goodbye

My money thing is going really well this month. Only here's the thing: I feel silly writing about it not knowing if anyone cares to read it--I know I'm doing well. So. If you are reading this shoot an email to eredblue@gmail.com and let me know and I'll write my plan and totals so far. If you come across this in years to come ;) and wonder how I fared, you can email about that too and I'll clue you in on any hot tips I discovered. Otherwise, I'll get back to blogging when I have something to keep myself accountable for that doesn't already require pen and ink.

Henry's: let the madness begin

Today we went to the bank and withdrew 240 dollars in cash. We went out to eat the other night and spent the rest of July's food budget and 10 from August but it was a good time and a calculated decision. I figure 240 divides better among 4 weeks anyway... ;)
So yesterday the circulars came and I have never been so excited to receive "junk mail" before but I was. I compared everything on my list of things we like to have on hand at some point during the month and came up with a game plan. I walked into Henry's with a list that looked something like: "peaches, zucchini, yellow squash, rolled oats, blueberries, green pepper" as these are all things that we either use consistently or that I would like to make something of since they were on sale (I'm looking at you, vegetables). Want to know how much I spent? For one green pepper, 2 zucchini, 1 squash, a bag of oats, 3 peaches and *2 pints of blueberries* I paid a whopping $4.16.
I did not forget to put a one in the 'ten's place.'
I was so excited. Of course then I went to subway (because we were hungry, because yesterday was long and there was nothing ready to eat in the house) and bought two foot longs--but I used a coupon so that was $8.97 I think. Still comes out of the old budget, but watch me go! I'm planning meals this morning and then hitting the other grocery stores later on.
Whooppeeeee

Updating the Plan

I've made a list now of the things we buy on a regular basis and I put them on a spreadsheet and have done some research--I've written in the price of various things at Food4Less and Trader Joe's to see what the comparison was (embarassingly enough, I really had no idea about the price of many, many things...) and it turns out the majority of things we buy are cheaper at Trader Joe's--sometimes because of actual price and sometimes because the difference in quality is so distinct we're willing to pay more. I was surprised to find that, I have to say. But F4L has things they don't have at TJ's and we long ago discovered F4L is less expensive than say Albertson's or Ralph's. But anyway I intend to look through grocery fliers (another thing that will be new to me) and see what's on sale that's *already* on our list of things we keep on hand and go with that. I was thinking of following the usual advice of 'look through circulars and plan meals around the sales' but I don't think it would work for us. I've been planning meals based on what we've already got for practice this month and I'll tell you, we require flexibility with our meal choices. So anyway, we'll see how it actually plays out but I can't wait until next Thursday when we'll do our first grocery trip for the month. To compare: last month our first trip resulted in a $160 bill. This time I'm shooting for between 40-60 bucks based on our list...
Today I updated pictures/recipes at www.peppersandonions.wordpress.com

Leftovers

Yesterday I made calzones. Talk about an experiment. I put cheese and meat and sauce and vegetables on one side of a premade pie crust and folded the other side over. They turned out okay, but I'm not sure I'll make them again. Although if I do I'll be sure to cut vent slits in the tops so the toppings don't have to erupt out like they did this time. We had broccoli soup left over, so I'm taking that for our lunch along with some of the pasta bake that I also made yesterday (www.peppersandonions.wordpress.com) which I'll reheat for dinner tonight...yesterday wasn't as hot so I did a double bake. Saves energy too so that's a plus.
I also spent the rest of this month's food money at Quizos--bullets and sammies. Good deals, though. Now all we've got to do is stick it through with the menu I've made...
I'm hoping to learn the art of the leftover. We don't have a microwave so it's a little more difficult than it might otherwise be, but I think I'll get the hang of it.

so far so good...

Today had leftovers for lunch--now the pot pie is a goner, and for dinner we had friends over and fed them salad and cheddar broccoli soup in bread bowls. So I went to the grocery store (Food4Less) and spent 10.42 on ingredients. A head of broccoli was .60, eggs 1.72, cream of broccoli soup 1.59 (x2 cans), cream of celery soup .79 (I did this as a filler because I knew I would be adding real broccoli myself and was just needing a little more of the cream filler and thought the celery would be a nice addition plus it saved me about 80 cents. Not much, huh, but heck. It bought the broccoli...) I spent a few minutes in the butter aisle pondering the best deal. We've been paying 3.13 for 8 oz of 'real' butter (made of cream and salt. only.) that's whipped--delicious if you leave it out of the fridge then put it on a bread, but a little harder to work with if you're just cooking. Anyway I checked out the same brand in sticks--same ingredients--and for 16 oz it was 2.98. THAT'S HALF PRICE. And then I found another brand "Tillamook" for 2.50 for 16 oz in the sticks with the same ingredients so of course I bought that one--I'm off to a pretty good start so far, I think, because butter can be a major 'under the radar' expense that I don't want to give up.

How it goes...

Well, it is so hot here I feel like I'm basting in sweat. Makes me think there might be something to the 'raw foods' diet, after all...
I am, however, undaunted. After yesterday's lunch of leftover quiche, cream of mushroom soup and fruit with cottage cheese we had a (very) early dinner of sloppy joe pitas (recipe and picture at www.peppersandonions.wordpress.com once I get the laptop from my husband--I'd post it here but I don't know how to make pictures big enough to matter on this site). After yesterday's cooking (I was also boiling some black beans to have on-hand whenever we want) I couldn't bear the thought of heating up the apartment like that again so early in the day so for lunch I had a pita with salad greens, carrots, avocado, ranch and feta and he had a nice cold sandwich. For dinner I've made a pot pie--talk about living from the pantry and usung what you've got--I threw in a can of chicken noodle soup which had celery and carrots as well and the leftover cream of mushroom from yesterday's lunch, chopped up 4 tiny potatoes, finished off an onion in there and diced up 4-5 baby carrots to supplement, plus some spices.
Today has got me thinking that we'll need to allot a certain amount at the beginning for staples to have on hand for snacky meals or those times it's just toooooo hot to cook. I'm thinking $20 bucks for butter, yogurt, sandwich meat, bread...then maybe $25 apiece for the month's eating out so that leaves $20 a week for that week's meals. Possible? I honestly don't know. Worth a shot? Definitely.

I eat challenges for breakfast! (and lunch...and dinner...)

So I was reading http://www.katheats.com/ last night when I ran across this challenge (http://www.katheats.com/?p=10415) she did with a goal of $126 from Nov.1 through Thanksgiving day for groceries, which they managed for $115, and I said, "WHAT??!!!" and almost fell off the bed.
Once I regained control of myself (and my equilibrium) I yelled to my husband, "She spent $115 on groceries until Thanksgiving! And she has a husband, and I have a husband!..." (I was a little delirious with the potential because as it is we spend about ... $126 *cough* a week.) At first he thought I wanted him to spend $126 *on* Thanksgiving, and then he thought I was accusing him of something but I finally explained it to him, showed him her posts, and we went on a walk and came up with these guidelines:
* I will take out $250 in cash at the beginning of the month, starting in August, with the goal of splitting our current grocery bill clean in half. The reason I'm starting with $250 is because for one thing, it is half, and for another thing, we live in California for now, where pretty much everything is overpriced. I am not convinced that we could eat (well) for less than $200--but I'd love to be proven wrong.
* I will decide some allowance for our eating out (I'm thinking of leaving $50 aside for that and alloting us a certain amount per week--jury's still out).
* We will leave the remaining $250 in the account, just in case we need it.
* Our standard of food will not change. I will not be purchasing only canned food or packaged goods in hopes of saving a buck and we will continue to eat 'all the colors' as we have been. We will continue to purchase food from Trader Joe's and the Farmers Market and Food4Less as needed to supplement.

I think that's about it. Except that also if I am able to do it I will choose a dinner date location and we will go there and eat *well* no matter how much it costs (let's face it: it's not going to cost $250). I work well under a reward system :D. Anyway for two students at the end of their loan disbursement (every 4th month is a challenge to our budget because we get one lump sum at the beginning of the semester and sometimes we are left with bare bones for the final month) this comes at a perfect time.

I'm really excited. I've already been looking at circulars and dreaming about the grocery store. I have also found some recipes that will work with what we've got and I'll be putting up some of my concoctions later. The challenge right now is to spend under $38 for the rest of this month. I spent $7.54 today (a giant box of salad mix, tomato soup, and some black beans in a bag--I'm going to learn how to cook dried beans because they're *so cheap* (like $1.19 for a pound) and stretch *so far*, never mind the health benefits!!) and so far we've had a usual breakfast (we are not wanting for breakfast things, for some reason) and lunch was leftover quiche (tomato, spinach, feta), cream of mushroom soup, cottage cheese, and all that was left of our pears and peaches in the jars. I'm excited to get going--tonight I'm going to work on a menu for the rest of the month and I'll try and put that up later. In the meantime, here is a link to a site I started to show our family some of the things that we eat to give them ideas for their own eating as well as to help them see how we incorporate the various colors into our meals, and it seems like a good place to do pictures of what I come up with for this challenge, as well. I'll update that with pictures tonight when I do the menu. http://www.peppersandonions.wordpress.com/