Candi

Let’s talk about my plan to save on groceries these last two weeks. As you may have read I spent $225 on groceries for two weeks worth of dinners on my first try. We ended up not making two of the dinners which I have added to this menu again. I am sure this will happen every once in awhile, no biggie, I will just add it to the next menu. We ended up eating pizza last Tuesday after Karli’s dance class because they have BOGO every Tuesday which we have since decided that until football is over for the boys I will probably pick up pizza every Tuesday. It’s only $12 for two large pizzas, so it’s a cheap dinner and I would rather have pizza on that day rather than a Friday or weekend when I actually have more time to cook.

I did make a trip to the grocery store a few days ago to pick up milk, bread, and a few snacks and I spent $45. In a way that messes with my whole plan to save money, but after two weeks it is still less than what I have been spending. As I said before I was spending about $250 a week if not more if you include eating out. We didn’t eat any McDonalds for two weeks so that was great!

Today I will be getting all the food items for the menu below as well as some school lunch foods and snacks for Chase and Karli. As you can see I like to try some simple dinners and then I add a few new recipes that I would like to try. Also, I think I am going to try shopping at Meijer for once. So many people say they save a lot of money at Meijer and Walmart. I have shopped at Walmart before and usually save quite a bit, so I thought I would give Meijer a try and see how it goes. Unfortunately neither of these stores are that close to me, but since I only have to go every other week it’s not so bad. What grocery store do you seem to spend the least at?

I certainly see a pattern of A LOT of starch in the food we eat. I know I should be substituting a lot of the potatoes with either salad or some other vegetable, but it’s hard because my kids are such picky eaters. There are not very many vegetables that all the kids will eat. They do like salad but I don’t want to have salad every day especially when I try to eat it for lunch when the kids are in school. Not to mention that the cheapest dinners do happen to have a lot of starch in them if you think about it – casseroles, pastas, etc are pretty cheap things to make. Oh well, I’m doing my best!

Karli was told to clean her desk and this was the outcome. Why is my daughter such a little slob?

Not a very good photo, but Karli got a bike for her 8th birthday. If you haven’t seen the rest of her birthday photos, you will find them here.

Andrew left for football camp and then came home with a buzz cut! It’s tradition for all the Varsity football players to buzz their hair at camp. They don’t really have to do it, but most of them do. I was surprised that Andrew did it!

Princess Daisy borrowing Karli’s crown!

Karli getting ready to go to a friend’s Hollywood Ball birthday party.

Baby Tori…it feels great having a baby in the house again!

This pretzel dip is so yummy! You just have to try it. Just mix together 16oz. cream cheese, 8oz. cool whip, 1/4cup brown sugar and a bunch of Snickers bars crumbled up. I promise you will love it!

Karli and I enjoying some ice cream on a warm summer day while watching Blake play football.

Shaggy boy is all ready for a Luau!

Today was Open House for Chase and Karli. They were able to meet their teachers, drop of their supplies, and mingle with their friends after a long summer. (Notice I said long, haha.)

Karli was lucky enough to get the same teacher that Chase had last year. I love when this happens! Now 3 of my kids have had this same teacher…she is one of my many favorites at their school.
I love this photo of Karli organizing her desk all ready for the first day of school next week. Check out her hand sanitizer and the pink fuzzy topped pen. She is so me it is sometimes scary!

Chase and his teacher…note the football pants because God forbid he miss a day of football.

Chase and Karli are both sitting by two very good friends. I think we will have a contest as to who gets moved first. My money is on Karli, she is a chatterbox!
6 more days and counting people. 6 MORE DAYS!!!

I had a couple of people email me about my post about cutting back on our monthly food budget. They wanted to know what sort of meals I was planning. It’s been exactly a week since I went to the store with my 2 week menu plan and I have to say we have stuck with it very well. One thing I learned really quickly is I am no longer going to designate certain meals for each day. I am going to make a list of 13 meals (assuming we will eat out just once every 2 weeks) and I can decide that morning what I feel like making for that day. Some days I didn’t include side dishes because I still have quite a few things to pick from laying around the house. I hope to use all this up by the end of the month.

I made just one trip to the grocery store last Monday and I spent $225 for all the things that are needed to make the following dinners. Now mind you I did have some of this stuff already in the house. Such as the hot dogs and burgers buns that were left over from having family over the previous Saturday – that is why those items ended up on the menu in the first place. All of the vegetables I already had as well.

So it is nothing fancy by far since I had very limited time to plan my grocery list this time around. This weekend I plan to do some more digging around online to find some healthier yet cheap meal choices for the next two weeks. Also the fact that I spent just $225 on two weeks worth of meals is pretty darn good considering I usually spend that weekly. I did also buy some breakfast cereals and snack items during this trip so the entire $225 was not just dinners. We are almost out of bread as of today, but everything else is looking well stocked. I hope we can make it until next Monday!!