I've come to dread this time of the month... Making sure we stay under budget while also making sure everybody is fed is hard.
Right now I'm also trying to balance getting all the baby sewing done, getting some furniture rearranged before baby comes, getting school stuff ready.. Add in all the regular household chores and having to rest.. There's not enough hours in the day. Thankfully the grocery list is something I can do while resting.
We aren't doing too many new meals this month.. Just felt like I needed a break from the new.. We're still working on trying some freezer meals out so I can have some things in the freezer... Even if we don't use them until after Dennis goes back work, it will be a good tool to have in the freezer. As for the breakfasts, I've decided we're just going to grab a box of premade breakfast sandwiches, a package of precooked bacon, and a box of poptarts.. As for suppers we are seriously considering ordering a week's worth of from Blue Apron or something like that..
So, onto the meal plan... Breakfast is the usual... eggs, bacon, yogurt, cereal, juice, almond milk, coffee of course.. We added cinnamon monkey bread to the mix this month, it was REALLY yummy so definitely keeping that around.
For Dennis' work lunches he's sticking with the salads.. Avocados are cheap right now, so we're mixing up the boiled eggs with some avocados instead.
For our lunches the kids are requesting mac and cheese... I've been doing sort of a meatless goulash (noodles and spaghetti sauce), I'm going to see if Sam's has the cheese sauce in bulk... Not the best, I know, but I just want something easy-and they don't like my homemade mac and cheese. I also did some homemade hot pockets that went over great, I didn't have enough cheese to make more than one batch, so we're getting more cheese this month and I'll make enough to throw some in the freezer. Chicken strips and fries, leftovers, meatball subs (mini hoagie rolls, Italian meatballs, mozarella cheese and spaghetti sauce). Sundays we're sticking with our pita sandwiches, but we'll probably end up doing a different meat this month just for some variety. Also, instead of chips we're going to buy some of our favorite snacks and make a homemade snack mix along with something sweet (case of individual cookie snack bags or something from Dollar Tree).
For the kids' snacks, I'm hoping to get some goldfish while they are on sale at Sam's.. They also really like the homemade trail mix I did with peanuts, raisins and m&ms. Mix that up with fruit and we'll be good to go.
Dinners.. We decided to add in a few casseroles this month. I'm still working on getting the freezer pizzas figured out (the middle doesn't like getting done).. I was told to mummify them in seran wrap before freezing.. So we're going to try that.. If that doesn't work, then I definitely thawing before baking should do the trick..
So..
Tator Tot Casserole
Cheesy Chicken Tortilla Casserole
Chicken Parmesan Bake
Shrimp and Kielbasa
Hamburgers and hot dogs
Dorita Taco Salad
BBQ Chicken Sandwiches
Five Spice Tilapia and Fried Rice
Smithfield pork loin with potatoes and broccoli
Teriyaki Chicken Sandwiches and fries
Homemade Pizza-Hawaiian, cheese, pepperoni, pepperoni and veggies
Honey Mustard Chicken Avocado Salad
BLT Salad
Pineapple Chicken Tenders with peppers and pineapple
Chicken and Veggie Baked Egg Rolls (also a freezer meal)
Caprese Chicken
Simple Mexican Chicken with yellow rice
Well... Post Grocery shopping. We're worn out, van has a flat tire in a town where the town shuts down for the weekend at noon. Thankfully it kept air in it enough to get us home.
So..Sam's.. We didn't find the meatballs for meatball subs, so Saturdays might get interesting. We are making a homemade trail mix for Sundays to go with our sandwiches, so we grabbed some m&ms from Sam's. We spent $292.86 at Sam's.
Dollar Tree. We didn't need too much at Dollar Tree, but stocked up on what we did need. Spent $25.56.
Walmart. That's always the one that seems to put us over. We had a ton of cereal coupons, so the kids got to pick some cereal out, we also got some poptarts-which I'm debating if we should wait until baby comes, or just have a treat and eat them. We spent $207.90
Aldi. Aldi usually helps us out a little here.. BUT.. we found a few deals we couldn't pass up. They had a 10 pack of kid's underwear for $10, and a 3 pack of activity books for $2.49.. So we grabbed though. We also grabbed most of the ingredients for our trail mix from Aldi. Banana chips, sesame chips, raisins, peanuts, and a few versions of granola. We spent $175.64
So in all we spent $701.96.
What was I saying the bacon saving us money? I do expect the homemade trail mix to last us more than one month... And we will get some extra meals for the freezer out of this month for when baby comes. So that will help in the long run, too.
Have a great week!
~Tabitha
No comments:
Post a Comment