I didn’t shop much this week. The sales weren’t that exciting and my fridge was (relatively) full. In fact, if I hadn’t needed to pick up ingredients for our Lion cooking project in preschool, I wouldn’t have shopped at all.
I made chili last Friday, for Mikaela and JohnDavid, and realized I was running low on tomato soup. I stopped by my local Save-a-Lot and picked up two cans for $1.18. I need to stock up on on more soup!
My Grandma Lehenbauer sent 2 bunches of cauliflower over with my sister, and I’ve enjoyed eating that this week…for free!
After school on Monday, I shopped at Meijer. I picked up English muffins, peanut butter & chow mein noodles for our Lion school snacks, and the following for our house.
I told you it was simple. My baking shelf was running low on sugar, and our medicine cupboard was bare of Ibprofuen. The croutons and English Muffins were both on sale for $1. The bananas were for my husband. I don’t care for bananas. Did you know that? And the Chex mix was free, thanks to this $0.50/1 coupon. This deal continues next week so you can pick up some free Chex mix, too!
At Meijer, I spent $10.77. Since two thirds of that was on the medicine, I think I did pretty well on this small trip.
This brings my total for January to $82.67. Out of my monthly budget, this leaves me with almost $100 to spend. There are some good deals at Kroger this next week so I am looking forward to shopping there soon.
Now, what did we eat this week? I’m going to warn you. I often make large meals that we can eat for several meals. Many weeks, our meals repeat themselves, and this week was no exception.
On Sunday, we ate manicotti, cauliflower and green beans. Sausage, cheese & crackers was our evening meal. On Monday, I ate leftover manicotti & cauliflower while Andy ate leftover chili. Tuesday was the same leftovers. On Wednesday, I cooked pork ribs in the slower cooker. We ate vegetables as a side again. On Thursday, I finished off the cauliflower, with some sausage & crackers, while Andy worked late at school. It was good to clean out our leftover containers!
It was worth the repetitive meals and eating leftovers to keep my grocery shopping to a minimum. I need to do more of that. I want to do more of that. I’m going to think about how I can do better at that. Do you eat weeks like we did?
We do eat leftovers a lot some weeks. However, I have started freezing leftovers in single portions and using them for quick meals or to take to work.
That’s a great frugal tip! I do that a lot, too, because that’s the advantage of cooking large meals – freezer meals for later! I don’t like wasting food and am so thankful we have freezers that help counter that problem. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who eats a lot of leftovers some weeks, though!