I can't believe it has already been almost a month! I was talking to my sister in law yesterday about it all, and she is going to possibly join me on Monday - just to watch how the shopping goes. She is a great shopper, but I think the idea of only going once a month intrigues her.
Thanks again to my friend Amy who let me whine a bit last night to her. I am so sick of soup, so I wasn't going to eat dinner. That idea only lasted until I got hungry though. So as I am eating the soup (again) I am whining to her about how next month I will plan better for the last week. However, after my whining moment I talked about how I am totally sold on this idea of only shopping once a month. I reminded myself, this is only the first month, and I've never done this before. So, the more I learn, the better "the last week" will be.
Today I am attaching my 3rd week of menus, and I want to be up front and tell you that I can't remember if this is what we really had on the days it says. I know we had these meals during the month, but if it was Mon., Tue., Wed., etc - I've lost track. So please take it at face value and use the menu as simply gaining ideas for planning your month.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AePt_ScVkM4gZGQ0NHo1ajJfMTJmZzY3M2JmNw&hl=en
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Menu Items Part 2 and My Secret Passion
So I sent my husband down to the store last night...for milk. Now I could justify that I need milk for daycare, and that is true. However, I would be lying if I didn't mention the reason we ran out of milk 5 days early is partly because we have been on a cookie spree this week. And you have to have milk with cookies, right! It's been a bit ridiculous how many cookies we (especially me) have eaten over the last few days. I think we've made about 9 or 10 dozen...That's close to 120 cookies, and I think I, myself ate a third if that. I know, that's gross, I'm just keeping it real! Needless to say - we needed more milk. So I blew it. The whole idea of rationing went out the window and all I can say is...I'm sorry. But truthfully I'm really not, they were pretty dang good.
However, on a victorious note, last night I made one of our new favorite meals, and I thought I had nothing in the cupboard. It's amazing what you have when it doesn't look like you have anything. So, thanks to my friend Amy who gave me an awesome cream sauce recipe! You can find it on my "Sauce Recipes, Please" blog.
Attached to today's blog (brought to you by "glutton")(that would be me) is my 2nd week of menu items. Hope you enjoy, and have a great day!
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AePt_ScVkM4gZGQ0NHo1ajJfOGY4ZmdyMmhz&hl=en
However, on a victorious note, last night I made one of our new favorite meals, and I thought I had nothing in the cupboard. It's amazing what you have when it doesn't look like you have anything. So, thanks to my friend Amy who gave me an awesome cream sauce recipe! You can find it on my "Sauce Recipes, Please" blog.
Attached to today's blog (brought to you by "glutton")(that would be me) is my 2nd week of menu items. Hope you enjoy, and have a great day!
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AePt_ScVkM4gZGQ0NHo1ajJfOGY4ZmdyMmhz&hl=en
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Menu Ideas Part 1
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AePt_ScVkM4gZGQ0NHo1ajJfM2Z2M2o2d2hw&hl=en
As I near the end of this month, I am putting together some of the menu items we ate. We definatley did not suffer! Today I am attaching one weeks worth, and tomorrow I will post another, and so on until you have our full months menu and my original shopping list by the end of the week. This will not be necessarily in the order we ate it - because I am not that organized yet :) As I mentioned in the 2nd blog posting, we ate quite well the first week. Now that I am in week 4 I am having to pull from every creative person I know, because I am obviously running out of things.
I have had to remind myself quite often about the reason I am doing this. It simply is because I love my family. We are on a budget, and finding ways to save time and money is honoring to my husband. For my kids, the idea of them growing up with a tool belt full of ideas of meals and knowing how to prepare them, is important to me. And for all of us, as a family, we have spent more time together at the table, and that is PRICELESS!
As I near the end of this month, I am putting together some of the menu items we ate. We definatley did not suffer! Today I am attaching one weeks worth, and tomorrow I will post another, and so on until you have our full months menu and my original shopping list by the end of the week. This will not be necessarily in the order we ate it - because I am not that organized yet :) As I mentioned in the 2nd blog posting, we ate quite well the first week. Now that I am in week 4 I am having to pull from every creative person I know, because I am obviously running out of things.
I have had to remind myself quite often about the reason I am doing this. It simply is because I love my family. We are on a budget, and finding ways to save time and money is honoring to my husband. For my kids, the idea of them growing up with a tool belt full of ideas of meals and knowing how to prepare them, is important to me. And for all of us, as a family, we have spent more time together at the table, and that is PRICELESS!
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sauce Recipes, Please
Sorry it's been a few days, and I still don't have the menus up. Let me explain...I am still not very good with computers, and my husband was out of town. So, I couldn't figure out how to download or upload, whatever you're supposed to do, a menu form to fill out. Well, he's home now and they are coming, hopefully today! So in the meantime, I'll catch you up with my journey.
This is THE LAST WEEK!!! I am down to the wire on my once a month shopping quest. It has been awesome! This week, I really need to plan well because as you can probably guess I am starting to run low on supplies. If you know of any good regular recipes or sauce recipes, please let me know asap. I have a lot of chicken and hamburger left, lots of onion, potato, carrots, celery, pasta, and rice. But to be honest, I am soooo sick of soup. So I need something besides that. I would like to find a way to make some pasta sauce ,without cheese or tomato sauce, because I don't have any.
Let me say one thing...I will continue to do this, FOR SURE. My next shopping trip will be next Monday. This week my husband and I are going to talk about what did work and didn't work, and we will start planning the menus for next month. At the end of the week I will reveal if I stayed within my $400 dollar food budget. Remember I am shopping for a family of 6 and a full time daycare...Once a Month.
This is THE LAST WEEK!!! I am down to the wire on my once a month shopping quest. It has been awesome! This week, I really need to plan well because as you can probably guess I am starting to run low on supplies. If you know of any good regular recipes or sauce recipes, please let me know asap. I have a lot of chicken and hamburger left, lots of onion, potato, carrots, celery, pasta, and rice. But to be honest, I am soooo sick of soup. So I need something besides that. I would like to find a way to make some pasta sauce ,without cheese or tomato sauce, because I don't have any.
Let me say one thing...I will continue to do this, FOR SURE. My next shopping trip will be next Monday. This week my husband and I are going to talk about what did work and didn't work, and we will start planning the menus for next month. At the end of the week I will reveal if I stayed within my $400 dollar food budget. Remember I am shopping for a family of 6 and a full time daycare...Once a Month.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
A New Way of Thinking
My husband and I were laughing the other night because I mentioned that one of the things that keeps me accountable to not running out and grabbing dinner is writing this blog. The thought of going down to the store and picking something up FREAKS ME OUT! I mean, what if I see one of you guys??? Then what? So, thank you for keeping me accountabe in my endeavors. With that said, I did almost give in last night. Seriously I felt the words, "let's go get fast food" at the tip of my tongue. Why? It wasn't because I didn't have a dinner planned. It wasn't because I didn't make the planned dinner either. The reason those words almost flew out of my mouth was because the dinner I made, simply put,tasted like... crap. What did I do instead? I quickly threw together some Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches and Oranges and called it good as we ran out the door to church. Things don't always work out...so what...improvise! My kids didn't die because they didn't have meat for dinner last night. In fact, they kind of enjoyed the change up. They didn't know I almost gave in either, because I kept my mouth shut and saved us a $25 dollar bill.
I don't ever want to get stuck in a rut. In every area of my life I want to be willing to grow. Spiritually, I want to grow closer in my walk with God, every day. Physically, I want to understand the importance of being healthy and exercising. Trust me, I am not there yet, but I live with my own personal Jillian Michaels (Emily) and she is always reminding me! In the area of emotions, I want to grow. I want to learn the right way to respond to situations and not be emotionally driven. And financially, God, please renew my mind! That is what actually started this whole thing, is we finally got on a budget. No matter who we are, where we came from, what our background or financial status is, we should never think we've "arrived". There's always room to grow. There's always room to improvise.
Some people have wanted to know what my menus look like. So tomorrow, I will be posting the menus I made for the month, and on Friday I will be posting the shopping list I went to the store with at the very beginning.
I don't ever want to get stuck in a rut. In every area of my life I want to be willing to grow. Spiritually, I want to grow closer in my walk with God, every day. Physically, I want to understand the importance of being healthy and exercising. Trust me, I am not there yet, but I live with my own personal Jillian Michaels (Emily) and she is always reminding me! In the area of emotions, I want to grow. I want to learn the right way to respond to situations and not be emotionally driven. And financially, God, please renew my mind! That is what actually started this whole thing, is we finally got on a budget. No matter who we are, where we came from, what our background or financial status is, we should never think we've "arrived". There's always room to grow. There's always room to improvise.
Some people have wanted to know what my menus look like. So tomorrow, I will be posting the menus I made for the month, and on Friday I will be posting the shopping list I went to the store with at the very beginning.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Being Balanced
I mentioned in a previous blog that with a daycare and 4 children I find myself feeling like all I ever do is clean clean clean. And this is true. Now I find myself cooking, baking, checking my blog for comments. Cooking, baking, checking my blog for comments, etc. So today I thought it would be important to talk about balance. It is so easy to get excited about a new project and then push other important things to the side. I think we all know what I am talking about:) So today's mission is not pick up my computer to check e-mail, facebook, blog status...anything. Today will be a day of spending quality time with my children, helping them with their homework, getting caught up on laundry, and of course...cleaning.
What consumes us? As a christian woman, I know what the pad answer should be. The Lord, right? But does He? I know for me it is so easy to get caught up in life, that some days I don't really even think about the Lord. Terrible...but true. If I could think of one word to describe God, it would be BALANCE. Think about it....Even in creation He spent one day creating the heavens and earth, one day distinguishing night and day, and so on. He is fully love, and yet we hear about the wrath of God too. I want to be balanced in my life. I want to always remember that the Lord should come first. I also want to be careful not to get caught up in the excitement of new projects that I forget about the other imprtant things in my life.
By the way...just so you know I still do have all my meals planned for today. Dinner tonight should be amazing. BBQ Pork and Rice on Corn Tortillas with Lime and Melted Cheese. Mmmmmm!
Keep it balanced...Goodbye for Today Computer World
What consumes us? As a christian woman, I know what the pad answer should be. The Lord, right? But does He? I know for me it is so easy to get caught up in life, that some days I don't really even think about the Lord. Terrible...but true. If I could think of one word to describe God, it would be BALANCE. Think about it....Even in creation He spent one day creating the heavens and earth, one day distinguishing night and day, and so on. He is fully love, and yet we hear about the wrath of God too. I want to be balanced in my life. I want to always remember that the Lord should come first. I also want to be careful not to get caught up in the excitement of new projects that I forget about the other imprtant things in my life.
By the way...just so you know I still do have all my meals planned for today. Dinner tonight should be amazing. BBQ Pork and Rice on Corn Tortillas with Lime and Melted Cheese. Mmmmmm!
Keep it balanced...Goodbye for Today Computer World
Monday, March 1, 2010
» Once-a-Month Shopping: Save More by Shopping Less
» Once-a-Month Shopping: Save More by Shopping Less
I read this article this morning in less then 5 minutes. It is about a family who has only shopped once a month since 1984! They answer questions about fresh produce, storing milk, bread, cheese, etc. They also talk about looking for sales and using coupons. I haven't ventured into clipping coupons yet (one thing at a time) but people who know what they're doing, and do it right, save a lot of money. I remember when Sean worked at Safeway, people would come in and use coupons all the time and save tons of money.
A quick thought:
I am now on my second week. My cupboards, freezer, and pantry still look pretty full and I've made every one of my meals. Remember I am feeding a family of 6 and running a daycare. I did notice last night I have been using bread and juice a little fast. So that just reminded me I need to proportion things out carefully. One of the reasons my kids are at the dentist a lot is because I have let them be juice a holics. Water and milk is way more healthier, and less expensive. As always, feedback is appreciated. Also, if there is anything specific anyone would like to know, ask me, and I'll see if I can find the answer for you.
I read this article this morning in less then 5 minutes. It is about a family who has only shopped once a month since 1984! They answer questions about fresh produce, storing milk, bread, cheese, etc. They also talk about looking for sales and using coupons. I haven't ventured into clipping coupons yet (one thing at a time) but people who know what they're doing, and do it right, save a lot of money. I remember when Sean worked at Safeway, people would come in and use coupons all the time and save tons of money.
A quick thought:
I am now on my second week. My cupboards, freezer, and pantry still look pretty full and I've made every one of my meals. Remember I am feeding a family of 6 and running a daycare. I did notice last night I have been using bread and juice a little fast. So that just reminded me I need to proportion things out carefully. One of the reasons my kids are at the dentist a lot is because I have let them be juice a holics. Water and milk is way more healthier, and less expensive. As always, feedback is appreciated. Also, if there is anything specific anyone would like to know, ask me, and I'll see if I can find the answer for you.
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