We went on our annual thrift shopping trip last week. Thankfully we found A TON of hand me down clothes in the basement that fit the girls, so all we had to shop for Andrew.
Now, I forgot to write down what we got at each store, but we didn't get much as you can see.. 3-4 pairs of pants and shorts and 3 (I think-going off Andrew's memory here lol) shirts-along with a Miami reversible jersey for $3, something you don't see up here very much. Also 2 dress shirts, a vest, a suit jacket and 2 pairs of dress pants.
We went to Nu2U and Savers in Sioux Falls... and only spent $42.38
That's not too bad for all of that, especially considering the dress clothes would have been super expensive having to buy brand new.
The only thing we didn't find is sandals for the summer. So we'll keep an eye out for those, too. I was keeping an eye for the next size in dress shoes, but we didn't see anything at either store.
We're also keeping an eye out for a wagon for a good price.
In other news, we took Amazon to buy a popcorn popper and a bread maker. Things should get interesting around here. lol
Have a great week!
~Tabitha
So here's our new recipes for March, scroll on down for the budget on the shopping trip. Usually we just do a few meals a month that are new, but out of desperation of needing to cut out the extra things that more complicated recipes required, we are doing more new... But we've had the basic flavor of the recipe before, so it should be good.
To keep the recipes, I bind the printed ones we like with my comb binder. I'll be getting bigger spines soon, but Dennis just bought a small one for now. I do need to find my cardstock to create better covers...
Another thing you might notice, you'll be redirected on the links through a website called My Fridge Food. Dennis found it somehow (probably through Tech Gumbo on YouTube). You go through, tell it what you have in your fridge, and it gives you recipes. If you are someone who doesn't make a meal plan, but having a hard time coming up with meals, check out this site.
Sunflower Crunch Salad
Dorito Taco Salad
Pesto Parmesan Chicken with homemade pesto
Honey Garlic Crock Pot Chicken
Ritz Chicken
Sweet Italian Chicken
Skinny Sweet Chicken
Simply Mexican Chicken
These are all on our meal plan for March. So head over there and read that if you haven't already.
Let me know if a link doesn't work, and I'll put the recipe on here instead. Honestly, the only one I'm skeptical about is the pesto parmesan, but hey, we like pesto so it's worth a shot.
So I was going to end the blog here.. But since we did awesome and actually came in way under what I thought we would with grocery shopping... I thought I'd share that this month too. Usually we don't get many sales, so what we spend on food is... a lot.. But God got us through and we were able to find sales... even if it seemed like we went to ALMOST every store in town.
We did get the bad news that the bakery outlet was closing... That is sad, sad news. She told me Walmart usually has bread for 60-80 cents a loaf... So we'll check that, but I'm pretty sure we're headed for a bread maker and homemade bread.
We went to HyVee this month.. One of the stores I had stopped because they raised their prices to serve the organic crowd... We ran into a tip on Youtube to use refrigerated pizza crust as cinnamon roll dough, so we figured we'd give it a shot. While the taste wasn't too bad, the price was the same as buying the Pillsbury rolls at Sams.. So it wasn't a win in the cost. We added cabbage to our salad mixes, although it didn't dawn on me until we got home that I have to store it in the fridge, so I'm currently rearranging things to get the other two heads in the fridge and it's supposed to warm up this week so my outside storage is going away. We also decided to get the Chinese dinner for 4 at Hyvee (29.99) for supper Saturday night, it gave us a 20 cent discount off per gallon of gas and was something different other than pizza. So that brought our total at HyVee to 111.21 (though taking off the 30.00 for supper, we're at $71.21-so that's the number we're going with for groceries). We also received .65 off per gallon of gas.
At the last trip to the bakery outlet, they had bread for $1 a loaf vs the normal $ .75.. considering the tight budget I would have gotten the bread somewhere else, but it was nice to give the outlet
one last trip. $13.62 (I got jelly)
Sam's was one of our biggest places. Though we did some price checking as we were going along and found some things cheaper than buying them in more convenient packing. We shopped on the instant savings ad and saved $19.50 Sam's total was $273.42
We stopped at a local pharmacy, Lewis Drug, for some things we would typically get at Walmart.. It ended up not being the best idea as it didn't save us any money over buying things at Walmart. But we did get a coupon off for 10 cents per gallon of gas at a local gas station-so that's a win. $40.26
Aldis saved us a stop with their prices, we usually get what we can there. Their diapers were also $5 cheaper, so I was able to get enough of their diapers to equal the Walmart brand price to last us the month.. without going to Walmart. I was super excited to find Chipolte Ranch dressing, which the taste should be extremely close the spicy ranch we got from Popeyes I loved on chicken strips. Total was $142.02
Our last store was Sunshine Foods, another local market. We mostly only grabbed the sale items, but we did need some specialty vinegars for a recipe so we grabbed them there instead of HyVee... then learned they were cheaper by a few dollars each at HyVee. You win some, you lose some. $33.07
That brings our grand total to $573.60. For 6 of us for five weeks. So $114.72 for every week for 3 meals plus snacks. My figures had put us closer to $700... Which is a ton, but that was with cutting any non essential I could. We did grab some extras at Aldi's we saw (such as the Chipolte Ranch dressing, and some snacks that were on sale for a treat).
We are looking at ways to cut costs.. mostly looking into meatless meals of some sort at this point as we have many ideas for cheaper meals using meat. Hopefully we'll be able to bring the price to a more sustainable number.
Have a great week!
~Tabitha
Hello again!
Sorry I haven't been posting much, I'm running out of ideas for posts... and morning sickness is making my ambition go out the window. We have been getting a lot of snow this month, winter has finally found us!! YAY! It's been a long time since I've seen a winter like this and though I'm ready to get out and walk, it's nice having the snow.
I have tried vlogs... but. Well. Kids. It's also a little intimidating knowing that other vloggers are getting reported to CPS for having messy houses (just like... normal messy houses that comes from not cleaning constantly), and my house is lived in, it's not a show piece. I want to do more vlogs, I want to learn how to edit them... But people are just plain mean over the internet.
I have been sewing, I do have pictures on the camera... but the camera is in the car because I was trying to get pictures of the bald eagles on the drive to church last week.
So onto the meal plan. I made the meal plan.. then did the grocery list.. and the checkbook laughed... So hubby helped me redo the meal plan and grocery list... and the checkbook still laughed. SO Round 3. The checkbook is still laughing, but quite honestly, we gotta eat... So, Lord willing, we'll make it. God's got us.
I will do a whole post of the new meals we have.. Dennis and I spent a few hours watching different videos on Amazon and YouTube yesterday to find "meals on the cheap". Obviously their prices for the total meal are going to be different because those shows only make meals for one or two people... But the less ingredients, the cheaper it is. And if it tastes awesome with the less ingredients, then why not?
We also (reluctantly) added spaghetti back into the meal plan. We haven't had pasta for dinner of any sort since Dennis started his diet in July. So we compromised... We will be pairing it with salad, no garlic bread (whimper, we LOVE garlic bread-but the calories!!!), and less spaghetti as we will be doing salad with it. Now, since Dennis eats salad everyday, I had to get a little creative with the salad... You know those Dole (or whatever brand..) premix salads they have now in the fresh foods sections? We LOVE the sunflower crunch, so I went online and found that recipe and we'll be doing that with spaghetti.
Pizza on Sundays every other week for supper
Honey Garlic Crock Pot Chicken for the other Sunday suppers
Mondays are spaghetti day with salad
Dorito Taco Salad
Chili
fish
Pesto Parmesan chicken
Ritz chicken
pork tenderloin
Sweet Italian Chicken
Skinny Sweet Chicken
Simple Mexican Chicken
Parmesan Chicken
So that's our meal plan. About half it is repeated more than once, but a lot of the new ones that we aren't so sure about liking, we're trying once and probably continue but we want to try first before we commit.
Since I'm feeling blech today, I'm going to sit here and start typing on the recipe blog..
Have a good week!
~Tabitha
