Azure Standard

My Azure Standard order came yesterday. I cannot believe how much I enjoy getting my order. It's almost like opening Christmas presents! Oh the things I get excited about nowadays! Check out my spread sheet in google docs to see what I bought.

Check out Grocery Cart Challenge for more money saving inspiration!

Grocery Shopping

My Trip to WalMart and Leuders:

You can read what I spent $40 on when you click over to my google spreadsheet. We had a huge salad last night using the leftover steak we had from Father's Day. I am LOVING the 1/4 of a beef in my freezer!

In order to get more vegetables and fruits into our diet, I am trying to get everything washed  right when I get home from the store. I pour a blob of vinegar in a bowl, fill it with water and then add the veggie/fruit. After they have soaked for a bit, I scrub them and then rinse a few times. Here's the mess I made yesterday...which sat out all day long until we got home at 8:00 last night from the baseball game. Making the salad was easy though!

Frugal Tip: Don't buy veggies already cut up for you...save yourself the money and do it yourself. 

Find more frugal tips over at Life as Mom!

Check out Money Saving Mom for grocery deals.

Grocery Shopping

Look at those imperfect eggs! I love knowing they came from a chicken that eats what they should be eating, raised the way they should be raised. I love knowing who I am supporting. For a low low price of $2.00 per dozen. The only problem is, they are "molting" right now...I have no idea if that is how you spell it, but it's eye opening for me. They aren't laying as many eggs right now. So why is it that I never have any problems buying eggs at the store whenever I want? Don't their chickens ever molt?

17-Jun Lueders - Small Hometown Store

• Plain Yogurt for starting my own yogurt $0.34
• Butter $2.49
• Avocado $1.50
• 1 Roma Tomato $0.36  ** bought to see how much they each cost/how good they are

Other thing on receipt:
Frozen- Ice cream sandwiches - kids pay $.35 every time they eat one $3.49 total

You can see this in my google doc. I am realizing that I much prefer to shop once a week and only once a week. I used to shop on the same day every week and it worked out well. Something I need to think about....

Grocery Shopping 6/16/10

If my google spreadsheet doesn't work please let me know...I copied it over here, but lost the format.

What in the world are we eating? Well, it's easy when you have a 1/2 of a pig and a 1/4 of a cow in the freezer as well as many other goodies in the "pantry" (including fridge, freezer and cupboards)!

1. Monday I can't remember, but I did make homemade sausage with ground pork. Oh MY was it good! I know we nibbled on that and something else - Oh yeah, leftovers! We had leftover soup and hamburgers.
2. Tues - I put a frozen pork roast in the crock pot on high about noon, turned it down to low then we ate it after the baseball game. I also put frozen peas in a pan so all we had to do was heat them up when we got home.
3. Wed - I put the chicken legs in the crock pot and made a salad. We had pineapple as well.
4. Thursday - I'm going to brown hamburger, add taco seasonings, sauteed leeks, kale and garlic and then throw some scrambled eggs in it for a Mexican omelet thingie. Wonder how that is going to go over? Maybe I'll actually attempt an omelet. Hmmm....I'm making homemade salsa as well.
5. I bought a whole chicken from the Butcher Shop earlier and I will ATTEMPT to cut it up and make buffalo chicken. Say a prayer for me...that I keep all of my fingers. We will have celery and carrots to go with it.
6. We're going camping on Saturday and we'll be having traveling tacos. I swear health goes out the window when we camp. I love that we don't have dishes to do though because we put the taco stuff in the Doritos bag.
7. Steaks for Father's Day. Probably with green beans sauteed in bacon grease. YUMMY! Kids are making scotcharoos at their Dad's request.

We have stuff for smoothies (frozen bananas, homemade yogurt and blueberries), cereal, eggs, bacon, homemade granola, cheese, milk, and apples on hand for breakfast and lunch.

For more inspiration check out Grocery Cart Challenge and Money Saving Mom




Here's my spreadsheet copied over:
Priorities in order:


1 - Stay within $400 budget

2 - Buy Meat/Protein Locally

3 - Buy a LOT of veggies (if budget allows, Locally)

4 - Fats - buy good fats that will help with hypoglycemic issues

5 - Read Labels - buy items without a bunch of junk (sour cream, whipping cream)



Meat/Protein Vegetables Dairy/Fats Fruits Cereal Bread



6/16/2010 Walmart

4 lbs Chicken Drumsticks ($1.32/lb) $5.28

Spur of the moment - said it didn't have hormones

** want to buy local chickens $1.65 at Butcher Shop



1 lb Frozen Cauliflower $1.38

14 oz Broccoli Florets $0.98

1 pkg Celery $1.32

** not much nutrition, but we like it with Buffalo Chicken

Leeks $2.24

*** too much waste - buy onions/garlic next time

1 lb Baby Carrots $1.48

1 tomato on the vine $0.96

** DUMB! Almost $1.00 for a yucky tomato

1 pkg Green leaf Lettuce $1.88

Fresh Broccoli (small bit of it) $0.36

Zucchini (1 small) $0.89

** Not a great idea. Soon I'll be getting these free or very cheap!



Bananas $1.52

** these will be used for smoothies as well

1 Pineapple $2.88

** Another dumb purchase. Spur of the moment/not on the list

** I was planning on buying cherries with that money!



Raisins $1.58

** To mix with peanuts for trail mix



Whipping Cream $2.13

** Only place I can find cream that is not Ultra Pasteurized with a bunch of extra junk in it

Hot Dog buns

Cereal $4.32

** we don't eat cereal often, but my husband loves it

Other things on receipt:

face cream bought with "house money"

J bought nail file

Tracking Expenses

One of the questions I am often asked is "how do you keep your grocery bill so low?"

The biggest way to save money is to buy items for their nutrients, not because you want it. I think I could eat fruit all day long, but there would be big consequences for that!

We've made some big changes during the last six weeks. We've bumped up our food budget to $400, I started serving more meat and veggies, bought a 1/4 of a beef and a 1/2 of a pig, cut out almost all grains, and I'm trying to buy local items as often as possible. With a $400 food budget, I need to be very careful in how I spend our money.

Previously, I mentioned that I was able to cut our food bill down to $260 per month because I tracked all of our spending by category (protein, veggies, dairy, fruit, bread, junk, etc.). I decided that I needed to do this again.

I tracked all of the groceries that I purchased from the 1st-15th.

• I found that I spent $17.00 on almonds. ALMONDS, PEOPLE. With everything that I'm trying to do that was a  DUMB purchase! Plus, I don't have any control when it comes to almonds so I don't really want too many of them around.
• I spent $5.00 on tinned fish... healthy, but we have cheaper alternatives!
• I picked up a package of hot dogs - spur of the moment (Yuck - why hot dogs?)
• Asparagus spent $2.50 per pound while green beans are only $1.00 per pound (while this is a nice change, it shouldn't be something I get into the habit of picking up every week)
• Spent $2.58 on canned chicken broth. When I make my own, I get twice as much broth for about $1.00.
• Local raw honey - love this honey, it's amazing! I know now that I can get it at our "market in the park" for a couple dollars cheaper. I didn't know this until Saturday though.

Now, am I beating myself up? Yeah, just a tiny bit. Enough to make some changes. It doesn't do any good if I record all of my spending if I don't make changes.

Frugal Tip: Taking the time to record and review your purchases will definitely open your eyes!

Check out WFMW at We are THAT Family for more tips!

Grocery Shopping

Spent $10.84 at Walmart and $2.00 for farm fresh eggs (not pictured). Fairly unexciting, but you can see my partial menu plan from yesterday to see what's cooking!

• Cereal (that my kids don't like) $2.00
• 2 bananas $.33
• Kipper Snacks $2.52 (don't judge a book by it's cover - these are delicious and I don't usually like canned meat!)
• Sardines in olive oil $2.44 (same thing!)
• 1 avocado $.78
• 1/2 and 1/2 $1.18
• 1 bag of broccoli for Broccoli Beeef recipe

Riding our bikes to the store together - scary and priceless. I swear it's uphill both ways!!!

This post is linked to Grocery Cart Challenge.

Menu Plan Monday Focusing on Meat and Veggies

I’m menu planning a few days at a time. I plan to go to two different stores during the week (on our bikes) so this helps me from overspending since I’m buying only things I need.

Items I need are things that we need for dinner or that are on sale that I need to put in my pantry (fridge, freezer, cupboards.) For example canned tomatoes, frozen veggies, fresh veggies, cheese, milk, cream, etc.
This week I still have a lot of apples in my fridge and bananas in the freezer for smoothies. We still have a lot of frozen blueberries as well. Veggies on hand: Green beans, peas, carrots and lettuce.

Monday: Curry meatballs and salad (I opened a can of coconut milk yesterday and I have curry seasoning on hand. I'm hoping I can figure something out. I have a great recipe for this, but can't find red curry paste in our town so I can make the recipe.)

Tuesday: Taco Bake with “Rice” Taco bake = fried hamburger with taco seasonings, can of tomatoes, spinach (from the freezer), onion, garlic and cheese. The “rice” is a bag cauliflower that I put in my food processor so it looks like rice. More nutritious than rice! Salsa poured over it all. I’ll serve carrots and guacomole on the side

Wednesday: Broccoli Beef in the Crock Pot served with green beans on the side. New recipe to try!

Check out orgjunkie.com for more ideas!

OAMC Tip

The trick to OAMC/Batch Cooking - Wash the dishes and re-use the dishes. Wash the dishes then put away the dishes you know you won't need again (ie. food processor). Wash the dishes....re-use the dishes. You must keep your sink clean or you'll end up overwhelmed with a dirty kitchen!

OAMC - June details

Chopping all of the veggies helps with clean up time!   

Yogurt is cooking!

 BBQ Sauce and bacon are cooking!

Here is what I said I wanted to do (click on the link for more details and recipes):

2 quiche (with 6 eggs) with bacon, spinach, onions, tomatoes and cheese. Bake 1 today and freeze one raw.

•2 breakfasts of sausage - 1 pound of burger gives us 10 sausage patties. Fry all of them and re-heat.

•2 dinners of meatballs (30 meatballs that have ground beef, egg, salt, pepper, garlic and onions with a bit of LA hot sauce) Bake all of the meatballs, make BBQ sauce (recipe coming soon) for one meal and freeze the remaining meatballs for another night

•Yogurt


•Salsa (recipe coming soon)


•Simple Caribbean Jerk Chicken (this was a bit too sweet for us so I'll decrease the amount of brown sugar - probably 1T instead of 2T) Note: 1T brown sugar was perfect!

Now that I'm finished, I'm so grateful that I spent a couple of hours in the kitchen. Yesterday, I was able to feed my family even though I didn't cook at all. I spent the morning planting my garden and the afternoon pricing my garage sale items.

Find other OAMC success stories at Life as Mom.

OAMC - June Plan

That is pretty much how my menu looks right now!

I have a bunch of excuses about why I don't want to do a OAMC session for June. Why is that when March,  April and May were so successful?

Excuses:

1. I stopped eating most grains so that totally changes the focus of our eating. I'm focusing more on meat and veggies. I haven't been following recipes as much as just winging it. Throwing a frozen roast in a crock pot or throwing frozen chicken breasts on the grill. This kind of cooking is okay, but I think it will get old after a while!
2. I don't want to do it. I want to be outside where it's beautiful. YES, DEAR! That's the whole point of OAMC or batch cooking. So you don't have to be indoors every single night cooking and cleaning up!
3. I don't have time. YES, DEAR! That's the whole point...(see #2)
4. I really don't have time today to do a full blown Once a Month Cooking session or even a huge batch cooking session. Tonight is a baseball game, I have an appointment tomorrow morning, my house is a disaster from our weekend of camping, I have a garden to plant - but wait, I have to put some stucco stuff on the side of my house before I can plant my garden, Mt. Washmore to get through (FLYLADY speaking...) as well as a garage sale on Friday that I'm not prepared for yet. Yet, my family comes first and these people like to eat! My kids and I will be doing a mini session today and tomorrow. They don't know this yet, but they do love to help out in the kitchen.

Here's the OAMC plan/ Batch Cooking plan:

• 2 quiche (with 6 eggs) with bacon, spinach, onions, tomatoes and cheese. Bake 1 today and freeze one raw.
• 2 breakfasts of sausage - 1 pound of burger gives us 10 sausage patties. Fry all of them and re-heat.
• 2 dinners of meatballs (30 meatballs that have ground beef, egg, salt, pepper, garlic and onions with a bit of LA hot sauce) Bake all of the meatballs, make BBQ sauce (recipe coming soon) for one meal and freeze the remaining meatballs for another night
• Yogurt
• Salsa (recipe coming soon)
• Simple Caribbean Jerk Chicken (this was a bit too sweet for us so I'll decrease the amount of brown sugar - probably 1T instead of 2T)

The kids are still in bed so I need to get them up pretty soon so we can get going on this. They're going to love me because they get bacon! Yummy!

1. Start Yogurt
2. Fry Bacon
3. Chop 3 onions and a bunch of garlic in the food processor
4. Crack 12 eggs for Quiche
5. Crack 4 eggs for Burger
6. Cut tomatoes and spinach for quiche
7. Grate cheese for quiche
8. Make BBQ sauce
9. Make Salsa
10. Make Simple Caribbean Jerk Chicken seasoning and pour over bag of frozen chicken breasts (BBQ them tomorrow)

The result will be 3 dinners, several lunches, 4 breakfasts plus snacks. I think this will probably take about an hour now that I have everything written down. In two weeks I could easily repeat this so we have more for our freezer. I'll keep you posted!

Feed your Freezer!!! It's the best way to save time in the kitchen and money so you don't go out to eat!

This post is linked to Life as Mom. Find more wonderful ideas over there.

The $400 Grocery Store Plan

$400 budget for food, $50 for supplies, and $50 misc. money.

Keeping CASH in separate envelopes definitely helps so I can see how much money I have left for the next few weeks.

• $100 goes to my "meat savings account" held at our local Credit Union. I *think* my meat is costing about $100 per month. I truly have NO idea, I'm just guessing! This will go towards beef and pork. We haven't gotten our pork yet, I'm hoping to pick that up next week.
• $100 Azure Standard and Sam's Club (includes frozen blueberries, real farm fresh butter, apples, fish oil pills, frozen veggies, almonds, canned tomatoes and peanuts)
• $100 1st-15th
• $100 16th- 30th

Is this new budget going to work? I have absolutely no idea. I'm going to make it work though! Is it going to be easy? Probably not.

As long as the majority of the food we're eating is from a local source and we're eating mostly protein, vegetables and fruits (instead of grains), then I'll be a happy camper.

I'm still wasting/throwing out food and that drives me crazy!

I will keep updating this post as I figure out how we need to spend our grocery cash. Start making a plan...it will save you money!

This post is linked to Money Saving Mom.

Grocery Shopping at Sam's Club

• 3 lbs bacon $7.78
• 3 lbs almonds ($4.00/lb) $11.96
• 150 count fish oil pills $12.87
• 8 cans tomatoes $5.98
• Peanuts $5.76
• $47.00 total with tax

   $300.00 food budget ($100 went to my "meat savings" account)
-     47.00 at Sam's club
-       5.09 Almonds($3.70/lb) at Local Food Co-op
----------
   $247.91 remaining for June

This very unexciting post is linked to Grocery Cart Challenge. Check out previous posts to find out how the pantry principle can save you money!