Meal plan for March 2nd-8th
I spent a really crazy Friday night writing down all the food we have in our house. It was a lot. As in five legal pad pages worth.
I was 50% horrified at how much food there was, 70% proud that I stocked up that much while keeping our budget low, and 32% certain I am terrible at math.
Later this week, I’m going to type up the whole list and see if I can insert it as an attachment. Not sure how to do that in WordPress, but I’m sure my friend Google can tell me. I’m thinking an attachment is better than a 15 screen page long post listing all my food.
Did I mention there was a lot of it? Oh boy, yeah.
We also acquired a $140 wire shelf via Craigslist for $20 last week, so Troy put that together one day, and part of my exciting Friday was organizing it. I really do have simple pleasures.
Mr. Jack finally lost his first tooth this week. It fell on the kitchen floor while I was making dinner. I almost harfed. So nasty.
He was worried the tooth fairy might not know where the tooth was, so he wrote a very obvious note indicating it’s location. Clever.
I work with a woman with seven kids. It’s bananas. The tooth fairy hasn’t visited her house in years, because in her house, the tooth fairy union rules are that she can’t deliver to messy rooms. That lady kills me!
Saturday, we had a going away party for someone at work. Someone else organized it, and when I showed up, I thought I surely had the wrong location. It was essentially a biker bar that opens at 6 am, and serves bloody mary “meals” as in there are sticks of steak and shrimp sticking out of the glass. The place was insane. I think our original server was trying to get a big tip, because he carded me when I ordered a water. I started laughing, and he said “I need to see your ID because there is no way you’re much older than 21”. I gave him my ID and he said “I’m shocked”. I said “yeah, I used to be a waitress and I’d pull that trip on older ladies to try to get a bigger tip. Nice try pal”. Sheesh.
Troy was off a few days in a row this week, and praise the Lord, our hallway is finally painted thanks to his hard work!
If you can see the 2 divots in the carpet by the open linen closet, that is where our bedroom door used to be. The doorway in the very far background is where the house used to end. It’s now the door to our new bedroom. Currently home to our laundry drying racks.
It’s so funny, the contractor’s tarps are finally gone, and even though I still HATE the carpet, it’s amazing how nice crappy carpet looks after six months of tarps and drop cloths.
The plan this week is for Troy to paint the new walls in our master closet, and start laying the wood floors down in there first. He isn’t quite sure what he is doing, and his back gets crazy sore after a while, but he is so dang handy that I’m not worried.
Are you signed up for the March Grocery Challenge? My budget never really lines up with the calendar month, since I take out my cash at payday (1oth and 25th). I had some cash leftover from the last budget cycle, and I used it all up on Friday. But don’t you fear, I wasn’t stocking up for March. Our friends have a new baby, and he is currently in the fire academy. He’s gone all week, and with a new baby cooking for the week is a challenge. I spent the extra budget I had on food for them. I busted my butt Saturday morning, and cranked out nine breakfasts (5 pints of freezer oatmeal with fruit, and 4 meals of breakfast burritos, steamed apples with cinnamon, and sweet potato hashbrowns), and five dinners (3 taco bowls, and 2 things of BBQ’ed pork, sweet potato hashbrowns, and corn).
So don’t worry…I wasn’t cheating on the challenge!
Meal plan time! Just a reminder that I only plan our dinners for the week. For breakfast we tend to eat the same things (homemade Greek yogurt for me, a sandwich for Troy, and whatever Jack’s heart happens to desire that morning), and lunches for the grown ups are leftovers of what we had for dinner the night before.
Monday:: Salmon cakes, whole wheat Red Lobster biscuits (we seem to be on a streak with them), and salad.
Tuesday:: I’m working late. The boys will have pizza and salad.
Wednesday:: I’m working late again. I’m really starting to resent this aspect of my job. Really resent it. The boys will have chicken satay, rice, and salad.
Thursday:: Frittata, salad, and fruit.
Friday:: Popcorn. Obvs.
Saturday:: I’m going to make a soup, and some dutch oven bread. Not quite sure what kind of soup, but it will be delicious in my eyes, and horrid in Jack’s.
Sunday:: Family dinner at my parent’s. This week, I am contributing roasted sweet potatoes with my special chipotle seasoning mix.
Since I go to Costco on Sunday afternoons, I’m going to report my weekly totals at the end of next week.
What are you having this week? Are you already finding yourself struggling with the grocery challenge?
I made your salmon cakes tonight and you are a godess !! Soo yummy! We had ours with a Asian slaw.
I wish I could take credit for the recipe, but I didn’t create it. I sure do love it them though.
I am curious, what is freezer oatmeal? Doesn’t sound very Scottish (I am from Aberdeen, Scotland!!). Always looking for options for breakfast.
Basically, I made a batch of oatmeal, put it in canning jars with fruit, nuts, and brown sugar, and freeze it as is.
Congrats to Jack on losing his 1st tooth! That’s a big deal! What did the Tooth Fairy bring him?
You were very nice to get all that food and even cook it for your friends 🙂
I posted my weekly menu here:
http://imperfectlyfrugally.blogspot.com/2015/03/in-my-fridge-dinner-plans.html
I made those plans 3 weeks ago but I bought some produce on sale in the meantime so I need to re-inventory my produce drawer and make sure that everything gets cooked or preserved before it goes bad. Therefore, I might need to tweak my menu a little… or eat a lot more veggies at lunch time. Also: I need to stop buying vegetables unless they’re on the menu.
My first official food purchase of March was actually yesterday (my accounting is weird too and any food bought yesterday will actually go on my March totals). It was a loaf of bread and a box of brown sugar. The sugar will be refunded by SavingStar. I’m keeping my weekly budget at $50/wk for the month of March, but trying to spend as little as possible.
If your veg are getting too smooshy, you can always make stock with them!
I just figured out my totals for February and what I spent for the month and it was $1.03 out of pocket and that was my husband. My husband stopped and bought my son and I doughnuts after a really long month of no splurges and too much snow. I used my last credit (got from being in the online community) at the local grocery store to by lunch meat, milk and cereal. I used my Kohl’s rebate card from a Christmas gift to get three 18 packs of eggs so we are set for a long time. I splurged on some things at Target with my remaining Target gift card like cranberry juice, spaghetti, cereal, butter and doughnuts (my son’s favorite). Even if I spent money out of pocket, the month was about $40. I have $5.50 left on my Target gift card and $0.70 on my Kohl rebate card to go towards March. Hoping to have another month with very little spending but can’t wait to see your list of what you found in the house!!! We are down very low after eating out of the cupboards and freezer for so long so I am jealous 🙂
That is crazy impressive!!
We kinda cheated and splurged on cereal and almond milk yesterday. It was my hubby’s last day home before being gone for two weeks, so we ate cereal and watched a movie for supper.
I plan to eat through most of the food in the house while my hubby is gone, but with this new babysitting gig I have (60 HOURS A WEEK!!!), I need to have some snack options in the house for the kids after school. I refuse to feed them goldfish and rice crispy treats everyday. One, yuck, and two, my kiddo can’t eat any of those foods so bummer for them, they need to eat healthy.
I do plan to make a snack menu for the week though, so that I don’t just randomly buy stuff and forget to feed it to them. I’m thinking M- apples and pb (almond butter for my kid),T- carrots with ranch dip and grapes, W- pistachios, pretzels and cuties, R- ants on a log, F- some sort of homemade yummy (brownies, cookies, muffins, etc.)
As a parent I would be thrilled!
My version of the grocery challenge was to use up the forgotten meats in the depths of our freezer. Wow. I have more in there than I realized! Including a roast! So that is tonight’s dinner. I haven’t gotten beyond inventorying the freezer so far.
there are quite a few frozen blueberries in there too, so I think I will bake a batch of muffins too.
That was super nice of you to help out the new Mommy like that!
Yes, I am ready for the Match Groceries challenge. I’ll write a post tonight! Your hallway is really great! Are you going to place a wood floor there too?
Yep, there will be wood floors on the whole upper floor. Can’t wait!
Yay for painted walls! I am glad that you posted about the Red Lobster biscuits again. I have never been, but I have heard awesome things about those biscuits. I think they might be just the thing to go with the lentil soup I am planning for dinner.