Sunday, March 1, not-cooking and shopping

With the way the sales went this two weeks and my own lackadaisical meal planning, I wound up not having a solid plan in place for this first day of the new plan. Luckily, I had some stuff in the freezer, between one thing and another, so we ate frozen processed Italian all day. Not that I'm exactly complaining. We had an On-Cor lasagna for lunch, a filling meal that at 2.29 for a family-sized pack was quite a good deal from Aldi. In fact, I picked another one up when I went shopping. Supper was those two personal pizzas lingering from my 10-for-10 binge of two weeks ago. They were okay, and M really liked his, but the brand we bought, something that starts with a J whose name I can't remember, didn't compare favorably with the Totinos Crisp Crust pizzas we used to get for a dollar when we lived in  Chicago. 

Interesting thing  about processed Italian food, once your body stops being used to it, it doesn't like being fed nothing but that. After some pretty severe gross-stomach-feelings late in the evening, I've decided that from now on, there will be only one processed food meal at a time, when there are any. Doing my own cooking is healthier than eating frozen if for no other reason than it has a lot fewer bizarre chemicals creeping into the mix. 

Sunday was also our big shopping day. I did better this time than last in the food sins department, though I did have M with me, who talked me into a couple of things, and in fairness, out of a couple of things. I picked up a lot of the same staples as last time, pastas, milk, eggs, cheese, margarine, oatmeal, spaghetti sauce, apples, onions, flour, ground turkey, rice, bananas, pretzels, and cereal. In the non-food department, I got cat food, a cuttlebone for the birds (Pigwideon has turned herself bright red on the artificially colored calcium treat I got last time, so I went with plain), and some toasted coconut-covered marshmallows that M wanted, but I am not sure actually count as food. I also went with the tea again, which was on sale for 1.90 a box, the lowest price we've seen. I stocked up, which pushed up the total bill, but should hopefully last us the whole month. 

In the end, with the tea but excluding the cat food and such, we spent almost exactly as much as we spent last month without thirty-five dollars worth of tea, so I think that's pretty good. It's also good because I found some really good deals on meat, so the food we're eating is getting better. In the first two weeks, we had spaghetti twice, tilapia twice, tuna three times, and chicken breasts twice. This time we'll have spaghetti, yes, but also chili, pizza, spicy chicken legs, pulled pork, turkey breast, and tuna helper in our menu. I feel like I'm getting better at looking for deals. This month I'm also going to try making my own granola again, with more ingredients, and also turn my hand to shortbread, which I love but hate the expense of. I think this is working. 

Also, those marshmallows? Not as vile as I thought, but still not exactly food. 

Third Week of February, Shopping

This month I've been trying to save money by planning my meals ahead of time and only shopping twice a month. The first two weeks went pretty well, although I got sick at the end of the second week, which threw things off, and ended up changing the plan to accomodate a guest for a weekend as well. I spent $140.00 at the beginning of the month, starting from what was very nearly a bare kitchen, but for condiments and spices. Over the course of two weeks, I did make two additional shopping trips, both times to take advantage of irresistable sales, which added another thirty dollars to my total. One thing that has become shockingly evident is that we spend far more money on groceries than I had initially believed. In my offhanded budgeting, I'd always alloted about 200 dollars a month to food, but the total, including meals out, was obviously considerably higher. 

This weekend I made a new food plan for the next two weeks, and this evening headed back to the grocery store to shop for it again. My total bill was 103 dollars, which included 11 dollars to cat food, a once per month purchase, and ten dollars for the ingredients for the nacho dip I'm taking to this weekend's Oscar party and a family-sized bag of tortilla chips. I go to a party once a month or less and figure my husband and I will likely not need supper on the evening of the party, so it nearly balances out. 

I made mistakes, though. Or perhaps not so much mistakes as unaccounted deviations from the plan, some of which were probably mistakes, and some of which I should start accounting for next month. I do most of my food shopping at Meijer and Sams Club, which are the cheapest stores in my area. Mejier suckered me in this week with a 10 for 10, get the 11th free sale. I love those things, and I ended up with all 11 items, only two of which, English muffins, were actually on the plan.  Three of the items were packs of fresh mushrooms, which I love but usually don't indulge in, and two  were frozen orange juice concentrate, which has been very expensive lately. I can forgive myself that, because I do need to put more fruits and veggies in the plan. But I also bought two personal pizzas, and two pints of ice cream. Not so good. 

To a certain extent, I'm ready to beat myself up for not following the plan. I made the plan, the plan is smart, the plan is wise. I don't have kids badgering me for sweets, why can't I just buy what I should? But at the same time, it's very hard to give up all indulgences, no matter what kind of fiscal hardship you're in. The foods that I bought were not terribly expensive, and will either count as a full meal or last over several snacktimes. And given the number of times I looked longingly at some favorite or another and said "no," I could've done a lot worse. Four sins at 91 cents apiece is not going to break the bank... as long as they keep me from the bigger sins of places like Pizza Hut or Dairy Queen. 

The real major issue I'm going to have to come to terms with is beverages. I've been drinking a lot more water on the first two weeks of the plan. I got a Brita pitcher for Christmas, a happy necessity since what comes out of the tap smells fresh from a municipal swimming pool. But both my husband and I are caffeine addicts, and we generally prefer it cold. For a long time, we would go through four or five twelve-packs of pop every week, but that was one of the first things to go when the budget needed slashed. We discovered the small miracle of tea-in-a-tube, those little ice tea mixes that you shake into a bottle of water for delicious instant caffeine. The water cost is small, we each use one new bottle per week and just refill over and over, and it's very convenient for my husband to take to school. At an average of 20 cents per tube, or roughly .8 cents per fluid ounce of tea, it's a lot more economical than any bottled or canned beverage. But we still go through a lot of it between us. My single biggest purchase was finding a sale on Crystal Light tea tubes and buying six boxes of 14 for 15 dollars. That was half the original price, 18 cents per tube, but it's still an exceedingly healthy bite of my monthly budget. We'll see how far  I can stretch them before I have to decide whether to buy again. 

Food I bought for the plan today and yesterday:  

Bananas, 1 bunch

Baking Soda 

Fried Rice seasoning, 1 packet

Eggs, 1 dozen

Onions, 2

Penne Pasta, 1 box

Ground Turkey, 1 pound

Sugar, 2 pounds

Garlic, 1 bulb

Dry Split Peas, 4 pounds

Cereal, 1 box generic Choco-Peanut Butter Puffs

Jalepeno Peppers, 4

Velveeta, 1 block

Frozen peas, 1 bag

Cream of Mushroom, 1 can

Apples, 7 pounds (good sale this week, and I've got the dehydrator out)

English Muffins, 2 six-packs

Skim Milk, 2 gallons

Artichoke Hearts, 2 jars (one for next month, on sale)

Spaghetti, 3 boxes

Spaghetti Sauce, 2 jars

Hot Dogs, 1 pack

Generic Chips, 2 bags

Potatoes, 10 pounds

Chicken Breasts, 2.5 pounds

Sunflower Seeds, 1 can

Rolled Oats, 1 can

Tuna, 2 cans

Ramen, 24 packs (case sale, for now and later)

Corn Muffin Mix, 24 boxes (ditto)

Shank Ham, 8 pounds (good sale! good to freeze!) 

Total plan spending: approx. 94 dollars

Total non-plan: approx 27 dollars, including party food