wheat Pop Tarts

Apple Pie Oatmeal

Smoothies

Lunches:

Pita Sandwiches 

Yogurt 

Fruit (we have a LOT of fruit in our house right now!)

Dinners:

Home Made Pizza (with leftover pepperoni, roasted chicken, and mushrooms)

Hopkins County Stew (we are feeding about 15 people, so we'll have to get additional things, that come out of a different budget.)

Roasted Chicken and Mushrooms

Spinach Salads

Blueberry Cobbler (we have some leftover from last week!)

That's all friends. Thanks for reading!

grocery challenge, week 4!

okay, you're probably wondering what happened to week 4, REALLY.

well, i got the flu. and then i got bronchitis. so i haven't been to the store in a week and a half, HA! so we went yesterday. i did okay. i had a moment where i spent $7 on bulk m&m's because who knew sunflower had those?? i've been on a major popcorn kick while i've been sick (who knows...) and we always put m&m's in our popcorn. so yeah. $7. not the wisest choice ever, but nonetheless, i figured a $61 total wasn't too bad!

here are some recipes i'm planning on making with what i bought:

brocolli, grape and pasta salad
(it's so delicious. i know what you're thinking...grapes?! oh yes.)

plantain and apple crisp
(except i'll be using regular bananas)

stromboli
(i'm stuffing this thing with spinach, chicken and pepperoni.)

magic kale salad with pistachios and apples
the apples yes, but we usually leave the pistachios out...it's so delish!

everything else on here is for lunches. turkey wraps, potato salad, chips, fruit, tea, and salads. YUM! it's going to be a tasty week.

thanks for reading.

i love you, sunflower.

well i had a couple of hold-ups on my grocery trip tonight, the most painful one being that they were out of blackberries! NOOOO! and all the other berries were a crazy amount of money. then, i realised i had misread the watermelon specials...they were not two for $1, but 2 POUNDS for $1.

sigh.

i won't lie, tonight was hard. i got flustered at the kale trying to make everything work and completely lost track of where i was, and opted to for-go buying milk or spaghetti sauce.

sigh.

i knew at this point i would probably be about $5-6 over, but more likely $8. i began making excuses in my head about what i would say on my blog about being so unthrifty this week, and how i had two dinners to prepare for outside of our home, blah blah blah...

and lo and behold when i got to check out, i almost cried tears of joy when the cashier announced,

"your total is $45.83."


BAM, y'all!

i think i decided sometime last week that if i could just get one 'treat item' every week, that would make things super exciting. like, last week i got bacon, tonight i got some steaz (yum!). so here's my loot and receipt:

i'm leaving this pic sideways. i am totally done. fried. finished. over.

we had a dinner friday, garage sale saturday and bridal shower at the house sunday so i am totally toast.

HA!

good night friends!!

grocery challenge week two

okay, fans. i'm going grocery shopping tonight for the second week of our $50 budgeting makeover. week one faired extremly well, and we have corn on the cob leftover that i will be making for our soma group this week.

(we are having dinner together. it's mexican themed. there must be street corn.)

i am also making gucamole because it's my favorite food ever, so much to my enjoyment i saw that there were haas avos on sale at sunflower for 77 cents! SCORE! check it.

my attention is also drawn to the 4 for $5 blackberries (so there will be cobbler this week at least once), and the 2 for $1 water melons. so, therefore i will also be making some melon fresca's to drink! i'm not sure i'll get 10 for $10 on the apples, but i might get a few, and i'm hoping there will be a good deal on lemons when i get there too.

over and out. i'll let you know how i do.

you can read my food diary from week one by clicking here. note that somehow we still have a ton of toast and bacon in our house. how is this even possible?!

really, i am going to have to get creative tonight, because we are out of milk too. HA!

okay bye for real.

grocery challenge: week one

i don't know that i'll post every single week of my grocery challenge...that will get super boringsauce. but i thought you'd want to know how this was going.

well, friends, tonight i made my first trip to the store with $50 on my mind.

i have to tell you...i was shocked with how many things i got! and my total....$50.79! boom.

here's a breakdown of everything purchased, with proof of my financial success.

 

i think this is going to be a part planning/part on the fly kind of adventure. like tonight, i went to sprouts because it was closer to a coffee meeting i was attending beforehand, and they had corn on the cob..5 for $1. um, yes! we love corn! we will be having mexican street corn at least one night coming up. also, i was able to get some really fancy things like sliced bacon, and had room for a turkey wrap so i could have lunch on the fly tomorrow. AWESOME.

alright, so i'll keep you posted on how all the meals go this week! i will tell you that tonight (pre-grocery trip) we had mac and cheese, leftover potato salad, and tomtato/green onion/ basil salad with evoo and balsamic. it was awesome. and completely random. also, this is a weird week because i have 2 lunch meetings, a bridal shower, and we are hosting a garage sale. oh yeah and it's my birthday. so we have a lot of eating out planned (sigh).

later taters.

thanks for reading!

the grocery shopping makeover

my great friend, melissa (who i have mentioned in cocktail tuesdays) has recently challenged me on how much i'm spending on groceries. she and her husband have decided to buckle down and spend only $50 a week, which totally blows my mind.

after a lot of conversing, prayer, and totally reworking our budget, to aggressively save/pay off/etc, we have decided to join them in this challenge.

oh. my. word.

i realise that this is around $7 a day, or $3.50 a day for each of us, individually. did you know that a large part of our world lives off less than $2 a day? unreal. but so real. this will be a huge re-do. a makeover. a total change.

we realise this is necessary to meet the financial goals we have set for ourselves, but we also desire to feel the cost of  what we are saving for. so that in those moments, where we don't want beans for the 8th time that week...we remember those who have less, and be truly greatful for the bounty we have been blessed with. and really? $50 is a lot. we have so much excess and waste so much fresh food that never gets eaten. every friday when i clean out our fridge, i cringe and lament over all the things that went bad, and were wasted. totally disgusting.

we use mint.com pretty religiously. when it resets may 1...it's on. i joked that i was going to spend the rest of april stockpiling, HA! but i'm not. but ask me about it may 1, k?

this is going to be a challenge for me personally, for several reasons.

first of all, because duh. i was spending upwards of $150 before this. i know. i'm horrible.

secondly, i love food. it's a huge idol for me. i crave something and i have the ability to go and get it instantly. i love america. here's a random sampling of pictures on my phone. THEY ARE ALL FOOD.

prosciutto pizza. so good. i love you, prosciutto pizza!

one of my weekly greenling local boxes.

butternut squash soup with sour cream and thyme. i love making this.

triple chocolate cookies we made for a cookie exchange last winter.

thirdly, i don't think i've ever properly learned how to grocery shop and meal plan. i mean, i do it, but i don't think i'm that great at it. i try to stick to my list, but i usually go shopping right after yoga, and i'm like 'oh i can totally buy all these chocolate bars! yay!' growing up, we didn't make lists. we could buy anything we wanted. we had no idea about the concept of wasting random crap we threw in our baskets and the effects it would have. this is freedom from that. from waste and excess. and i am looking forward to the discipline, this limitation will bring.

fourthly, i ridiculously love to cook. i love trying new recipes and making elaborate dishes. i can't do this every night because i work a full time job, regularly attend church and all it's activities, engage with my community, and try to make time for personal study, investing in my marriage....the list goes on. i have no idea how a child will fit into this in the future...really. so often times, convenience works. and wins. this is going to be a lot of work.


okay so may 1, look for some updations on this. i'll be tagging them under 'grocery challenge.'

keep me accountable, people!


thanks for reading.