End of Hiatus.

So between Paul finishing his thesis and life getting a whole lot crazier and tiring lately, I haven't really even thought about adding to this for a while. Hopefully now that Paul only has to defend and we're done things will be a little easier and I can get to this more often.

Step 3: Lunch

You can go ahead and give a large sigh of relief because this post is going to be a lot shorter than those last few novels.

Yeah, that totally didn't happen.

So what do you usually eat for lunch? According to your staples list, how much do your lunches cost every week?

Now, I'm going to be perfectly honest here, I am not a big fan of lunch. I'm not really a fan of breakfast either but I'd much prefer to make breakfast than have Paul ask me "what's for lunch?" In my head, I think, "What? are your legs broken? Are your arms painted on? Can't you just make yourself a sandwich?" This is mostly because lunch time is when Pearl naps and if I have to stop and make lunch, I miss out on extremely valuable productive time.

Paul is very forgiving about my dislike of thinking about what to eat for lunch. I only offer him a few options- in fact, lunch is our meal with the least options but that's simply because I don't care enough about it to be creative. As Pearl eats more and more I think I'll try harder but I'm at the point where it's neither important nor efficient.

The first thing you should know about lunches is that unless you're down to only lunch portions of a dinner, leftovers should only be left for another dinner. This is because dinner is usually the most expensive meal of the day and costs a lot more than lunch, so it's cheaper to use a meal for multiple dinners rather than just one dinner and then lunch. When we get to the point where there's only enough for one person to have a meal, it becomes Paul's lunch (he requires more variety than I do), but other than that, Paul gets the following options:

Popcorn

Ramen noodles (Paul has a bizarre love of Ramen noodles and since they're 9 cents a package and he doesn't eat them a lot, I'm resigned to let him have them even though they're terrible for you)

Salad- you can usually find a head of lettuce from $0.80-$1.00 and we only use 1/3 to 1/2 of a head at a time, combined with tomatoes or other veggies from our garden and an egg or two and homemade dressing, it's a fast meal that costs less than $0.75.

Most of the time though, we eat sandwiches-

I LOVE peanut butter and jelly/honey sandwiches. I could eat them every day for the rest of forever and probably not get sick of them. I even purposely buy peanut butter jelly beans and raspberry or strawberry jelly beans just to eat them together for a peanut butter sandwich taste- and yes, I am fully aware that that is strange. Eventually though, Paul gets tired of peanut butter so he'll sub in ham from Sam's Club.

The key to affordable sandwiches (or affordable toast or french toast, etc) is HOMEMADE BREAD.

With the advent of "cheap" sliced bread, women just stopped making homemade bread and somehow or another the idea that making bread was hard or impossible or expensive became accepted as fact. When bread machines became popular in the mid to late 90's, people started making bread again but the loaves are so small that it's almost a waste if there are more than 2 of you.

I've used several different recipes and I find I prefer the taste, texture, and variability of my grandmother's bread the best. It takes about 3 hours from idea to bread but it's so worth it! I have other recipes that can be finished in around 45 minutes- total- short enough you can't blame a time shortage on not making bread.

Using bulk yeast purchased from my local "health food" store and bread flour from Sam's Club, a loaf of plain white (and super delicious!) bread costs just 50 cents- it's even less if I make the bread half wheat (I grind my own) or cracked wheat.

An average loaf of not-cheap-paste-bread costs about $2.50 at Walmart which runs about 12.5 cents a slice compared to a little more than 2 cents per homemade. If you were to get the wholly unappetizing and unhealthy bread for $1.00, its still around 5 cents a slice- double the price.

Something else we do to save money is that we make our own freezer jam. I promise you that there is not a single average priced jam on the market that tastes as good as strawberry freezer jam. It takes just half an hour to make enough to last 6 months at least and it's 1/3 the price or less of store bought preserves. The trick is to watch for fruit in season and when it's really on sale because stores always overstock and you can get ripe fruit for a steal. If you don't like jam on your sandwiches, buying honey in bulk is a really good option too- Cox's honey is just about the best stuff I've ever had. It comes in a 5 lb bucket and while it's not the cheapest, $0.14 cents a serving is pretty decent.

Lunch time is also where we have a sort of splurge. I didn't grow up with a lot of money- actually I grew up with VERY little money but we always had Jiff peanut butter. After we got married, I started using the Walmart brand because it was cheap. I didn't eat as many peanut butter sandwiches for a long time just because they just weren't hitting the spot until last summer when I was at my mom's house and had one for lunch. It was the best thing I could remember eating in a long time (and I only make food that I think is great). I asked Mom about it and she was like, "Um, yeah, there was a reason we always had Jiff peanut butter even when we had no money," (my mom loves peanut butter sandwiches just as much as I do). I'm serious, I have no problem just eating it straight out of the jar, something Paul finds really weird but he's very accepting of my quirks.

I purchase my extra-crunchy Jiff in bulk from Sam's, so it's definitely cheaper than picking it up at the normal grocery stores, but you really don't have to buy brand name peanut butter if you don't want to- I'm sure that to most people, peanut butter is just peanut butter- and there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to be more adventurous, you could try purchasing peanuts and making your own peanut butter. I've heard it can be cheaper but since I have something I like and it works budget wise, I have seen no purpose in pricing it out. If you have any experience with it, please comment and let me know- I'm interested in the cost comparisons even if I'm not interested in switching.

While I don't care about a lot of variety for lunch, I'm sure there are infinite possibilities. I forgot to mention that if we haven't had fruit yet, I make sure that we have some with lunch. Usually we have apples that I get in super bulk (from orchards) or, when we run out of those, we eat whatever apple is on for $1.00/lb or bananas because those are decently cheap. Depending on sales we may have grapes and during garden season we grow our own melons and go blueberry picking.

I guess what I'm saying is, think of your favorite lunches- are there ways you can think of off the top of your head to make them cheaper? Can you think of other cheap non-perishable things for lunch (like Mac and Cheese) that you can buy in bulk to make them more affordable? Let me know what you come up with- I'm sure Paul would appreciate some more variety.

Wow. So much for the promise of a shorter post. Sorry about that but you're probably used to it by now.

Step 3. Breakfast.

So for the next couple of posts I'm going to go over what to do about meal planning on your budget. I think it may be easiest to take it meal by meal so we'll start with the first meal of the day, breakfast.

For a really long time I thought that eating cheaply meant little to no variety but while it's true, you're not going to just be able to eat everything you want all the time, there are a TON of things you can make for very little money.

The hard part of this may be that cold cereal is not be an option anymore. Now, I haven't checked the prices of Malt-O-Meal cereal for a little while but I think they're around $2 a bag which doesn't seem too bad but then you have to account for how much milk you use with it too and if you're anything like me, you use a lot of milk.

For a family of four, the price of milk each morning (if you only use a cup each) is $1.32, now multiply that by 7 and you're spending $9.24 a week on breakfast milk only- that's 26% of a weekly budget of $35 (if you add 2.50 per kid)- and that's not including the price of cereal or possible fruit.

On top of this, cereal, especially reasonably priced cereal, is not particularly healthy. It's full of sugar and processed carbs that neither prepare our bodies properly for the day but can leave us feeling sluggish and undernourished which means we feel the need to eat food more to compensate.

Now the good part, options:

There are loads and loads of options for breakfast that are cheap, healthy, AND delicious.

We're big fans of hot cereal- especially during the winter and it's almost ridiculous how much money you can save that way.

Cornmeal is something that we purchase in a 5 gallon bucket but you can find it at any Walmart in a smaller canister for about $1.50. For a cup of cooked cereal it costs about 6 cents (a cup is all I can eat- Paul can eat just a little bit more). It doesn't take much butter- maybe half a teaspoon and with a little salt it's delicious and cheap.

Oatmeal is another really great, healthy option- especially if it's not quick-oats. We also buy our oats in 5 gallon buckets but if you were to go to Sam's Club, you could pick up a 9lb package for $6.98. It takes about 1.5 cups of cooked cereal to fill Paul up but that only costs 13 cents. If you add half a tablespoon of brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon, you're only adding another cent- that's 14 cents to feed a grown man and keep him satisfied until lunch time- crazy!

Grits, Cream of Wheat, and homemade cracked wheat are also really budget friendly hot cereals to keep you warm on cool mornings.

Let's compare the cost of cornmeal and oatmeal to the cost of cereal milk for a family of 4 for 1 week. Milk: $1.32/morning $9.24/week (26% of 35/week budget)

4 cooked cups of cornmeal plus 1 tablespoon butter and some salt:

$0.31/morning $2.17/week (6.2% of a $35/week budget)

4 cooked cups of cooked oatmeal plus 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and some cinnamon:

$0.37/morning $2.59/ week (7.4% of a $35/week budget)

Hot cereal only takes 5-ish minutes to make, it's not even that much work but look at how much it saves!

But what if you don't feel like hot cereal? Can you eat anything else?

You betcha!

Homemade pancakes and waffles (with homemade syrup) definitely take more time initially than hot cereal but they're easy to freeze and reheat when needed. I'm not going to make this post even longer by detailing how much they cost item by item but homemade syrup only costs about $0.35 for 4.5 cups (that's more than a liter) and the rest of this I'll save for later.

Other delicious options are homemade yogurt, eggs, or just plain toast (so simple, yet EXTREMELY cheap if you bake your own bread).

The more you save on the main dish, the more you can spend adding to the meal with fruit etc.

After I finish going over how to get started, I'm going to post recipes that I use, broken down by cost.

Look at your breakfast totals, do you see ways you can cut back? Do you see ways you can move in a positive direction by incorporating food that costs a little less but maybe takes a bit more time to prepare?

Step 2.

STEP 2 PART 1

After you've figured out where you want to be I want you to do some more calculating.

I want you to sit down and think about what you eat in a week. You can do this literally with a food journal or you can estimate ( I estimated and it worked just fine). I think I went by meal-type instead of by day.

Here are some questions I want you to answer:

1. What are the staples that you use on a regular basis? (ie. how much bread, eggs, flour, milk, butter etc. do you use in a week?)

2. What do you eat for breakfast every day? How much of each item do you go through in an average week?

3. What do you eat for lunch? How much of each item do you go through?

4. What do you eat for dinner on a regular basis?

5. What snacks do you eat regularly? How much do you go through in a week?

6. Are there any dietary restrictions in your family that cause you to need certain products? How much of that/them do you go through in a week?

Now comes the tricky part. I want you to try and figure out the approximate cost of each thing on your list. You don't have to get every one of them but chances are if you use them a lot, you probably know the prices almost off the top of your head.

Here are some of the things on my list:

Milk $2.65/gallon $0.33/cup

Cheddar Cheese $11.13/ 5lbs $0.14/oz $1.11/cup

All Purpose Flour $6.43/ 25lbs $0.06 a cup

Eggs $2.48/3 dozen $0.07/egg

I have pages and pages in a notebook full of the prices of things. When I made freezer jam, I even figured out how much per serving it was. Knowing how much things are, helps me know exactly how much each meal costs. Once I figure out how much something I eat on a regular basis costs, I add that to the list. So if I know that a piece of bread costs about 2 cents and peanut butter is 10 cents a serving and freezer jam is 6 cents, then I automatically know that a peanut butter sandwich is $0.20.

Right now, I'm working on a spreadsheet with everything I have priced and ready to go along with where to go to get that price. Whenever I find something on my list that's a better price, I make a note to purchase it there next time so I can bring down my totals. If food prices go up (and they have recently), I begrudgingly make a note and change the price to reflect that.

I guess the goal here is to be as honest as you can be with yourself. That way you'll always be able to feel justifiably accomplished.

STEP 2 PART 2.

Once you start your list, try and find out places you can purchase your staples for less. For us, this meant getting a membership to Sam's Club. Sam's Club has been a really big blessing to our bottom line. Because Paul is a student, we get a year's membership for only $40 and it's definitely paid for itself by now. Another thing that is handy is that all of their prices are available online so if I think of something I haven't put on my list now, I just look it up .

Sometimes if I see a really good sale on something I use a lot, I'll stock up but I always make a note of that so that I don't continue to use the sale price after I use up the food. If it's a sale on a perishable food, I tend to stay away from it. With just the three of us I don't want to risk wasting the money. The only exception I can remember was a sale on cream cheese. I bought 10 of them for $7.80 right before the holidays because 1, they don't expire as fast as other perishables and 2, I knew I was going to be making a lot of holiday goodies (pumpkin rolls, cheesecakes etc) and they'd be used.

Step 1.

In order to start this, you need to figure out where you are now and where you want to be with your food budget. To make this a bit easier, I've broken it down into 3 questions that may help you get started.

1a. What is your current food budget? Do you even have a budget? Do you know how much you're spending every month to feed your family?

Knowing this is extremely important because it's ridiculously easy to lie to ourselves about where we are. For a while, when we first toyed with the idea of cutting back, we gave ourselves a $500 a month goal. At the end of the month, we'd tally up all of our spending at Walmart and Kroger and any fast food we may have picked up (thank you Quicken for making that so easy) and every month I'd be certain that I hadn't spent nearly $500. All of my shopping trips were for amounts of $40 or less so there was no way I'd spent the entire food budget but every month, there we were, around the $460-90 range. It was frustrating, I just had no idea what to do.

Which brings me to:

1b. Why do you spend so much on food?

If you need to, try and save your receipts for a month and then read over them. I guarantee you that you probably don't realize just how much you're buying and probably just how much you're wasting or you don't need. We all spend differently so there are many different reasons that the bills might be so high.

Some people may be love a bargain and buy anything they see that they MAY like if it's on sale. Sales are nasty things that trick our brains into thinking they're getting a bargain and sometimes it's true but often when we think we're spending less, we buy more because we think we have "extra money".

Some people may love junk and snack food- anything pre-made or processed is automatically going to have a high price attached to it. For example, I can make a delicious, healthy, extra-large homemade pizza for around $2.50. A smaller, processed and filled with preservatives freezer pizza from Red Baron runs for almost $5. Snacks are killers too- crackers, cookies, chips, all can be terrible on the budget for very little in return. I can't believe how much you have to pay for premade rice crispy treats- it's horrifying! And soda? Don't even get me started.

Eating out can be a nasty vice. Nothing will deplete your food funds faster than eating out- especially if it's on a regular basis. When we were first married, I went through this lazy phase where I'd justify eating out for a meal because I associated it with things that might make my husband or me happy. The truth was, I was just lazy and the more I justified eating out for a meal here or there, the more I wanted to justify eating out so we did it 1-2 times a week. To feed both of us, it cost about $13-15 a meal which was 1-1.5 times what I was making for an hour's worth of work. I thought I was saving myself time, but I can make AMAZING things in only 30 minutes, things that are much better than anything you can get from Wendy's. Would you work for 2 hours just to get the results of the bag that they pass you through that window?

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to belittle anyone for eating out- I did it. I'm not saying that we never grab a burger from Wendy's- but it's only once every few months and most likely only going to happen if we hit some unforeseen circumstances and are stuck away from home with no access to other food or if we're on long car trip.

What happens if you can't figure out where your problem is? It's okay if you don't know, it's just helpful. Chances are that once you start your changes, you'll realize just what made your grocery bill so high.

1c. Now that you've figured out where you are and why you're there, where do you want to be?

Our $30 a week budget (perhaps soon to be a little higher) isn't going to necessarily work for larger families with more kids. However, DON'T get sucked into the trap of assuming that it's impossible to feed a larger family for less money than what you're already paying.

How to calculate a goal budget:

I'd probably start with $30 for the first one to two people. It's not low enough to seem impossible but it's a reasonable number if you're going to be cooking meals that both of you eat.

Now, comes the tricky part... kids. Most kids 10 and under don't eat a lot. We put a lot on their plates, we give them servings that are way too big but kids are smaller and they need less so if they're eating the same meals you're eating, the number of meals you get out of a dish may be a little smaller, but not much.

I know a few families with 4-5 children who maintain a $120 a month food budget. If a month has four weeks, that's $30 a week for 6-7 people. These families aren't starving, they eat pretty decently- I'm not saying that you have to be that intense about things, so maybe add $2.50 a week per kid 10 and under and $5 for 10 and up but I'd be careful not to fall into the trap of buying more simply because you think about the "extra money" you have every week. If you find that you're consistently going under budget or using the leftovers on junk food, maybe lower your budget a bit- it's all money that will stay in your pocket and gives you more of an exciting challenge.

Note: If you find that even despite your best efforts, you can't stay on your budget, try and figure out how much more you need for a reasonable week and add it. It's not going to kill you because chances are the higher total is still a lot smaller than your old budget.

Motivation.

I really believe that it's possible for just about everyone to cut down on their grocery budgets but I think, that just like every drastic change (and for us it was a drastic change), there has to be a strong enough motivator to keep you going in your new direction when temptation or boredom arises or when the gleam of the new starts to fade off.

For me, this is all sort of a game. It's a huge confidence booster to see the numbers and the savings- to know that I DID IT. I'm making a difference in my family's life without really changing a whole lot except how much money we're forking out for things we put on our forks.

Some people, are motivated by numbers, so I'll use our old budget as an example:

On average, we used to spend $400-500 a month on groceries. That's $100-125 a week on groceries.

Now we spend $120 a month on groceries for 2.5 people, which is only $30 a week.

That means we save from $280-380 every month and that adds up pretty quickly.

If we save only $280 a month, in 3 months, we've put aside enough for an entire month's rent plus utilities AND gas with almost enough left over for another week's worth of food. Isn't that insane? And we were spending that money on food that we often didn't finish or wasn't good for us in the first place.

If we saved our extra $280 a month for an entire year, we'd have $3,360. I have no idea what to do with that kind of money. It's embarrassing to think that we were squandering all of that cash.

Now that Pearl is eating solid foods and she has kind of a tricky diet to follow because of her food allergies and such, I should probably add an extra $5 a week to cover her extras but even spending $5-10 a week extra means we're still saving around $3000 a year.

At the end of the month, knowing that we've saved so much takes a huge weight off of my mind. Money issues, debt, cash flow shortages, etc weigh on you. They add a mental heaviness to your already physically tiring life and eliminating any of that burden means that there's a little extra room in life to be calm, to be happy- things I'm definitely all for.

For me though, it's not the big picture that keeps me going. I didn't even know we were saving that much cumulatively until I did the calculations just now. I really like looking at the small picture, the really small picture. I love calculating the serving price of ingredients. It helps me keep our meals on budget to think about 11 cents here and 45 cents there. Every time I have money left over at the end of the week, I'm ridiculously proud. Each week brings new opportunities for me to be creative. It's not always easy to figure out how to make meals that are nutritious, tasty, and cheap but the challenge makes it fun!

Whatever the way you keep yourself motivated, just remember, it's all worth it. And if something that used to work for you isn't working anymore- if simply considering the numbers just isn't enough, try something else for a while. And don't be too hard on yourself if you have an off week, just shrug it off and keep trying. I know you can do it!

New Angle.

So I've been thinking about how to optimize my posts here and I think that for a while I should just talk about the basics of our frugal meal plan.

I'll try and have posts about cooking basics, how to choose recipes, my feelings about coupons, how much food I keep in the house, keeping a good attitude, how to organize your recipes, etc. I'll write about what works best for us and some other ideas that might work better in different circumstances. I'm very much a fan of balance and moderation so I probably will have posts on splurges too. We'll see how everything goes.

I haven't forgotten about this blog....

In October, our computers all died. It was ridiculous. As soon as we got one fixed it was finals time and that meant there was no time for me to be on the computer (it also marked the first time in months that we'd used more than $30 for food in a week because Paul's ulcers came back and he had to go on strictly fruits and vegetables). Then we went to Colorado for Christmas and I didn't pay any attention to what we were eating.

Since the beginning of the year, we've had a couple good weeks but Paul still has major ulcers and so our budget is probably running around 40-50 a week- still way better than it used to be but not good enough for the blog or for my preference. I figure we only have another couple weeks of this and then I'll be back blogging about our $30 a week adventures. WOOO

Week 5, Day 1 Cookie Disasters

Toast and turkey chili. That's what today was all about.
That and cookies....

Today was our ward's "Better know the Mormons" night.
It was the reason that Paul and I fasted half a dozen times last month and it's going on as I type (Pearl and I had to come home early so that she could go to bed- she's still crying up there and that makes me sad). I brought several dozen cookies because I was afraid there wouldn't be enough as far as treats go- that fear proved baseless as there were at least two tables full. Oh well.
I made Snickerdoodles and some bizarre chocolate chip cookies that I really hope Paul doesn't bring home.

Snickerdoodles:

1 cup butter flavored shortening ($0.89)
1.5 cups sugar ($0.36)
2 eggs ($0.14)
2 t cream of tartar (I have no idea, to be honest, sorry)
1 t baking soda ($0.005- or $0.01)
2 and 3/4 c flour ($0.16)
2 t cinnamon ($0.08)
2T sugar ($0.01)

These are made just like any other cookies. Beat wet ingredients, sift dry, mix and bake (400 for 10 minutes).

Snickerdoodle total: $1.65

Now if you're ever in need of snickerdoodles, you can definitely call on me. I'm pro at snickerdoodles, I'm almost as good at making them as I am at eating them (and I ate an entire batch in a day- gross!). I am not, however, particularly great at chocolate chip cookies. I blame this on my mother who taught me how to cook from a very young age but since she could never get chocolate chip cookies to turn out either, it's all her fault. I found a great recipe that I really loved and it calls for a packet of instant vanilla pudding mix. Today when I got ready to make the cookies, I discovered I didn't have any instant vanilla pudding. In fact, the only pudding I had was cook and serve coconut. Instead of being sane and rational and just using a traditional recipe without the pudding, I decided I was going to go for it anyway. I used the pudding and then when I tasted the dough, I discovered that the pudding mix had coconut flakes in it. Oh bother. I baked them anyway hoping that maybe they would taste a bit like caramel delights or chocolate dipped coconut macaroons (they don't). They're not horrible but they didn't spread out and so they're just little gumdrop-looking-weird-texturey-things. I wish I had taken a picture but I didn't and let's hope that there aren't any that come back for me to show you. I certainly don't want them.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter flavored shortening ($0.89)
1 c dark brown sugar ($0.23)
2 eggs ($0.14)
1 packet instant vanilla pudding ($0.33)
2 cups flour ($0.12)
2 t baking soda ($0.01)
Chocolate Chips to taste ($0.75)

Make like any other cookie. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Total: $2.47

I don't know whether I should count food that I make for other people in my week's total so today was either $4.12 or $0.00. Free sounds nice, doesn't it?

Catch up.

I know it's been several days and I haven't caught up yet.
I thought about going back and making an entry for every day this week but I won't. Instead, I'll make this post a catch up, posting about the meals I made and then calculating the week's total.

This week I made several soups again. I like soup. I especially like soup with turkey and we've had that twice.

White-ish Turkey Chili:

2.5 cups turkey ($0.00)
2 cups frozen corn ($1.00)
1 c Salsa ($0.30)
1 can Rotel ($0.80)
3/4 cup cheddar cheese ($0.83)
2 cups white navy beans ($0.60)
Total: $3.53

This was really easy and really worth it (you pretty much just heat them up). It made enough for at least two dinners and a lunch and that's good because Paul had at least 4 helpings. The rest of this has been frozen and we'll have it again when we're not feeling well.

Sweet Potato, Carrot, Apple and Red Lentil Soup

1/4 c butter ($0.28)
1 onion ($0.35)
4 carrots ($0.44)
2 sweet potatoes ($1.76)
1 apple ($0.14)
1/2 c red lentils ($0.15)
4 c veg broth ($0.00)

Total: $3.12

I got the recipe here. I liked this soup with/on bread. It's really sweet and I wish I'd put more spice in it to have more of a background heat but overall it was good. Paul really liked it. It also made a lot... probably enough for at least 2 or 3 dinners.

Turkey Wild Rice/Potato Soup

2-3 cups turkey ($0.00)
2/3 c wild rice (it was all I had) ($0.44)
3 potatoes ($0.45)
4 carrots ($0.44)
celery seed
1 onion ($0.35)
1 cup milk ($0.33)
3 cups turkey broth ($0.00)
water- duh
1/2 c flour ($0.03)
4 T butter ($0.28)

Total: $2.32

I sauteed the onion and the carrots in the butter and then added the flour to make sort of a roux. Then I added the potatoes, cooked wild rice, and turkey, broth and simmered until the potatoes were soft. I felt like the turkey broth was too strong so I cut it with a lot of water and then I added a bit of milk at the very end. Super easy. Our friend Bill went shooting with us yesterday and then stayed for dinner. He's picky and not afraid to say what he thinks and he really liked it. He ate like three servings. I take that as a total compliment considering I just threw that together. Because I added a lot of water we still have a lot of soup left again and we had it for dinner tonight.

Things I made the rest of the week:

I've decided that it's stupid to count the cost of each piece of bread. Even though we only eat probably 3.5 loaves a week I still make 4 so I'm just going to add the $2 cost of bread per week to the day that I make it and then forget about having to tally each piece of toast in the morning.

Paul liked grilled cheese a lot this week and probably went through 2 cups between the grilled cheeses and the quesadillas he had for lunch today ($2.22) (plus $0.60 for tortillas)
We went through 6 eggs this week ($0.18)

Week 4 Total: $15.74
To me that sounds super crazy, but believe it or not we did eat even though we didn't feel well. I know I didn't make anything else. Well, hooray! I'll be better about daily posting this next week. I hope... Pearl's super teething so maybe I'll double up.

Week 4, Day 2

Monday wasn't much better as far as eating goes. Paul had a doctor's appointment in the morning so he had a few pieces of toast and then for lunch he ate a sandwich. For dinner we had leftover Indian Vegetable Soup (there's still enough for another meal- I can't believe that). We had a couple pieces of bread to go with the soup- I like it better (like I like most things) on bread.

Day 2:

Breakfast $0.21
Lunch $0.50
Dinner $0.06

Day 2 Total: $0.77

Week 4, Day 1

So I know I'm posting this a bit late but I've been really sick for a few days and although I've been keeping track of what we're eating, it hasn't been much and I haven't felt like being on the computer much.
Anywho, on to week 4, Day 1.

Sunday morning was the general session of our Stake Conference and I woke up more sick than I'd been previously and my back was the worst it had been in a long time. Because of this, I didn't go and neither did Paul.

When we finally got up and ate, it was only toast. Toast Toast Toast.

Then around 8, we finally got around to eating dinner and dinner was that great old staple, ice cream. .. Yeah. I told you we get lame when we're not feeling well.

Day 1 total: $0.30.

Week 3 Total

So how did we do this week? I haven't yet added up the total but I bet we're under budget. Some of the people I saw doing this gave themselves 30 at the beginning of every week but because we buy a lot of things in bulk that would seriously screw up week totals. I think this way works well.

Drumroll please......

.... and the total is: $29.36!!!! That's an average of 4.20 a day. Go us!

We still have a lot of Indian Vegetable Soup and almost all of the turkey left over. Those will be put to good use this week. We also have most of the carton of ice cream which means we get free dessert this week- hooray!

Week 3, Day 7

I know I promised that I was going to eat healthy on this experiment but when we get all get sick it's hard to not just eat whatever we feel like- don't worry, we've stayed on budget.
On Saturday, Paul ate 4 pieces of toast before he went to a service project. Then he ate some the last of the Chicken Fajita Soup for lunch. I had an apple sometime, I don't know. I hate eating when I'm sick.
After the adult session of stake conference, Paul stopped at Food Lion to pick up some distilled water for the humidifier and he picked up some ice cream that was on sale so that's what we ate for dinner, Neapolitan ice cream.

Saturday's meal totals:

Breakfast ($0.12)
Lunch ($0.14)
Dinner ($2.50)
Day 7 Total: $2.76

Week 3, Day 6

It was ridiculously cold this morning. It didn't get above 40 until noon and, on top of that, there was about 100% humidity and super gusty winds. BOO. Now I know what you're thinking- it's fall, it's going to get cold- and you're right but less than a week ago it was 83 degrees! Anywho, this morning while I was thinking about what to make for dinner I was thinking something more along the lines of a soup with carrots and sweet potatoes because I was so cold but Paul vetoed that- he may be getting tired of soups. He wanted turkey white chili but I didn't want that and so we were at an impasse... until I suggested Cowboy Mashed Potatoes (get the recipe here ) and he quickly agreed.
Cowboy Mashed Potatoes are simple and cheap and they taste good. I first made the recipe because it looks like something I loved doing as a kid- mixing mashed potatoes up with corn or peas or peas and carrots. I wasn't very coordinated with a spoon or a fork and my dad yelled at me every time I tried to use my fingers to put food on said spoon or fork and so it didn't take me long to realize that mixing my veggies into potatoes was not only efficient, but delicious.
Here's the scoop (I only use the measurements in the recipe as a guide):

5 potatoes ($0.75)
a bunch of frozen chopped jalapenos from our garden last year ($0.00)
half a bag of frozen corn ($0.50)
3 carrots ($0.33)
a little bit of minced garlic ($0.00)
1 oz shredded cheddar ($0.14)
1.5 Tbls butter ($0.10)

Cowboy Mashed Potatoes Total: $1.82
We have about 3 cups left over so maybe I'll make less next time.
And to clarify: Yes, I know this is supposed to be a side dish but I don't see why vegetarians can eat a whole bunch of vegetables not mixed up and call it a dinner if this dish can't also be considered an entree.

Here's today's work-up:
Breakfast (cold so we ate oatmeal and eggs as per usual) $0.52
Lunch (Paul had leftover Chicken Fajita soup- there's still some left too- crazy! and I had an apple) $0.14
Dinner: $1.82

Day 6 Total: $2.48
At this rate, I don't know that I'm going to need to take some money out of either last week's or next week's budget to make up for overages this week- awesome!

Week 3, Day 5

Take a moment and sniff- are you doing it? If you smelled turkey, baked potatoes, and broccoli you'd be in my home right now. If you didn't, I bet you're wishing you had dinner here tonight.
Breakfast and lunch were boring affairs again. Paul works all day Thursday and Friday so he has to leave at the same time he leaves for his classes meaning there isn't time for something more than oatmeal. I finished off the blueberry bran muffins and I'm already looking forward to more of them.
After Paul left and I put Pearl down for her morning nap I put a turkey breast in our crock pot with some homemade onion soup mix- super simple and CHEAP- and left that to cook all day long. Even with my nose completely stuffed I caught the odd whiff of deliciousness here and there and it was divine! I couldn't wait to try some of the turkey tonight but then I remembered something awful. Today is the Thursday. I was living in some kind of fantasy land where it was Wednesday but I checked and my heart sank. Today was our ward's last day of fasting for 40 days and we were signed up to take today. I felt awful. I didn't want to blow it for us at the last minute so I thought for a few minutes. Sure we could fast tomorrow but that's day 41 not 40. I finally decided that since I can only fast for the equivalent of one meal plus sleeping time (my milk is very temperamental) I would fast for the second part of the day. So I made the necessary preparations and ended up not getting to try the turkey tonight. Paul said it was good but we'll probably use the oven from now on because he felt like it was a bit greasy. Turkey is pretty much his favorite meal so he's the one who gets to choose.
I'm excited to use the rest of the turkey for a lot more meals. Tomorrow I'll shred it and freeze it and use it for soups and casseroles and turkey pot pie! I love turkey. I find it really comforting when it starts to get chilly. I love the way it tastes, the way it makes my house smell, all the different things you can do with it. I like it so much better than I like chicken and it's fabulous that you can purchase just breasts because there's no need to worry about dark meat.
Because I cooked the whole turkey today and I don't really have an idea yet about how much of the turkey Paul ate, I'm going to charge the whole thing to today and then consider it free when I use the rest of it. So here's what the turkey works out to:

1 young turkey breast purchased on sale for $0.79/lb ($6.72)
1 oz home made onion mix ($0.20)
Turkey Total: $6.92
I think that is a fabulous price!

Here's today's total:

Breakfast ($0.38)
Lunch ($0.44)
Dinner ($7.27)

Day 5 Total: $8.09

I'm not freaking out this time. That extra is for a purpose and if we go over 30 this week we'll make it up by going under next week. That's okay.

Apples.

I'm excited to announce a change in our apple prices! Last Saturday when we were driving home from DC we decided last minute (read: "as we were driving past it on the highway") to stop at an orchard/pumpkin patch we always see but never visit.
Pearl had a cute outfit on and we had been meaning to get some apples for saucing and drying anyways so it was definitely worth the stop both in pictures and deliciousness.
Now I know you may be thinking, "But I thought they fasted on Saturday," and you would be right my friends. May I offer some advice, DON'T GO TO AN ORCHARD WHILE YOU'RE FASTING! It's awful, it really is. They had some guy out working a grill where you could buy hamburgers/hotdogs made at their farm. A lady was making fresh caramel apples right in front of us. People were chomping on apples right and left and there we were. Yeah, just don't do it, it's torture.
The price of their apples was supremely amazing though- $10/half-bushel was they biggest size they had so we got two bushels (one was for our friends though, I can't imagine we'd be able to eat/use 84+ pounds of apples before they went bad unless that's all we had).
All in all it was really fun- even while fasting and with the incessant swarm of giant armored beetles- yuck!
Here are some pictures for my (and possibly yours too) enjoyment. Notice how much nicer they are than IPhone photos?





Lots of fun! We might just have to visit this farm again next year when Pearl is old enough to actually enjoy things a bit more- although she did have lots of fun being carried around and put in weird places.

Week 3, Day 4

So it turns out that I am sick but the best way for me to forget that I'm sick is to just keep on moving. That way I get distracted and don't notice much until night time when I finally sit down and am more than done in. That's alright though, I'm hoping I just get this out of my system quickly and then don't have any more trouble over the winter. That and I hope Pearl doesn't catch it. That would be miserable.

This morning for breakfast I actually had some oatmeal which I'm not always in the mood for but it was nice and comforting. Paul had some oatmeal too and three scrambled eggs and a piece of toast (he has class all day on Wednesdays so he needs a healthy breakfast).

For lunch, Paul ate a sandwich and an apple and I had an apple with some peanut butter.

Dinner was something more special. Tonight we had a vegetable stew with Indian spices and it was yummy! Paul loves lentils and so I just threw some in with some chickpeas (another one of his favorites) and some navy beans and some veggies and simmered with good spices for a long time. I really love the taste of dried beans as opposed to canned beans. There is such a difference. I can't believe I ever paid more money for less taste and nutrition, I'm hooked!

Indian-ish Vegetable Stew:

2 diced onions ($1.20)
1 Tbs minced garlic (it's the dregs of a free bottle, I'll charge when I replenish- $0.00)
3 c chicken broth ($0.00- I make my own)
3 c water ($0.00)
1 c lentils ($0.30)
1 c chickpeas ($0.30)
1 c navy beans ($0.30)
4 stalks chopped celery ($0.40)
5 chopped carrots ($0.55)
Spices (to taste): Garam Masala, Cayenne Pepper, more cumin, Cardamom, black pepper, saffron, ginger

Indian-ish veggie stew total: $3.05
Paul also ate half a packet of saltines ($0.13)

I don't feel bad about that total at all considering how much it made. It's actually kind of ridiculous. I only had a small bowl (it's starve a cold, right?) but Paul had 2 or 3 decent sized bowls and when I checked the pot to see how much was left it didn't look like we'd eaten hardly any. This is going to definitely be at least one more dinner, probably more and then some lunches (I'll post a picture for you to see how much is left).

Here's what today works out to be:

Breakfast ($0.52)
Lunch ($0.46)
Dinner: ($3.18)

Day 4 Total: $4.16
Under budget with tons of leftovers- hooray!

Week 3, Day 3

I apologize in advance that I don't have any pictures to post today, it's been a leftover day and so there's not much to report.
For breakfast I had two Blueberry Bran Muffins and Paul had 2 slices of toast and some oatmeal.
Paul came home for lunch and ate 5 pieces of bread. Pearl pretty much attacked him to make him share each slice with her (she's a bread fanatic!). I had an apple for lunch again. I'm not much of a lunch eater but as soon as my favorites (braeburn) stop being stocked in stores I will switch to left-over left-overs or sandwiches. I love bread and it's hard for me to stop at just a couple pieces so it's partly to conserve resources and partly for waist preservation that I avoid it during the day.
Paul ate his sandwich I made him yesterday for a snack.
For dinner we had leftover tuna loaf (there's still a lunch size portion left) and broccoli. I usually don't like broccoli but tonight I found it delicious. AND it's guilt free! Only 25 calories per cup which is amazing!
See? I told you we had boring meals today. It's just as well though. I'm getting sick now- boooooo. I can't afford to be sick. Oh well. We'll see how things go.

Week 3, Day 2

Today was a more normal day. This morning I went off to class without eating anything which was a mistake. That meant that I was so starving by the time that I got home that I had grand ideas of just what I wanted to stuff my face with, namely bran muffins. Bran muffins? I know, I know. Weird and gross and they make you poop or something but that's what I wanted.
A long time ago (when I was first pregnant), I had the same interest in bran muffins but I didn't do much baking that first trimester and so I never used the box of bran that I purchased. First thing when I got home was to search my cupboards to find that bran. I found the graham crackers that I was looking for for Pearl. I found an old (but still good!) package of pecans that I don't even remember getting which made me extremely happy because now we can have soda cracker pie this weekend! But still, no bran. This made me sad but I still wanted those muffins so because Pearl was still napping, I made a mad dash to Kroger and found a decent package of Organic Wheat Bran for $1.28. When I got back, Pearl was awake so she played in her Johnny Jump Up in the kitchen door way while I whipped up these bran muffins:
They're actually really pretty good. I knew I should have dipped the frozen blueberries in flour to keep them from bleeding but it wasn't that big of a deal (instead of being blue though, they're green which is kinda fun!).

Here is what they work out to be:

1.5 cups wheat bran ($0.42)
1 cup milk ($0.33)
1 apple made into sauce ($0.48)
1 egg ($0.07)
1/2 c brown sugar ($0.11)
1/2 c white flour ($0.03)
1/2 c whole wheat ($0.00- we were given some free wheat to grind)
1 tsp baking soda ($0.01)
1 tsp baking powder ($0.01)
1 cup frozen blueberries ($0.68)

Blueberry-Bran Muffin total: $2.14

This recipe only made 12 muffins and they were alright. We only ate 6 and so they'll last us another breakfast or snack or something. I think if I made them again I would use less blueberries (only because I felt like they were a bit overpowering- I feel like they're the dessert part of the meal and there should be a dessert portion, that makes me a weirdo, I know. I got this recipe off of AllRecipes but I think next time I feel like making muffins I'm going to make another one I like better. This afternoon I purchased a small amount of powdered milk at the same price (but lower quality) that I will get powdered milk at Sam's and that will do a lot to make food prices stay low.

For lunch, I had an apple and some peanut butter. It was delicious! Have I ever told you how much I LOVE Jiff extra crunchy peanut butter? Because I do. A lot. Paul wasn't feeling well so he didn't eat anything. I'm really starting to get worried that the things he things are colds coming and going are actually a full blown case of mono. He slept from 3-7 and is ready to sleep again at 10. Tomorrow we will definitely be calling the doctor to make an appointment.

During Pearl's second nap I made bread again. Usually Thursdays are my bread days but since we were gone last Thursday, I didn't want to make the same mistake I made two weeks ago and make bread on Wednesday only to let it sit and get a little less delicious while we were gone. Here are some pictures:
As you can see, my recipe makes a lot of bread. It's kind of embarrassing that we go through about 3-3.5 loaves a week but it's delicious and healthy and we do eat it two meals a day so that has to count for something.

For dinner we had leftover chicken fajita soup (there's at least one more dinner left in that too). I had a piece of fresh bread with my soup and Paul had 3 so dinner wasn't free tonight but it's not that big of a deal. After I cut up all of the loaves, I realized that I get more slices than I thought I did so it's cheaper but I'll just leave my accounting the way it is.

Here is how today turned out:

Breakfast: ($2.14)
Lunch: ($0.58)
Dinner: ($0.12)

Day 2 total: $2.84
I feel very full so I think that total is fabulous!