The Experiment Month Two

So, yeah. Just like the road to Hell, my meal planning was paved with good intentions. Towards the end of the month, we got our tax refund, and went out to eat a few times and bought other groceries. I didn't make the enchiladas I had planned, nor did I make a meatloaf, but I did manage to keep the monthly grocery budget to under $250.

In my humble opinion, that was pretty damn amazing!

So, we're doing it again. This time, I gave myself $200 for the month. I have done the grocery shopping and some of the prep work, and the freezer is full. (Oh, speaking of freezers, did I mention that my mom gave me one? I was telling her about how we planned to take some of the daycare money from the summer- when we don't pay for day care for Veronica- and buy one. She offered to give us her old one. Yay!!!! We picked it up the next week, let it sit for a few days, and plugged that sucker in. We're keeping it in the garage, but so happy to have it!)

Ok, so my prep work consisted of cutting up chicken to make oven fajitas and stir fry. I also take all the breasts and butterfly them to make them into two breasts. I put them all into Ziploc bags and label them with the date and what I intend to use them for. (Some meals I know I'll need more meat.)

I also did the shopping in a few trips this time. One day over spring break, I went to the expensive grocery store. I wanted to make some bread and needed yeast. Of course the cart had more stuff in it than just the yeast. But they had pork tenderloins on sale. And by sale I mean coupons attached because they were nearing their sell by date. I bought $42 worth of tenderloins for $24. They are each about a pound and a half, and I got 6 of them. We grilled one that night, but the other 5 are in the freezer.

On another unrelated trip to Target, they had ground beef on sale, so I picked up 4 packs. Those 4, plus the ones I have leftover from March, give me enough for all of April (going in to May). So for proteins, I just needed chicken. Oh, the chicken.

When I went to Aldi to do the main shopping today, the chicken didn't look very good, so I decided to get it when I went to the expensive store, since they usually have a decent price on chicken. (I knew I would have to go for things like foil pans and ricotta cheese.) SO I got all the pantry stuff and most of everything else at Aldi. Spent $75. Not bad! Went to the other store and found the Chicken. $5.99 a pound! What the fuck? Packs of 3 chicken breasts were 10 bucks. I was pissed. I found one that had a $4 coupon on it, and another one that was thin sliced breasts- perfect for the fajitas and stir fry- that also had a $4 coupon on it. But that was it. The equivalent of 6 breasts for $12. There was no way I could do that, but I needed to have some chicken for dinner.

Then, I looked in the fridge section in the middle of the meat department. They had the same damn chicken in a family pack for $1.99 a pound. THE SAME BONELESS, SKINLESS CHICKEN BREASTS, JUST $3/POUND CHEAPER!!!!!!!! I put back the one pack of three breasts and got 5 packs of the family size packs. There were 5 breasts in each. I did buy the pack of thin cut ones, since I was getting tired at that point. So I ended up (after butterflying the chicken breasts) 50 breasts for about $37. If I had bought them at the regular price with the three packs, it would have cost right around $80. That's just nucking futs.

So anyway, the shopping is done, the meals are prepped and we are eating great this month. Some of the meals are new again, and I will review each of them and give a link to the recipe. But up this month is a parmesan chicken bake, salsa chicken in the crockpot, apple and honey pork tenderloin, goulash, enchiladas, fajitas, mashed potato casserole, grilled Italian sausage (I like the turkey sausage here. I have a pack of hot and a pack of sweet, both of which had $3 coupons on them) and French Toast Roll-ups. I think I am looking forward to those the most.

OK, I guess then look for new posts this week about the recipes and other ramblings that come from my head.