This Week's Menu

I was inspired by Money Funk to plan out my menus for the week. Here's what I came up with (all from out of my pantry and freezer):

Sunday - Rotisserie Chicken
Monday - Chicken Fajitas
Tuesday - Chicken Noodle Soup
Wednesday - Pasta
Thursday - Shepherd's Pie
Friday - Homemade Pizzas
Saturday - Eat Out

Have you planned your meals for the week?

Starting A New Price Book

I have decided that since Grocery prices have gone up considerably over the past few years, I really need to do a new Price Book.

They way I do a Price Book is to make an alphabetical list of all the items I normally buy at the grocery store. I then record the lowest price I have purchased each item for. This price becomes my target price. I try to never spend more than the target price for any item. I try to purchase enough at the lowest price to last me until it goes down to that price again.

Here are some of the low prices I know by heart and aim for at the grocery store:

butter: $1.50 lb
chicken/boneless: $1.79 lb
Doritos: $1.50
Hunts spaghetti sauce: $ .79 can
Old Spice deodorant: $1.50
paper towels: $ .50 each roll
paper plates: $.99 per 72 ($.013 ea)
pasta: $ .79 lb (gone way up!)
sandwich bread: $ .50 each loaf
Secret deodorant: $1.50
toilet paper: $ .19 each roll
wheat thins: $1.50 a box

Finding Meals In My Pantry

In conjunction with the Forget The Joneses Project and the 21 Day Spending Freeze, I am going to take a look in my pantry and freezer and see how many meals I can come up with.

I tend to buy in bulk and freeze a lot of things so I can hopefully come up with a lot!

1. Frozen Chicken Pot Pie
2. Pasta, Sauce, Frozen Meatballs
3. Pasta, Sauce, Frozen Meatballs
4. Pasta, Sauce, Frozen Meatballs
5. Kielbasa, Rice, Frozen Vegetables (frzn kielbasa, rice, frozen veggies)
6. Steak, Rice, Frozen Vegetables (frzn steak, rice, frozen veggies)
7. Tacos, Tortilla Chips, Salsa (frzn hamb, seasoning, tortillas, shells, cheese, salsa,*s. cream)
8. Chicken, Broccoli, Ziti (frozen chicken, frozen broccoli, ziti, parmesean cheese, butter,*milk)
9. Chicken, Rice, Vegetables (frozen chicken breasts, rice, frozen veggies)
10. Homemade Macaroni and Cheese (elbow noodles, cheese, *milk)
11. Homemade Macaroni and Cheese (elbow noodles, cheese, *milk)
12. American Chop Suey (elbow noodles, tomato sauce, frozen hamburger)
13. Homemade Pizza (frozen dough, tomato sauce, cheese)
14. Chicken Noodle Soup (frozen chicken, canned broth, egg noodles, frozen veggies)
15. Lasagna (noodles, mozzarella cheese, canned sauce, parm. cheese, *ricotta cheese)
16. Mexican Casserole (flour tortillas, cheese, canned enchilada sauce, green chiles)
17. Chicken Fajitas (frozen chicken, onions, seasoning, cheese, salsa, *s. cream, * flour tortillas)
18. Chili (frozen hamburger, seasoning, beans, cheese)
19. Beef stew (frozen beef, canned beef broth, seasoning, frozen veggies, *potatoes)
20. Chicken Picata, Rice, Frozen Vegetables (frozen chicken, lemon juice, capers, flour, butter)
21. Chicken Picata, Rice, Frozen Vegetables
22. Chicken Marsala, Rice, Frozen Vegetables (frozen chicken, marsala wine, flour, butter)
23. Chicken Marsala, Rice, Frozen Vegetables
24. Ravioli, Tomato Sauce (frozen ravioli, canned sauce)
25. Ravioli, Tomato Sauce

I have a total of 21 frozen chicken breasts in my freezer.
I have a total of 6 lbs of hamburger in my freezer.

* I will need to purchase these items: s. cream, potatoes, ricotta cheese, milk.

So, it appears that I have enough dinner meals to make it through the 21 day spending freeze.

How many meals can you find in your pantry?

How I Do Our Grocery Shopping

(My computer is finally back and working now, so I should be back to posting daily again!)

I've been thinking about our grocery budget and how I seem to be slipping a little in this area, so I thought I would write a post to share with others and to remind myself of how to make the most of your grocery budget.

1. Plan Menus For The Week Using Calendasr (keeping it flexible enough to change)
First I get out my calendar and see what we have scheduled for the upcoming week. Using those plans as a guide, I plan a dinner menu for each night of the upcoming week. If we have a busy evening I will plan a less complicated meal that requires very little prep. I will also keep in mind some meals that may allow for leftovers that can be reheated the next night or used to make a slight variation of a meal the next night (like leftover chicken used for chicken soup, etc.).

2. Go Through The Local Grocery Store Sale Flyers
Next I go through each grocery flyer. I use a small notebook to write a small list of sales that I would consider for each store. I indicate the item and the price. I do this for each of 4 grocery stores and 3 pharmacy type stores. (This sounds tedious but really only takes about 10 minutes.)

3. Go Through Coupons
First I go through my stash of coupons tossing any that have expired and pulling any aside for items I will need to buy this week or for items that are on sale somewhere this week. Next I clip the coupons from the Sunday paper. I put aside any for items I will need to buy this week or for items that are on sale somewhere this week. When I find a coupon that matches up with a sale, I indicate the price after coupon on my grocery stores price list. The rest I save for a possible future grocery trip. This process takes about another 10 minutes.

4. Evaluate Sales/Coupons/Stores
Next, armed with all the informatio I need (what I need to buy, what is on sale, what I have a coupon for), I decide which store or stores I will be shopping at. (I usually pick the top 3.)

5. Go Shopping
I usually do my main grocery shopping on one day, and stop at two other stores just to pick up great sale items on another day.

I think I'll go get my calendar, grocery flyers, and coupons and get started now!

Tracking Food Spending

I have been tracking my spending on food this month. The reason that I am focusing on this category is because I think it is an important area that can fluctuate quite a bit. And I personally have a lot of control in keeping this expense down if I put my mind to it.

Also, I was having too much trouble tracking all of my expenses, so I thought I would be able to focus on just one category. (Now that I have begun using Pear Budget, I think it will be easy for me to track all of my family's spending. Check out my post about it here. And note that this was not a paid endorsement. I just found it to be just what I was looking for and thought it might be helpful to others too.)

So, here are the ugly numbers for our food spending so far this month:

3/14 - $497.57 (monthly subtotal as of 3/14)
3/20 - $184.20 (groceries for Easter)
3/26 - $68.97 (groceries - parents staying with me)

Monthly Subtotal = $750.74

Wow! That is really high! A good $250 over budget - but, some of the spending wasn't on groceries - it was for dining out, and that might be better categorized under "spending money". I'll have a whole breakdown of all the types of food spending when the month is officially over.

Updates

Well, I've been busy getting my new jewelry website up over at Etsy (see sidebar), so I'm a little behind in posting. Here's what's been going on:

21 Day Spending Freeze
Today is my eleventh day of this challenge (more than half way - yeay!). It has been going pretty well. Yesterday was the hardest day yet. I went to Target to get stuff for the girls Easter baskets and I was tempted by a lot of other stuff! I really wanted to get myself something new to wear on Easter. I even tried on a couple of things. I liked them and would have made a purchase if I wasn't participating in this challenge. I knew that I "wanted" them, I did not "need" them. Small victory! As I was out and about doing all my errands, I really wanted to stop at Dunkin Donuts for a coffee. It was cold and rainy out and my urge was strong. I managed to wait until I was done all my errands, and I went home and made myself a cup of coffee at home. This delaying gratification isn't easy!

One thing I have learned is it is a lot easier to avoid buying stuff if you stay home!

I did give in to my daughters though. My oldest wanted to go for a walk with several kids from the neighborhood to a nearby corner store. I gave in and gave her $3 to buy a candy for her and her two sisters. (I'm finding it easier to delay my own gratification than to make my children delay theirs!) I did resist their begging to stop at McDonalds for dinner on Monday night. It was very tempting, but I said no. I even explained about the 21 day spending freeze challenge and explained how it could be good for our family, the environment, and the world, if everyone lowered their rate of consumption. They seemed to "get it". And one of my daughter's even wrote a great story about how not buying stuff could help the earth. :)

Tracking Food Spending:
This has been going pretty well, BUT I need to go to the grocery store today to get food for Easter dinner. And truthfully, in spite of the large (and expensive) last trip to the grocery store (that I thought would last us pretty much through the rest of the month), we do really need more food for lunches and dinners. I'm hoping not to spend too much though. We will surely go over our $500 food budget this month, but a lot of it has been "entertainment food" and I think that would be better budgeted under our "spending money" category. I'll tally it all up and analyze at the end of the month.

Snowflakes: I sold another item on ebay and earned another $7.50 for the debt snowball. I'll have to total up all the snowflakes at the end of the month. I think I did pretty well.

One big "oops" in this category though - we received a check for $460 from our Flexible Spending Account (pre-tax medical). This should be a great big snowflake, but we need to put it into our regular budget as we are falling short this month. Part of the reason is my husband's commission was $250 less than we expected. The rest is for misc. unbudgeted expenses that I'll have to analyze more.

Museum of Science Trip:
We had a lot of fun when we brought the kids to the Museum of Science on Saturday. But we did spend a lot more than we expected. We had one free pass and 4 passes for $5 reduced fee, BUT, it turns out, to use the "free" pass, we needed to pay one full price ticket. So, the basic entrance for my family of 5 cost us $32 (instead of the $20 I was expecting). We had planned to do two "extra" attractions, but because of the high costs we decided to do only one (3d shark movie) - this cost another $17. We checked our coats, which cost another $5. We got ice cream and drinks, which cost us $16.

The trip on the commuter train cost $21 round trip (this was more than I had expected since kids under 11, all of mine, ride free). Then we had to take the subway which cost $8 round trip (also more than I had anticipated since the kids ride free).

Then we stopped for dinner in town (which we had planned) and that cost $60.

So, if I'm adding correctly, this day cost us $158. (I guess that's not sooo bad for a family of 5, but I thought it would be less.)


Anyway, that's where things stand right now.

I am participating in the "Forget The Jonses Project" over at the Mommysavers forum. (You can read about how I have been doing here.) I am also part of the Snowflake Revolution (check it out).

Today

Well, most of you know that I am participating in the "Forget The Joneses Project" over at the Mommysavers forum. (You can read about how I have been doing here.)

I am currently working on the "21 Day Spending Freeze" and I think I did my first cheat today. On the way to school my 5th Grade Daughter remembered that today is the one day a month that the school store is open. She asked me if she could have some money to purchase something there. Clearly buying some trinkets from the school store must be classified as a "want" not a "need", but I went ahead and gave her $2 to spend.

As I thought about it later on, it became clear to me that I have much less trouble denying myself "wants" than doing so to my children. For example, a couple of days ago two of my friends e-mailed me and wanted to plan to get together for dinner the last week in March. I really had no problem telling them I was participating in a 21 Day Spending Freeze challenge and asking if we could postpone until April. I wasn't able to, however, tell my daughter that she would need to wait until next month to shop at the school store. This is really an interesting experiment that I'm sure will bring a lot of insight when the 21 days are over.

I also stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few necessities. Here's what I got:

Hot Dog Rolls - $ .69
Bread - $ .69
Bread - $ .69
Ital. Bread - $1.49
Bananas - $1.23
Sour Cream - $ .99
Deli Turkey - $2.69
Trail Mix - $1.49
Trail Mix - $1.49
Rolls - $1.39
Raisins - $ .99
Eggs - $1.99
Milk - $3.99
Total = $19.81

$497.57- Subtotal of March Food

Today

Sold 4 items on ebay today for a total of $38. Hello Snowflakes!

Also earned $20 babysitting today.

Day 5 of the 21 Day Spending Freeze - and I still haven't spent a penny! Yeay!

So today's Food Spending is also $0. (Monthly subtotal for Food = $477.76)

So, I'm feeling pretty good today!

I also finished reading Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin, which was a very powerful book that I will write about later this week.

Today

Well, today is Day 3 of my "Spending Freeze", and so far it has been going well.

Haven't spent a dime!

This has certainly made tracking my food expenses easier too!

Today's Food Spending

(photo courtesy of www.stockxpert.com)

Went grocery shopping today.

I used to shop at Market Basket. It is close to a twenty minute drive away, but they have really good prices so I always felt it was worth the extra drive.

Then a new discount grocery store opened near me. Their prices are fantastic but they have a very limited selection of brands and items.

I was alternating between these two grocery stores each week for a while. Then I realized that I don't really need to go grocery shopping every week. So, I stretched it out a little longer between each trip.

Now I have decided to make just one trip a month to Market Basket, and shop the discount grocery store as needed during the rest of the month (hopefully only to get fresh fruits and vegetables as needed).

So, this long preamble is to explain my very expensive trip to Market Basket today. I spent $227.80 (after saving $9.50 with coupons).

This puts us just about at the $500 mark, which is our total food budget for March, and it is only March 8th.

The good news is that my house is stocked! I think we can make it on the grocery side. I'm not sure we can go the rest of the month without eating out. I guess we can use our weekly spending money for eating out, which is what we usually do.

$227.80 - Grocery Food (Market Basket monthly trip)
$477 .76 - Subtotal For March

Today's Food Spending

Yup, you guessed it. Another out to eat today!

Hubby took the day off from work to attend a field trip with our daughter. He got back at noon and we decided to go out to lunch. We knew we shouldn't since we had a lot of dining out last weekend, but we don't have a lot of lunch food in the house (going grocery shopping tomorrow) and, well, we just really like to go out to eat!

$32.00 - Entertainment Food (out to lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse)
$4.50 - Entertainment Food (hubby got ice cream after lunch)
$249 .96 - Subtotal for March

Today's Food Spending

$4.02 - Coffee Break (coffee and donuts, too often this month!)
$12.08 - Entertainment Food (brought daughter and her friend to Burger King for lunch)
$25.00 - Grocery Food
$13.80 - Diet Coke (3/$12 plus deposit)
$213.46 - Subtotal for March

Today's Food Spending

(photo courtesy of www.stockxpert.com)

$3.56 - Coffee Break (stopped while out doing errands this morning)
$158.56 - Subtotal for March

I did change our grocery budget for this month from $500 to $300. Part of this is just wanting to cut back but also I am not grocery shopping as regularly anymore as I was in the past. I was going grocery shopping every Monday. There are 5 Mondays in March, hence why my original budget was for $500 ($100 a week). Now that I am trying to stretch out between grocery visits and going on a different day each week, plus the fact that I am a stockpiler and have tons of food in the house, I have lowered our grocery budget to $300.

I also got rid of the $80 we had budgeted for March for pizza, as we have not been as regular about that either.

Now, we have already spent over $150 on non-grocery food this month that didn't have its own category in the budget (part pizza, part personal fun money, etc.). So, our total food for the month will probably be very close to the $580 (original $500 grocery plus $80 pizza).

May need to think about changing my budget category names.




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Read more on this topic in Your Money or Your Life (Part 1), The Daily Tracking of Expenses Experiment is Over, and Trouble With Tracking and Yet Another Attempt At Tracking Expenses and Food Spending.

Tracking Spending - Food

(photo courtesy of free images.co.uk)

Okay, as I have mentioned, beginning on March 1st I have decided to track my family's spending on food. The reason I am only tracking our spending on food and not other categories, is that I have found it much too difficult to keep track of all categories. And food is a dangerous area in our family's budget. We usually keep our grocery budget on the low side (we'll see if my beliefs are substantiated with the facts) but have more trouble with dining out, coffee breaks, convenience, and food as entertainment.

So, catching up, here goes:

Saturday, 3/1/08
$20 - Entertainment Food (I went out to lunch with a group of girlfriends, on an overnight trip)
$35 - Entertainment Food (Husband went out to lunch with the 3 kids and another family while I was on my overnight trip)
$30 - Convenience Food (Husband took the 3 kids out to dinner after dd's basketball game)
$85 - Total (Notes: very high for 1 day, especially husband and kids going out for 2 sit down meals in one day)

Sunday, 3/2/08
$0 - Total

Monday, 3/3/08
$15 - Celebration Food (bought a cake to celebrate my sister and my niece's birthdays)
$40 - Celebration Food (pizza for dinner with my family and my 3 sisters, niece, and nephew)
$55 - Total (Notes: now that my parents have moved to Florida, most of my family's entertaining takes place at my house. This could become very expensive but I don't really feel comfortable asking everyone to chip in. Two of my sisters did put in a little cash but most was paid by my family.)

Tuesday, 3/4/08
$15 - Entertainment Food (went to lunch with my sister who was visiting from out of state)
$15 - Total

$155 - Total for 4 days

This is very high for just 4 days. Will need to be careful for the rest of the month!




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Read more on this topic in Your Money or Your Life (Part 1), The Daily Tracking of Expenses Experiment is Over, and Trouble With Tracking and Yet Another Attempt At Tracking Expenses.