Pantry Principle - Grocery Shopping and Menu Plan

So far for the month of March I have spent $231.43 on groceries. I normally take $260 for groceries, but this month I took an extra $100 so I could stock up on some meat. Remember, this number doesn't include all of the food consumed by my family. My kids get hot lunch once a week and lunch is usually provided for my husband.

I may or may not shop again this week for loss leaders - it's beginning to look like a busy week. I bought the following:

• milk - we actually have a gallon and half, but if we run out it's a bad thing in our home. We usually go through 2-3 gallons per week so I figured I buy one just in case I don't make it back to the store. Planning ahead like this is one way to save money and time
• Bananas - we have plenty of apples and canned fruit on hand, but it's nice to have a variety available
• 10 boxes of pasta $.88 each. Usually when they are $1.00 per box I'll buy 5 of them. Grocery store sales are cyclical so I can usually tell when they are going to have a pasta sale again because I'll only have a box in our pantry. If you get to know your families eating habits, it's much easier to know how many of each item you need to put in your pantry. This pasta is made from white flour. We don't care for the whole wheat pasta, but we like the multi grain pasta that wasn't on sale. If you look at the fiber content of the white versus multi grain, you get 4 more grams of fiber if you eat the multi grain. Better for you, but should we be eating much pasta in the first place? In a perfect, non-busy world, I'd make all of our pasta out of 100% white whole wheat flour. I make our own noodles for chicken noodle soup, maybe I'll venture out to make homemade noodles for turkey ala king. When I'm not busy. When I have time. Yeah right. Maybe I'll just eat more fruits and vegies.

What will we be eating this week?

1. Money Wise Mom's Pineapple Chicken
2. Black Beans and Rice w/ guac from my OAMC session. Let me just say that OAMC rocks! It's so nice to know that I have food in my freezer! I haven't used that much of the food yet, but the night I had to make rice and beans I think it took only 5 minutes to put it in a pan and stir it! I'm starting to plan my next OAMC session now. Last night my husband BBQ'd pork chops that I poured a marinade over and then froze. Absolutely DELICIOUS! So easy for him too!
3. Olive Garden's mock Toscana soup - recipe from years ago
4. Sandwiches made for our trip to Rapid. My daughter and I are having a special time and my son and husband get to go to a hockey game together with the free ticket my son earned for his grades.
5. Friday-Sunday we'll be on the road traveling. Normally I would make sandwiches to eat on the way... a little healthier and cheaper, but since I'll be gone all day on Friday at a science fair we're just going to eat fast food on our drive.

This post has been linked to orgjunkie.com and Grocery Cart Challenge.