Menu Plan monday

Well I survived Turkey day and 3 days without the Things. Me and Baby Girl did alot of freezer eating so that cleared some space out for the next baking day!

Here's the plan

Breakfasts

Cold cereal

Waffles

Toast

all served with fruit

Lunches

Sandwiches

leftovers

Dinners

Ham and cheese rollups with fries, carrots

Beef Stroganoff, peas, bread

Chicken Fried Rice

Italian Breaded pork chops with linguine with arugula and romano

Hamburger helper(in an effort to use up a small amount of hamburger), corn

pancakes, sausage, fruit(didn't get to this past week)

Super Savings Saturday

I've avoided the stores this week like the plague, although I did notice that Walgreens had my favorite Hershey Kisses on sale(Mint Truffle) and I had some coupons, so I stopped in to pick up some bags.

2 Hershey kisses on sale 2/$5 with $1 RR

did this deal twice and used 4 $1/1

OOP $6 with $2 in RR received=$1 per bag!

menu plan monday

The kids are out most of the week, but thanks to Thanksgiving, they are staying at my mil's Thursday through Sunday! Yippee!(well, not Baby Girl) So I just have 3 days of actual meals to plan, plus Thanksgiving food. The remaining days, me and Baby Girl will rely on leftovers and what's in the freezer.

Breakfasts

Cereal

Poptarts

Waffles

all served with a fruit

Lunches

Sandwiches

Soup

leftovers

Dinners

Roasted chicken. stuffing, corn

chicken rollups, french fries, green beans

pancakes, sausage, fruit

Things to make for Thanksgiving dinner

Wild Rice with pecans and cranberries

No Bake Cheesecake

Buttery Bread Machine rolls

Pumpkin Pies(done!)

Super Savings Saturday

Some of the highlights

Yakisoba noodles-FREE

Parkay $0.50 a pack

Frosted and Honey Nut Cheerios $0.50 each

Bounty Paper Towels $4.49(plus will get $2 from Upromise, so will be $2.49)
Philly Cream Cheese-FREE

Nestle cookies 3 packs for $2.45(about $0.81 each)

Jenny-o Turkey $5.16(I have 2 turkeys and if I had freezer space,I would pick up another while the sales are good because we can get 3-4 good meals out of these!)

the Pam, chocolate chips, and wild rice weren't on sale. Just needed them

I also had a 20 ounce Mt. Dew, honey sticks($1), and 1/2 gallon milk

Total $36.82, saved $72!

Amount left to spend for the month $69.87(I already have groceries for next week, minus milk, produce)

Using the bits and pieces

I used to be a bad waster. Little amounts leftover from sauce, ends of bread, a handful of pasta, etc would get left in the fridge and eventually have to be thrown away. Not anymore! While I'm still not the best at it, I try my hardest to save even the miniscule amounts for a later use. Ends of bread get thrown in the freezer to be made into breadcrumbs, 1/4 of a jar of leftover spaghetti sauce gets put in a Ziploc and frozen, half a bag of pasta gets saved for a later use,sometimes 2 or more combined)

Here's a few heels that have been ran through the food processor, some Italian seasoning added and a handful of Parmesan cheese mixed in for a coating to my Oven Baked Parmesan chicken. There's a quart size bag of leftover plain spaghetti sauce from about 3 jars. Also, a half a bag of egg noodles left from Stroganoff.

Combined with some chicken breasts and mozzarella cheese, it made a yummy dinner of Oven Baked Parmesan chicken. Definitely at a fraction of the cost of 1 restaurant meal. Even with a salad added!

I even had sauce left over, so back into the freezer it went to be added to until I have enough for another meal.

I'm not fabulous at this yet, but it definitely help to become more frugal!

Check out Frugal Friday for more great ideas!

Thursday tackles

My step dad wasn't able to fix my hot water yesterday. Apparently, thanks to all the rain, there is a water backup over by the drain. Hopefully, he'll get it fixed soon(he's supposed to borrow the stuff to unclog it) so I can have hot water like a normal person.

Laundry

Dishes

Clean shelves in the living room

Kind of a light load today. I mopped and did more heavy cleaning yesterday, so today should be pretty light(if my step dad gets the water fixed, I'll definitely be washing pets!)

even plans can go awry

I had every intention of doing a lot of activities that involved washing yesterday, only to find out we didn't have any hot water. My step dad had to work so we had to do without and I had to forego most of my plans. He's here now checking out the water heater so hopefully I won't have to warm up some water on the stove to wash dishes today.

Wash Dishes

Wash the Mini Pin(if we get hot water)

Laundry 2-3 loads

Clean off shelves in the living room

Sort magazines to recycle

Keeping the morning routine

In an attempt to keep myself motivated, here's what I want to accomplish on Tuesday

Wash the Mini Pin(didn't get to it Monday)

Dishes

Tackle shelves in office/playroom

Do a project with Baby Girl

Wipe shelves in the Kitchen

Laundry 1-2 loads

Hopefully, I can get this done before Baby Girl lays down for her nap, so I can work on reading(3 books due Sunday at the library)

Homemaker's Haven

Morning Routine. Those are hard words for me. It's so hard for me to stay on task, especially when unexpected things(like someone making some unauthorized charges on your banking account, grrrr). Here's my whole plan for the rest of the day:

Divide up chicken breast that I just purchased

Sweep

Dishes

wash the mini pin

wash my sheets, blankets

dust

Clean my desk area(this is my big project for the day, pictures later)

before, major catch all area!

After. Woot! There is a desk there!

My grocery shopping is almost done(I'll stop by Dillons when I pick up Thing 2) and my menu is already set for the next 2 weeks!

menu plan monday

One more week until Thanksgiving! If you heard me say that out loud, you would notice the lack of ethusiasm. That means 5 straight days of chaos since the older 2 will be out. I'm secretly hoping both of them stay with my mil for most of the break! We are eating alot from the freezer this week(and next). Here's the plan:


Breakfast:
Eggs
Cereal
Oatmeal
all served with fruit


Dinners
Chicken tetrazzini, corn
Frito chili pies with cheese, carrots
Hot dogs, fried potatoes, green beans
Chicken Parmesan, noodles, cold carrots and celery
Homemade pizza, salad
Pancakes, sausage, fruit

Super Savings Saturday

What a week. I managed to find a few good deals!

Walmart

Mentos gum isn't the only thing I bought! Thing 1 got all gung-ho and put everything up before I could get pictures

Here's some of the deals:

Mentos gum $1.28 each-$0.55=$0.73 each(6)

Blue Bunny Aspen bars $4.18-$2=$2.18/box(got 2)

Hershey Kisses $2.50-$1=$1.50 each(3)

Crisco Vegetable Oil $2-$1=$1(1)

Philly Cream Cheese $1.50-$1=$0.50 each(2)

Nesquick Strawberry $3.24-$0.50=$2.74(1 canister)

Mt. Olive pickles $2.42-$0.50=$1.92(1)

Toys R Us

Many knows that TRU was running a spectacular deal on board games. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of spare money to take advantage :( I did get this for Baby Girl for Christmas. $3.99-$2 MIR=$1.99

Dillons

This was actually my second trip of the week. I had a Shortcut expiring on these 3 things and wanted to take advantage!

Pullups $9.77-$2 Shortcut-$3 coupon=$4.77

Nestle cookies(tonights dessert!) $2-$0.55 shortcut=$1.45

Tabasco $1.55-$0.55 shortcut=$1

Trip #1

everything here was bought with coupons, except for the cat food and a 20 ounce Dr. Pepper

Paid $22.19, saved $62.77

Total spent this month $200.63

Total left $199.37(set a limit of $400 fr the month)

Happy Veteran's day!

Got Coffee????

Our local McDonald's has teamed up with Ozarks Food Harvest and is offering cans for coffee. Bring in a canned food item and you can get a small hot chocolate, coffee, cappuccino, or iced coffee. This started November 2nd(runs through November 22th) and we've already donated 12 cans!

This is a great way to give back and get a tasty treat! Not to mention, thins out the stockpile. Right now there are great sales on soup, baking supplies, and more that are awesome to donate!

This definitely works for me!

menu plan monday

Thing 2 is feeling bad so I'm not quite sure how well we will stick to the plan this week!

Breakfasts
Eggo waffles
Cereal
Eggs
served with fruit

Lunches
sandwiches
leftovers

Dinners
Pork chops, saffron rice, corn
Zatarains Jambalaya with smoked sausage, green beans
Spaghetti, salad, bread
Chicken nachos with olives and tomatoes
Cashew chicken, rice, carrots
Eggs, tater tots, bacon, peaches

Baking day wrap up

I need an "I survived baking day"button! Phew! What a workout for someone who's never done that before! It was fun at the same time. I really need to get more organized and definitely am planning NOW for the next one. Next time, I plan on borrowing pans from my mom because this would have gone a lot smoother if I had more to use.

Here's what I did:

Buttery Bread Machine Rolls. These are delicious! We ate half with dinner and I froze 12 for a later use. I plan on making a pan of these again for Thanksgiving

2 pumpkin pies. I'm taking these to my mil's for Thanksgiving dinner. I figured it would less stressful to make them now instead of waiting the day before.

Chicken Tetrazzini. We ate 1 serving at dinner Tuesday(delicious!) and froze 2 more for later use. I did end up using macaroni noodles because I had a supply of them.

48 muffins, 16 each of Chocolate Chunk, Blueberry, and Strawberry. I froze 3 bags of 12 and we have 1 container we've been munching on since Tuesday!

I also made a Sourdough bread starter!

I can't wait until next month. I'll prob do a lot of dessert breads, frozen cookie dough and maybe fudge to give as Christmas gifts!

Monthly review

I can't believe it's November already! It's seems like school just started! Here's some of the numbers for October

Groceries $572.12 $72.12 over budget.Ouch! I shopped way too many Mega sales! I also picked up a whole ham and turkey at various stores to stick in the freezers. A sickness resulted in some extras(herbal tea, popcicles, jello, and Sprite) that I hadn't planned on. November, I'm forcing myself to keep under $100 a week.

Household $56.82 $93.18 under budget. Most of this total was diapers for Baby girl. I got a lot of free dog food this month using sales and coupons

Medicine $58.75, $31 over budget. Usually I only have my regular heart medicine but this month I got a piece of glass stuck in my foot that had to be cut out. I had 2 antibiotics and pain pills I had to take. Then Thing 1 got the viral throat thing going around and needed some soothing relief for her throat.

Gas $87, yikes. I'm barely going anywhere!

Money made

$50 from car payment

$5 Jimmy John's gift certificate for submitting a craft idea

$10 gift card for listing this site's button on my page

I also cashed in some money from a couple survey sites but the checks haven't arrived yet!

wordless wednesday

Baking Day Update

Phew! I'm tired! And my list is no where as big as most participants! It definitely doesn't help I was awake until 3am and got up at 7. I successfully managed 48 muffins this morning. 16 each of Strawberry, Blueberry, and Chocolate Chunk. I divided them 12 to a bag/4 of each type, 3 are frozen and 1 more is left for the crew to eat the rest of the week. That should give us a bag of muffins each week for the next month!

My chicken, onions, and green peppers are chopped, waiting to be turned into Chicken Tetrazzini later. I'm serving it tonight and then freezing half for later. I also trimmed up the rest of the bag of chicken and divided it up. 1 portion is frozen, the rest in the fridge to be turned into Mexican Chicken later this week.

Later on tonight, I'm dusting off the bread machine so I can whip up some buttery rolls tomorrow. Also tomorrow, 2 pumpkin pies. I'm taking them to my mil's Thanksgiving and I might as well get them cooked!

Baking Day-November

I have a plan! Hopefully I can get it all accomplished Tuesday and Wednesday!


Muffins:Chocolate Chip, Strawberry, Blueberry

Money Saving Mom's Chicken Tetrazinni

Buttery Bread Machine Rolls

ADDED: 2 Pumpkin Pies

I know this isn't a whole lot, but I never tried to have a massive baking day and don't want to get too overwhelmed.

Homemaker's Haven

Over at A High and Noble Calling, Stephanie is hosting Homemaker's Heaven on Mondays. Hopefully, this will help my un-domestic nature get in gear! My biggest challenge is PRIORITIZING! I'm such a procrasinator!

Here's my list of tackles for the week:

Read 4 books that are due next Sunday that I can't renew because they are on hold DONE!

Repair clothing and couch cushions

Wash couch cushion covers

Wash cats, dogs DOGS DONE

Mop

Laundry IN PROGESS

Cut out coupons and organize DONE

File/toss paperwork DONE!

Start working on food inventory

School conferences:1 Monday DONE!, 1 Wednesday DONE!

Baby Girl's PAT educator on Wednesday DONE!

Clean up old sewing machine and list for sale

Take down Halloween decorations DONE!

Work on a project for the kids to do over upcoming 3 day weekend

Help Thing 2 finish up school project DONE!

Work on Baby blanket

Participate in Baking Day tomorrow:planned, 3 types muffins, dinner rolls, chicken tettrazini, and 2 pumpkin pies. DONE!

Plus, regular cleaning stuff(bathroom, dishes, etc)

Clean out truck DONE!

I might add more to this as I come across something that needs done. This should keep me busy!

menu plan monday

Wow, November already! I can't believe Saturday me and my mil were planning Thanksgiving dinner already! Here's the plan for the week:

Breakfast

Cold cereal

Oatmeal

Eggs

Muffins

all served with a fruit

Lunches

Sandwiches

soup

leftovers

Dinners

Ham Steak, brussel sprouts, homemade rolls

Cheeseburgers, fries, carrots

Beef Stroganoff in the crockpot, green beans, homemade bread

Mexican Chicken, rice

Grilled Cheese sandwiches, soup

Chicken tettrazinni, corn, bread