Where to start? Pat and I are pretty much broke. Like to the point that all my credit cards are maxed out, and we can afford to pay the mortgage and daycare and at the end of the month we have about $3.00 left. Yes, 3 measly dollars.
SO at work last week, I wrote down what our bills are and how much our income is. We made enough to pay for everything, so what's going on? After spending weeks looking at our spending habits, I found we are hemmorraging money on food. Take out lunches, breakfasts on the go, and "I don't feel like cooking" dinners out. Ridiculous amounts. Hundreds of dollars a month. Hundreds!!!
I decided it was time to stop that. I'm tired of scraping by, or scraping up money to buy clothes for the kids and diapers and formula for Veronica. I had recently started cooking big batches of side dishes, and planning out what meals to eat them with, so I figured that maybe I could do that for two weeks at a time. I knew that I would have about $160 for groceries, but I really wanted to find how far I could stretch that. SO I planned for the month.
Then I made my grocery list. I needed 17 chicken breasts, 7 pounds of ground beef, a pound of chuck roast, and 2 1/2 pounds of cube steak. Then there were all the little things I needed, like garlic, tomato paste, enchilada sauce, cheese, biscuits and a million other little things. I went to Aldi first, to get whatever I could that they carry. I used to turn my nose down at their products, but I can't afford to do that now. And I'll never go back.
The first time I shopped at Aldi, I took my reciept to Jewel and compared prices. It was ridiculous. I had spend $35 dollars at Aldi. The same items at the cheapest price Jewel offered totalled around $65. A few dollars is one things, but 30? Crazy. But I digress.
I am still very picky about my meat, but the chicken is pretty good, so I got all the chicken there as well as the chuck roast, although they didn't have any one pounders. I had to get two, which for me just means two meals from it. The price differences just get me though. I spent 65 cents on a packet of ranch dressing mix. At Target, it would cost a dollar more. It's the exact same stuff!
But I'm getting off track again. It happens a lot. So armed with my grocery list and $160, I hit the stores. I spent $127.43 at Aldi, got all the meat I listed above, plus 80 other items. Then I went to Jewel. I got wing sauce, 2 cans of enchilada sauce, and 2 bags of stir fry veggies, 2 cans of broccoli cheese soup and the cube steak and spent almost $25. Ridiculous I say! Now, if you add those together, I spent just over $152.
HOLY SHIT I had done it!!!!
We are not just eating crap, either. I have a ton of yummy things planned for the month. I made a batch of twice baked potato casserole yesterday. I was able to split it into three different meal portions, so there's three sides there. (All in the freezer.) I made a cheesy corn casserole that I was able to make 4 pans out of one batch. We ate one, and I froze the other three. There's 7 different sides taken care of. I have lots of frozen veggies, and I will add those to the meals too.
I also did a lot of the prep work. One night we are having fajitas, so I already cut the chicken into strips, and did the same with the onions and peppers. All of that went into one bag (chicken in a bag in the bag) so I can just take it out the night before so it defrosts. Same with the chicken stir fry. The chicken is all cut up into bite size pieces. (No more I don't have time excuses!) The ground beef is separated into bags and labeled with what it's supposed to be used for.
I know how ridiculous this sounds, but I am very excited. Yesterday was March 9th. I don't need to go back to the grocery store for anything other than baby food and milk until April 5th. I have plenty of leftovers for lunch, and Nathaniel eats both breakfast and lunch at shcool, which is going to help me cut down. I also am really working on portions, so this will help.
Tonight I made shredded buffalo chicken (one of our favorites!!!) and as usual, it was delicious. Three chicken breasts, a bottle of wing sauce and a packet of dry ranch mix. Chicken was $4.68, wing sauce was 1.77 and ranch dressing was .65. Add in a buck for the hamburger buns and dinner for both Pat and I plus lunch for the next two days cost $8.10. Four servings is just about 2 bucks per serving. How can you beat that? PLus it tasts so damn good!
Sp my new experiment is seeing if I can actually make this work. I am really hopeful that I can. Wish me luck!
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