Final tally for next month's grocery challenge...

So I have mentioned before that I want to emphasize how important it is to check your receipts for accuracy, and that to prove the point, I will be feeding my family for one month, just on the money that I've been overcharged in the past year. I am super excited to do this, I really think it will be great fun. I'll be honest, the last few months I really haven't been as diligent as I could have been, and I definitely let some amounts go. However, I do have $28.27 collected and ready to go, and I am totally confident that I can do it! February is my chosen month, so I'm gearing up. A few of the "rules" if you will;

• All food that we ingest has to be paid for out of this money, including everything during my husband's working day. He has a habit of picking things up, even though I pack his lunch for him everyday, so we'll be working on that.
• We go on a date once a month, and of course Valentine's Day falls during Feb, so it will be interesting (to me at least) exactly how I handle that...
• I have been shopping strategically, within my budget, to prep for this, and I definitely want to point out that my existing supply of groceries is what allows me to even consider doing this. I'm not into deprivation, and I expect that pretty much everything I spend will be on fresh produce and milk.
• I plan to give you regular updates on how we're doing, what our menus are, and whether I'm dying to get takeout pizza!

Does anyone work here?

It's been a long time. I could apologize (and make excuses), but it wouldn't change the fact that I haven't posted for over a month, so instead I'll just suck it up and write something already!

The "Yes, I do still feed the people I live with Menu Plan"

Today; I made meatball sandwiches and some sort of fried potato pancakes, only round instead of pancake shaped. Don't turn your computer off yet please. The potatoes have potential, if they develop further I'll let you know.
Monday; God willing, my hubs doesn't read this. I got some TVP for super cheap, so I'm going to make beans and rice with it. This could be interesting, I'll be making corn muffins too, just to take the edge off.
Tuesday; Turkey Tettrazini! No one can say it like this woman...
Wednesday; Tilapia with rice pilaf.
Thursday; Roast Chicken, probably roast potatoes if I remember to get some lard (yeah, you read that right, lard is the bomb!)
Friday; Chili cheese topped baked potatoes.
Saturday; Pizza night, I'm thinking chicken/broccoli/alfredo for toppings so I can use up some of my roast from Thurs.

I don't usually plan my sides in great detail, unless they are a bit more complicated. Suffice it to say that we always have a veg on the side, and when we're done eating, we always have some fruit, or "Fute, Fute!!" as my son says. I hope he doesn't learn to say his r's any time soon...

For sweet fixes this week, there is mint chip ice cream in the freezer, and I just made some oatmeal/chocolate/peanut butter/butterscotch bars. I'm not sure why they had so many ingredients, but they better be good. The ice cream, however, has only 5 ingredients, and rocks my world. Combine 1 cup whole milk, 3/4 cup sugar, 2 cups heavy cream and a pretty generous teaspoon of peppermint extract, and stir until the sugar dissolved. Pour it into your ice cream maker, and follow the dang manufacturer's instructions for how long to leave it in there. About 2 minutes before it's done, add whatever random quantity of whatever random semisweet or bittersweet chocolate you have knocking around in the pantry, really well chopped (even pulverized I would say). Soo flippin' good. I just ate some in fact. And I'd like a bit more. If you don't own an ice cream maker and you're interested, I like this one. However, I would not, not, not pay that much for it, I think I maybe paid twenty some bucks? Shop around.

Safeway Daily Deals!

Safeway has some nice one day sales going on right now. They started yesterday and I would guess they'll run until Christmas or close to it. The really nice thing that I see is that there is NO MENTION of a minimum purchase in order to get the deal. So today for example, I picked up Safeway brand flour, 5lb for .59, which is awesome! There is a limit of 2, and the tag in the store says "per household", so I chose not to do another transaction to buy more. Tomorrow, 12/14, they have store brand baking chips at .99/bag (and if you got the coupon book that was in the stores around Thanksgiving, there's a coupon for .50/1 bag to make them .49!), and then on 12/15 the 42oz quick oats are .99/canister. I assume we'll see the deals for the following days once the new ad comes out on Wednesday, and I'm planning to stop in and take advantage of at least some of these deals without buying anything else, so I'll let you know if that gives me any trouble. If you go past Safeway, you might consider running in really quick for some of these items!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am so thankful for my awesome family, especially my sweet husband and beautiful son, and I'm thankful that I get to be a momma again! I hope you all have just as much to be thankful for, and that you enjoy the day with your family!

PS, just in case you thought I had lost my mind, I will not be Black Friday shopping this year! No deal is worth that kind of stress to me. If you go, I'd love to hear about it!

The ultimate excuse for failure to do just about anything...

So here's why I haven't been posting lately. We're officially 15 weeks, and I'm feeling great today, but I've learned that that does not mean I won't start puking at midnight. Sorry for the double negatives in that sentence! Anyway, I'm really hoping to pick up the reins again, we'll see how I do.

Cheap M&M's, hurray

So there's a nice deal at Walgreens this week, the perfect way to get your feet wet with Register Rewards and get started on picking up holiday baking supplies, or holiday overeating, whichever is up your alley. I saw this on Hip2Save, and there's a lot of conversation over there about exactly which varieties of M&Ms to purchase in order to minimize the stress of the transaction possibly not working for you.

M&Ms 9.9-12.6oz bags are on sale for $2.50 each, buy 4 bags and receive a $5 Register Reward (RR) Remember that the RR is a coupon that prints after you pay for the items, can be used on your next purchase, and expires in 2 weeks. There are a few coupons out there that you can use on the M&Ms that will make this deal even better, although even without any coupons it's still a decent price for the candy.

Facebook has a coupon for the new pretzel variety, $1 off each bag. Just like them, and then you can print 2 copies per computer. Yesterday's paper had $1 off 2 bags of the holiday varieties too. I used 2 of the FB coupons, and one of the holiday varieties to get my out of pocket cost down to $7, and I still get the $5 RR to use next time. One note if you're not familiar with the RR, you CAN use that RR to do this transaction again, BUT it won't print another RR, since it's the same manufacturer.

I'm so proud of myself, I already started baking! I used Paula Deen's recipe for Monster Cookies, and they are yummy.

Voting location FYI for Piedmont Valley

At my family Halloween get together last night, we discussed where voting would take place tomorrow, since the Piedmont Gym is in the construction area. My mom had heard it was at the Piedmont Library, but then when we headed home I noticed that the American Legion building's sign says that it will be held there. I didn't see exactly what it said, since my husband was going roughly the speed of light in order to get home to catch the rest of the Steelers game, and unfortunately the Meade County website hasn't been updated, but that seems to be the story. So go get the vote out tomorrow! Vote yes on 12! Or don't, it's up to you!