Layout:
Home > Category: Food / Groceries

Viewing the 'Food / Groceries' Category

Lots and lots of chicken

June 17th, 2009 at 01:12 am

I love it when I accomplish something that will save me money in the long run. Today I took advantage of a great sale on boneless skinless chicken breast. I had money left in the food budget, so I bought a lot!

I sliced up some chicken into nugget-size pieces and froze them.

I sliced up some chicken into strips for stir-fry and froze them.

I baked lots of chicken in chicken broth. Then I shredded some chicken for tacos, quesadillas, and fajitas. And froze all the shredded chicken.

Then I diced some cooked chicken to be sued for fettucini and whatever other recipes I find. And that's frozen too.

Yep, I'm very excited about the great deal on chicken - and about prepping the chicken into meal-size portions for the upcoming weeks ahead.

The extra time and effort it took today will definitely save me money in the future. Menu planning will be so easy.

Monday Menu Plan

June 16th, 2009 at 03:00 am

In an effort to control my grocery spending, I've started planning my weekly menus before doing grocery shopping. (Just like my mom used to do years ago....)

Monday - leftover beef tips (from shish kabobs) with rice

Tuesday - grilled hot dogs & baked beans

Wednesday - bbq chicken drumsticks

Thursday - baked chicken tenders

Friday - chicken alfredo

Saturday - bbq spare ribs

Sunday - pizza

June Goals - progress

June 8th, 2009 at 01:13 am

Today we hosted a cookout for some good friends - and we had a great time. I can now check off two more items from my June goals.

#4 Get lawn chairs for the cookout. Well, we decided to use our existing folding chairs and save money. Maybe we'll buy lawn chairs at a later date, perhaps on clearance at season-end. But folding chairs worked just as fine as lawn chairs today and no one complained.

#5 Host a cookout for our friends. We had a great cookout today and now I have a ton of food in the fridge! Looks like I will have to redo the menu plan for the week and use up some of these leftovers.

The rest of my June goals are going great. I've been planning menus and avoiding the enticing refrigerated icy cold high-priced beverages at the cash registers.

Menu Planning

June 6th, 2009 at 08:10 pm

One of my goals for June was to Plan menus for the entire month. While playing around on the internet (my favorite hobby), I came across a FREE website called

Text is The Tasty Planner and Link is http://tastyplanner.com/
The Tasty Planner.

It's probably one of those sites that has been around forever, but to me it's a new discovery.

I've been playing around with it and there are a lot of features that I like.
(1) The menu plan can be added to my Google calendar
(2) An itemized grocery list is created with the recipes for the menu plan
(3) There are lots of recipes already included and it's SO easy to add new recipes. (We're going to have hotdogs one night, so I created a "recipe" for hotdogs. Ingredients - hotdogs, rolls, ketchup, mustard, relish, celery salt. Now all those items will show up on the grocery list.)
(4) There's a recipe box where you can store your favorite recipes.

So, I planned my menu for the week and printed my shopping list. Hopefully this will cut down on the number of shopping trips I make during the week.

Monday's Frugal Happenings

June 2nd, 2009 at 01:56 am

Monday's frugal triumphs

I hung clothes outside on the line. Who would have thought I would be excited about laundry? But every time I hang a load of clothes outside I get so excited about saving that electricity on the dryer.

I rented a movie from Redbox today using the code that was sent to my phone this morning. Free entertainment tonight! (I rented "Bride Wars"; not much of a selection when I went this afternoon.)

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

Monday's frugal oops

I really need to plan menus to make fewer trips to the grocery store. Even though I only picked up what was on my list (to make dinner tonight), I still used gas to get there - not to mention all that time I spent shopping that I could have been spent gardening.

So here's my menu for the week. Since I'm going to do my "big" grocery shopping on Friday, I have to work around what I already have in the house to get through the week

Mon - elbow casserole
Tue - sweet & sour chicken in the crockpot
Wed - hotdogs (cookout!) & pasta salad
Thu - sloppy joes
Fri - baked chicken salsa

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

Monday's spending

$3.48 Groceries - again


Sunday's Frugal Triumphs & Ooops

June 1st, 2009 at 01:26 am

Sunday's spending

$xx.xx Weekly tithe to the church
$28.48 Groceries (and I still cash left in the envelope for the week!)


.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

Sunday's frugal triumphs

I picked up an exercise ball from

Text is Freecycle and Link is http://www.freecycle.org
Freecycle today. It didn't look like much, but hubby inflated it and now it's perfect. I'll probably use it a few months and then Freecycle it back into the world. I don't stick to exercise routines for long.

I also picked up some garden pots from another freecycler.

Oh - I found a dime in the parking lot of the grocery store! I'm going to have to start of jar for "FOUND MONEY" so it doesn't get mixed with my other change. (I'm just curious to see how much money I do find.)

I was able to hang another load of laundry on the line before the rain came.

I drank two bottles of water which meant two less cans of soda today. (I keep water bottles in the fridge, but I hardly ever grab water when I want a drink.)

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

Sunday's frugal oops

I am addicted to Diet Coke/Pepsi. I drink it non-stop from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep. (It's the reason I have such bad teeth now.) I have a habit of reaching for a soda whenever I'm at the checkout. The soda coolers are there. The sodas are icy cold. And even if I'm not thirsty, I grab one. Grocery shopping, Home Depot, Wal-Mart. It doesn't matter where. I always grab a soda as I leave.

So today, I paid $1.39 for a 20-oz bottle of diet coke. And I didn't even drink half of it by the time I got home. Why do I do that? Surely I can go without a soda for the 15 minute drive home!

Swagbucks

May 28th, 2009 at 09:57 pm

Today's Spending:

Dollar Store - $1.00 (mouthwash)
Market Basket - $32.58 (groceries)

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

I ordered a $5 Amazon.com gift card with

Text is Swagbucks and Link is http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=305427
Swagbucks today. (I earn Swagbucks just by searching the internet!) This is my fourth gift card since March 2009. I should have it about 10 days.

.:*~*:.

Last week, I shortened my mini blinds and kept the slats. (They were 64" long and my windows were 48"). Today I recycled the slats into plant markers for my garden following
Text is this tutorial and Link is http://craftingagreenworld.com/2009/03/31/recycle-vinyl-blinds-into-plant-markers-another-quickie-tutorial/
this tutorial. Super easy - and best of all - free!

.:*~*:.

I also cooked up a huge pot of chicken lentil stew today. This will give us plenty of leftovers for lunches during the weeks ahead. (It freezes great.)

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.