It's been a week where you look down at your cart and go, "I spent THAT on this? Really?" What can you say. When you need meat and laundry soap you know you're in trouble to begin with *laugh*.
So, I went to two stores this week. Fred Meyer and Carrs (I know, you're going to die of not surprise there ;).
At Fred Meyer I picked up some reinforcers for my son's therapy (which aren't included here as they are in my son's monthly budget this month), water softening salt (it went up in price to 6.59 per bag, but I needed it and didn't want to drag the kids to Home Depot today, so I bought a bag. Blah!) and I wanted to get my husband breakfast/protein bars. He likes to grab a couple on the run in the morning and it has been seeming to keep the shakes at bay, so I wanted to make sure I got him some more. Unfortunately he LOVES the Quaker Oat Flats I got free on Freebie Friday a few weeks back, but they are 3.99 a box for like 5 bars! My jaw dropped when I saw the price on those. So, instead, I picked up some other flavors of Special K bars that were on reduced for 2.30 a box. If he likes them, good, if not he can work his way through them and I'll have time to wait for a sale on the Quaker Oat bars he likes before I have to buy them. I also got a thing of Pop Tarts for my son.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I guess that Kelloggs is running a promotion right now, so I got a 3.00 off my next shopping visit coupon when I checked out. So, that was a great score!
I also picked up some Seventh Generation laundry soap while I was there. I used a 2.00/1 coupon I had on it, so I got it for cheaper. It's expensive, but it's the only brand of laundry soap that doesn't break my family out, so I try to look at the bright side that at least there's SOMETHING I can use.
All totaled I spent 28.87 at Fred Meyer.
I then went to Carrs to pick up a few things, most notably hamburger as they had given me a personalized price on the 3 lb chub of hamburger. While there I did find a few things.
I got pork chops on reduced for 6.37. I also was able to get a big boneless chuck steak for 6.13 (this will be enough for a meal for my family). My biggest score was finding a package of breakfast sausages on reduced for 2.00 and I had a 1.00/1 E-Coupon loaded onto my card for the sausages making the package 1.00!
I also picked up milk and bananas (I have a personalized price on those all month) and flavored water for the daughter (personalized price of 3.49 :).
All totaled at Carrs I spent 31.10 after discounts were applied.
So, all totaled for the week I spent 59.97 on groceries.
I am right where I would need to be right now, but I'm honestly seeing myself going over this week if I find ANY good deals on meat at all. We desperately need it for variety in the diet's sake. So, I'm not sweating it if I have to go over this week. We shall see.
We also seem to have much chicken in the freezer. One thing I've been doing to keep the complaints down is to cook about 10lbs at a time in my two crock pots then pull all the chicken off and freeze it in ziplock bags. Then I can "disguise" it in things like pulled chicken BBQ (just add sauce), chicken tacos, chicken water chestnut casserole (my favorite) and chicken Alfredo. Also a big pot of chicken corn soup is always a family favorite.
ReplyDeleteI've been doing something similar, but since my crock pot is relatively tiny (I think it's like 4 quarts) I just bake a big pan of chicken until it is falling off the bone, put it into freezer bags and use it in all the ways you describe. Chicken pot pie, chicken cheesy casserole and chicken enchiladas are some of our staples.
DeleteI just got to a point this week where I got tired of looking at chicken *laugh*. I'm hoping more sales come my way for meat that isn't poultry. I'm grateful for the good deals on chicken, mind you, but I really start to crave beef after a while.
Some good deals on the meat. Hopefully there'll be more this week. Sometimes I feel like nothing has changed from caveman times. We're still hunting and gathering:) Only now it's in the grocery store. I haven't shopped yet this week. Am planning to see what's at the farmer's market tomorrow. Sometimes at the end of the day the vendors would prefer to sell things at a lower price (especially meat) rather than take it back with them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the protein bars. There's a recipe in a free PDF, I think it's from cheapeats.com, for bars with only 3 ingredients, oatmeal, peanut butter, and jam.
My family loves them. They're really easy to keep individually wrapped and in the fridge.
What's too much in my freezer is ground turkey that I'm always looking for ways to disguise. Lately it's been made into uncured pepperoni, uncured summer sausage, patties seasoned with homemade italian sausage seasoning, homemade breakfast sausage seasoning, meat sauce, and last night burgers seasoned with Montreal steak seasoning and a little soy sauce to give it a more beefy taste (it worked), on homemade burger roll.
Happy hunting.
Dorothy
Yeah, I have plenty of ground turkey too. And ground chicken. And a whole turkey. I'm up to my ears in poultry.
DeleteI am hoping, if the weather ever cools back down, to try making summer sausage and pepperoni from some of the ground turkey I have (thanks for the recipe links :).
I've tried home made protein bars and my husband didn't like any of them (and I tried LOTS of recipes). There's a really neat breakfast cookie recipe that calls for corn flakes and, of all things, bacon, which I loved when I worked outside the home as I could just grab a couple of those and I had a decently balanced breakfast over all.
I've been using ground chicken (as it has less of a taste than ground turkey) to help stretch hamburger. It works really well in things like tacos :). Which is what we are having for dinner tonight.
I have a turkey in my freezer too! I should have cooked it late winter but I forgot. Now I'm just waiting for a break in the heat long enough to thaw it and cook it. So it might not happen till early fall. Oh well.
DeleteMy dh is not a fan of chicken so ground beef at $2.99 lb.(85% lean) is meals. I am not eating much beef so I get chicken and he get beef. We both eat pork so when it goes on sale I buy. Cheryl
ReplyDeleteI guess we don't ever get meat fatigue because (much to my husband's sorrow) we don't have too many meat as the entrée meals. :D I just wish ground beef wasn't $5 a lb for the 80/20 because like you, we have a lot of chicken, it's always on sale, but there's a lot I could do with ground beef. As of right now, it's a once a month thing usually.
ReplyDelete