Groceries

We spent only $150 on groceries this month.  What exactly did we eat?

We do tend to eat fairly low on the food chain as it is.  We will eat some meat, but not a lot.  This is a great time of year for soups, and we have eaten a lot of soups. 

Punjabi Style Black Lentils, from the Smitten Kitchen.  Needless to say, I kept the dairy OUT of the recipe.  Still, an excellent meal!  The leftovers from this went to work with me for lunch as is for several days.

Meatloaf.  I made a double loaf.  The leftovers were divided into 2 more meals:
1) Chili
The leftovers from the chili went into 2 meals: tacos and baked potatoes.

2) Cauliflower Baked Ziti from Delish.  Again, this was a very large dish, so it provided leftovers for lunch.

Quinoa Stuffed Acorn Squash Rings
A popular favorite in our house.  We're still working our way through the last of the bushel of winter squash that I picked up in October for $15 at the Farmer's Market.  We never have leftovers of this wonderful creation in our house.

Beef Stew
I made it following the recipe in the Insta Pot book.  It was beyond wonderful, and tasted better than it does when I make it in the crock pot and leave it sitting all day.  The leftovers served us for lunch over the weekend.

Baked Chicken
Another Instant Pot find.  I saved off the broth to make chicken soup.  The chicken itself was one very tasty dinner.  And one very tasty chicken salad.  And the rest went into a pan with some BBQ sauce to make pulled chicken BBQ sandwiches.  I served that with what I think was the last of the bushel of sweet potatoes we picked up in the fall from the Farmer's Market for $20. 

Lentil, Mushroom, and Sweet Potato Pie
Another winner! I found this one on The Kitchn's Website.   And yes, with this the last of the sweet potatoes were gone.  And then husband volunteered at the food pantry over the weekend.  At the end of the event, all of the produce needs to be given away or thrown out.  Long story short, we've now got even MORE sweet potatoes to work our way through....

Pancakes
For Shrove Tuesday.

Ratatouille
This used up the eggplant and other awkward "what do I do with this" vegetables from the produce box we got from our favorite farmer.

And then... husband stopped by to pick up eggs from one of our favorite farmers and came home with a 50 pound bag of white potatoes that he paid $20 for, and a 20 pound bag of onions that he paid $10, and a bag of the vegetables that are quickly turning bad- this farmer sells them for 50 cents a bag.  That's right, 50 cents a bag.  It's a big bag and it has a hodge podge of vegetables in it and weighs about 2 pounds, maybe more - and you get what's in the bag.  No swapping out.  I made a fabulous vegetable soup from that bag.  But now I've got a huge bag of white potatoes to work my way through! 

I think you get the idea - we cook with what's readily available as much as possible.  I'll stock up on big things as they go on sale.  And keep in mind, I'm cooking for 3 now, after years of cooking for 5  - and 2 of those 5 people were teenage boys who were active in sports!  I'm practically drowning in leftovers every time I cook because I am still cooking in the quantities I was cooking in when the boys still lived at home.

Grocery Expenses - Week of 8/19 - 8/25

I'm still looking for a better title than Grocery Expenses.  Any thoughts?  Anything at all?  Steals and Deals?  Food 4 Us?  If anyone has any nice, alliterative title that you'd like to share, I really would like to hear it!

I didn't actually hit up the store that much this week.  We've been hitting up the Farmer's Markets and Farm Stands pretty hard, and I had a huge grocery run last week that should tide us through on the BIG stuff for a few more days.

I've been canning spaghetti sauce, salsa, and made some pretty fantastic oven roasted tomatoes to use in chili this fall and winter.  I added jalapenos to the tomatoes, along with onion and garlic....  Is that what Emeril calls the Holy Trinity - except I used tomatoes instead of celery, and jalapenos instead of bell peppers, so maybe not quite Emerils version of the Holy Trinity, but definitely MY version!

I also picked up a bushel of apples.  The apples are beginning to come in around here, and we are in apple heaven right now!  We ate a lot of that bushel straight up, but I did manage to get one tasty apple crisp made!  The apple tree in our back yard is coming in right now, and I am hoping to get enough apples off of that tree to make apple butter next week.

Here's our expenses for the week:

Local Homestead Products:  $65.93
bushel of apples, 25 pounds of tomatoes, peach ice cream
sweet Italian sausage, gingersnaps, corn on the cob

South Mountain Creamery:  $19.78
yogurt, milk, cheese, and eggs

Farmer's Market:   $14
jalapenos, bell peppers, & garlic for the salsa
sweet potatoes, black berries


Total for the week: $99.71

Grocery Expenses Week of 6/30-7/6/201

There is one advantage to having a colonoscopy.  You don't eat a lot of food!  Since I was confined to clear liquids on Weds and no liquids on Thursday, and was really loopy on Thursday afternoon and evening, the family ate leftovers for dinner on those days.

What exactly was I thinking?

A funny thing happened, though.  My procedure was in the afternoon.  You sign a paper when you leave stating that you won't drive or sign legal documents for the rest of the day.  I really believe that list should also be expanded to grocery shopping the day after.  I was feeling the affects of the drugs for a good 24 hours after my procedure.  Husband and I went grocery shopping on Friday morning, and I came home with an interesting assortment of stuff.  He was the responsible one who actually made sure we had food that we could make into meals.  I was the one who had the scanner and the cart.  He was organizing stuff into bags, and I had my one bag that I was putting stuff into as we went through the store.  Would you take a look at what came out of my bag?  My husband didn't unpack it, he left it for me to discover once all of the drugs were out of my system and I was more fully aware of what was going on.  I remember buying some of this, but not all of it.


Here's the funny/odd thing.  Do you see the amount of gluten laden food?  I CAN'T EAT GLUTEN!! WHAT WAS I THINKING???    And check out that can of Chipotle Peppers in Adobo sauce.  Why?  I didn't get anything that would make that into a meal that I can find.  Maybe I thought they'd be tasty with the Cheerios that I can't eat?  At least I managed to pick up gluten free pasta to have with my BBQ sauce....

Expenses for the week:
Grocery Store:  $185 
Target                $24     (Monster Trail Mix, Sprite, and Jello)
South Mountain Creamery $15
(Disclaimer: I don't receive any compensation from South Mountain Creamery.  As I've said before, I am supporting my local dairy industry with humanely treated cows, and have done so for years now.)

Grand Total for the Week:  $224.  Whoa.... I suspect my binge of weird stuff had something to do with this  total.  What am I going to do with the Chilis in Adobo sauce?

What we ate this week:
Leftovers  (and lots of clear liquids on my part)
On July 4th, all of our kids were away at friends' houses, so husband and I raided the freezer, found two steaks and grilled those up and had steaks, watermelon, and corn on the cob.

source: http://www.thekitchn.com

Chicken and Brown Rice Bake:  (A freezer meal) I found the recipe here: http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-chicken-and-wild-rice-bake-freezerfriendly-recipes-from-the-kitchn-216431.  Awesome, amazing wonderful recipe.  I can't find enough good things to say about it.  It's become a family favorite.

Spaghetti with husband's homemade sauce.

Pizza, made with husbands' homemade sauce.

Quinoa Pilaf with extra veggies and sunflower seeds.

How did you make out at the grocery store this week?

Grocery Expenses, Week of 6/23-6/29

This was a pretty light week as far as groceries went.

Youngest child took a 4 day trip with her Dad down to her new college.  They stayed overnight in the dorms and got to eat dorm food for the duration.  (I DON'T miss dining hall food!)

Middle child went back to work at camp, so he was gone, and won't return home for a break until next Monday night.

So, this left oldest child and me for a large chunk of the week.

We made Vegetable Soup with leftovers from the food pantry distribution, and other odds and ends of vegetables we had laying around the fridge.  (Including my can of V-8 juice.  I keep those on hand!)  The Veggie Soup was dinner one night for me and oldest child, and then Sunday lunch, served with sandwiches.

We raided the freezer for a crock pot meal that lasted us two nights.  We also pulled out some fish, and had that with roasted potatoes and green beans.

We made tuna salad, and then we hit up the farmer's market on Sunday morning and picked up fresh fruit, some of which went into a very large fruit and chicken salad.  (The chicken was the last of the leftover chicken from the crock pot meal.  If we'd had more than 2 people eating, that never would have stretched out over 3 meals.)

Last night, we had hamburgers that I picked up at the butcher last week, along with mandarin oranges.  (That weird choice is due to the FUN AND GAMES I am having on Thursday morning.  NO more high fiber or raw fruits and veggies until Friday.)

Since we pulled a lot of food out of the freezer, we didn't spend a lot of money at the grocery store this week.

Farmer's Market:  $28
Grocery Store:      $25

Total:                    $53


Hey?  Did you notice?  No Chick Fil A this past week!  (But I do see a Starbucks Run in the works for Thursday afternoon....)

Grocery Expenses Week of 5/16-22

Expenses:

Chick-Fil-A:  $5.08 (I admit, I'm an addict.  I love their grilled nuggets.  What can I say?)
China Dragon: $29.95
South Mountain Creamery: $22.17
Grocery Store: $31.79
Grocery Store: $7.34
Butcher Shop: $45.49

Total for the Week: $141.82

So, my expenses were under for the week.  WHEW....

I still racked up $35 eating out.  I've got to cut that habit out, but it's so gosh darn easy to let someone else cook for me when it's so darn hot outside.

A couple of notes on our expenditures:
I buy our meat directly from a butcher.  The animals were raised locally, and butchered on site locally.  I know the animals were well taken care of, and there is no huge slaughterhouse industry involved.  I pay a little more for our meat, but since we don't eat a lot of meat anyway, I feel it is important that what we do eat by of very high quality.

Same goes for the creamery.  Local dairy, local cows.  I like to keep my money local, and support my local farmers.  They struggle enough as it is.  The more I can buy direct from them and keep my money away from some middle man, the better!

We volunteer at our local food bank distribution once a month.  The upside to this is that at the end of the distribution, there is always fresh produce that has to be given out to the volunteers before it goes bad.  We ended up with 2 heads of cabbage, a big bag of carrots, and a bag of potatoes.  I see some fantastic dinners in front of us!

Some of the meals we had this past week:
Pinto Bean Soup
Tacos from Pinto Beans
Pizza (crust from scratch)
Hamburgers/Potatoes/Watermelon
Scrambled Eggs with assorted fresh produce cooked in  (not quite a fritata)
Spaghetti with even more produce tossed into the sauce - as well as some mushrooms from the farmer's market.

A Last Thought:
With the heat we have today, and the Energy Saving Day in effect with the power company, we are going to have a salad for dinner tonight.  I'll be stopping at one of the little farm stands on my way home and will pick up about $5-$10 worth of fresh produce.

Grocery Expenses for the Week

Well, hey.  I thought I spent $150/week on groceries and all affiliated food expenses.  Turns out that I went over.  WAAAAY over.

Expenses:
Produce Stand: $18.34  (Baugher's)
Grocery Store:  $24.56
Five Guys:        $33.21
Panera:              $10.90  (those community meetings don't come cheap)
Aldi:                  $61.21
Chik-Fil-A         $5.88
South Mountain Creamery  20.48                


Total:   $174.56

I was $24.56 over what I thought I was paying.  That's not a lot, but consistently going over by $25/week means I'm over budget by $100/month.

That adds up to over $1000 a year, which is the equivalent of 1 monthly tuition payment for middle child.

I've got to get this under control fast.

Fortunately, it's easy to see where I've gone over.  It's eating out.  We don't eat out often, but I did take the boys out to Five Guys last week - just because.  I also picked up dinner at Panera while I was there for a Girl Scout meeting.  I also stopped by Chik-Fil-A one afternoon when I was starved and wanted something fast and quick.

Let's take an even closer look - totaling up the fast food, I see that I spent $49.99 eating out in one week.  ONE WEEK!!!  Add that $50 up for a month, and that's $200.  Over the course of a year, that's well over $2,000.  Well, hello sailor!  That's TWO monthly tuition payments for middle child!  Out of 8 monthly payments, that's TWO taken care of!  TWO!!!

As I've discovered over the last couple of years, holding myself publicly accountable for my new years resolutions has helped keep me on track.  For the first time in years I've managed to carry out most of my resolutions.  It's a pretty outstanding track record!

So, from now on, I'm going to be posting my grocery expenses, and the meals we've eaten for the week on Tuesdays.

This is the easy way to make money tax free - by stretching out what we currently earn.  We've already been taxed on it once!  Let's make it all go as far as we can!