You want to know the truth about my week? I have no clue what we spent on food or even much of what my family ate this week.
I came down with The Ravaging Fever Flu (yes, doesn’t that just sound nicer than calling it “the flu”??) on Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, I had called my mom and begged her to come take over so I could lie on the couch and moan. I don’t really know what took place on Wednesday and Thursday except that I was miserable and out of it.
The Grandmas took over childcare, thankfully. And me? Well, I pretty much never drink soda pop and rarely ever take medicine but that all went out the window this week. If I took ibuprofen, I could get my fever down below 103 and Sprite was the only thing that sounded good to me (except, go figure, McDonald’s Apple Pies!). So I popped pills, drank Sprite, and was a couch potato.
Thankfully, I’m finally starting to feel better, but I’m just going to not worry about what we spent on food this week. When Mom’s sick, survival mode ensues and sticking to the grocery budget isn’t really high on the priority list.
Next week I plan to be back in full force… only would someone please tell me how to kick this Sprite habit? Because that stuff is expensive!
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
The list of recipes and food we made we made can be found here.
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
We didn’t do much shopping at all this week aside from a quick trip to the store for milk and ice cream (the essentials, you know!). Some friends of ours made a trip to a nearby town’s bulk foods store and picked up some unbleached flour, sucanat, and turbinado for us as well. And that was the extent of our shopping.
So all totaled, we spent less than $20 on groceries this week bringing our total spent for the month a little shy of $160.
We’ll be doing a big stock-up trip for our Freezer Cooking Day and I’ll post about that on Monday, along with our Freezer Cooking Day play-by-play.
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
My husband took my coupons–and children!–to the store earlier in the week and came home with the above. Get this, he only spent $27.12 and he saved $71. Yep, he’s quite the bargain shopper. And he had both girls with him, too. I’m impressed–as usual!
I went to the health food store, Aldi, and Walmart later on in the week and got all of the above for just under $20–which I was very happen about considering quite a bit of it was organic! (The girls asked if they could be in the picture and then they had fun posing with silly faces!)
Since we saved up enough to pay cash for a house a few months ago, one of the few budget changes we’ve made was adding a gym membership for my husband. It’s not something our frugal natures ever thought we’d do, but it works out much better for my husband’s schedule and it also has been a much greater motivation for him than trying to exercise at home.
He loves it and I love that he’s putting forth a lot of effort to be physically fit and healthy. The only thing is that he also needs to add more protein into his diet, so I ordered the above for free using Amazon gift cards I earned through Swagbucks.
All told, we’ve spent around $115 total on groceries this month. The $45 left in our grocery envelope should easily last us through the end of this month.
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
After last’s week big shopping trip, we didn’t need to buy any groceries this week. Well, except for milk. But we decided to take our lessons learned from the Pantry Challenge to heart and went the entire week without buying milk.
And you know what? We survived just fine. The girls missed having cereal for breakfast and snacks, but we came up with creative alternatives and everyone was fine.
Next week, I’ll likely do another big stock-up trip since I’ve got some great coupons to use. Stay tuned for details on that.
(And yes, I know that some parents think that children cannot survive without milk. I completely understand where you’re coming from and respect your opinions. However, please don’t flip out over the fact that we don’t drink a lot of milk at our house. I’ve done a lot of research and don’t believe that milk is necessarily the best source of calcium or that one must drink an enormous amount of it for survival. So we choose to get our primary calcium from other sources. And we love you no matter whether you drink lots of milk or not!)
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
I’m running behind in getting Super Savings Saturday posted because we’re at the Blissdom Blogging Conference where we’ve had the chance to meet dozens upon dozens of incredible women and learn enormous amounts of valuable information. We’re also enjoying lots of chocolate, good food, laughter, late nights, and this amazing hotel we’re staying at (which we got for a great price by booking online at a discount!). To top it all off, we even had a chance to get to hang out with Dave Ramsey yesterday for a little while.
Without further ado, here’s what we bought at the grocery store this week:
Before coupons and sales, my total was $135, after coupons, I paid $65! (Some of the items we got free with coupons that came from a special package ConAgra sent to all Blissdom attendees.) Our refrigerator and freezer are now well-stocked again after a month of eating from the pantry! And we were also able to buy all the ingredients needed for the Freezer Cooking Day. Yay!
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
We went shopping for the third time this month yesterday and spent $23.63 on groceries bringing our total for the month to just shy of $75. And we have plenty on hand to finish out the month so, unless some major catastrophe happens, we should finish out the month hitting our goal.
I did buy contact solution and trash bags this week, so I didn't completely meet the goal of only buying dairy and produce. But I'm happy with how it all went nonetheless–flopped pizza and all!
Here's what we bought:
3 pounds of organic Braeburn apples Dannon vanilla yogurt 2 bags of frozen mixed stirfry vegetables International Delight Creamer (used free coupon) contact solution 1 gallon milk Cheddar cheese 1 dozen eggs Trash bags 1 bag mixed organic apples 2 bunches reduced organic bananas (will freeze most of these for using in banana bread) 2 Happy Baby organic brown rice cereal (used free coupons) 4 Happy Baby organic snacks (used free coupons)
Total: $23.63
Stay tuned for Monday's post with our last Eat From the Pantry Menu. We also have another Freezer Cooking Day in the works for the first week in February. More details will be coming on that shortly.
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
Well, we survived another week of Eating From the Pantry. We only made one quick trip to the store and purchased the following:
A bag of grapefruit A bag of oranges A gallon of milk A 16-oz. block of Cheddar cheese Organic lettuce 4 packages of frozen veggies
Our total was a little less than $25–which is all we've spent on groceries this month and it's halfway over. I think we're going to make our goal of only spending $75 total on groceries this month.
Except, we are definitely going to have to buy eggs. Because I came out to the kitchen earlier this week to discover this:
I'm not exactly sure what that was all about but I do know that it involved two little girls who were apparently trying to "help" by concocting something in the kitchen.
And I couldn't help but be a little cracked up about it. (Yes, I know, I just had to throw that in there!)
I'm glad my girls are eager to learn how to make things… now I just need to teach them to learn how to clean up after they cook and we'll be all set.
Ahem.
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
After a four-week-long hiatus, Super Savings Saturday is back! Only I have nothing to report on the shopping front because I didn’t go shopping this week.
I was planning to go in the middle of the week, since we’d been gone for almost a week, but I challenged myself to make the milk and produce stretch until Saturday–and it did! We didn’t eat the most varied meals ever, but we didn’t go hungry by any means. (But lest you think I was really being heroic for skipping shopping this week, I confess that I had a rather selfish motivation: I was trying to avoid having to take three children out into the bitter, bitter cold we’ve been experiencing here to go shopping!)
We’re stopping by Aldi later today to snag some of their produce deals and also to pick up some milk and cheese. I’m hoping to spend about $25 total and make that last for another week and a half. The rest of the food will come from our pantry.
I have to tell you all that I really appreciate the encouragement you’ve been for me in the Eat From The Pantry Challenge. Your blog, Facebook, and Twitter updates have kept me going this week when I really wanted nothing more but to pick up carryout. It was just one of those kinds of weeks and had I not had your inspiration, I am pretty sure I would have given in to the temptation.
So thank you. It was a good exercise in self-discipline for me–something which I feel like I’ve not been as good at recently.
I had planned to write a detailed update this week on what we were eating and how we were pulling off the Pantry Challenge. But it just didn’t happen. The children have been cranky and fighting colds, Silas has been teething, and I have just been plain tired and uninspired, so blogging has gotten shoved to the bottom of the pile.
Here’s to hoping for warmer weather, cheerful children, and a little uninterrupted sleep this next week. And look for an Eat From The Pantry update and link-up here bright and early on Monday morning.
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
I spent $11 total out-of-pocket at the health food store and Walmart this week–and I got a lot of great deals and yummy food! But alas, I didn’t get a picture because I was so busy the day I went shopping that taking a picture was the last thing on my mind.
So just imagine a mountain of healthy foods on a table–most of which were significantly marked down at the health food store. I also price-matched some deals at Walmart (like $0.18/lb bananas!) since I already had to make a trip there. All in all, it was a great shopping week–despite the fact that I didn’t get a picture!
I don’t know about you, but bargain shopping is going to be on the back burner around here for the next few weeks. My freezers are brimming full and my cupboards and pantry are packed. So I’m planning to just lay low in the grocery shopping department until January and in favor of spending lots of relaxing and fun times with family and friends.
Don’t worry, I’ll still be posting here over the next few weeks (just likely in a lighter fashion!), but we’re going to take a break from Super Savings Saturday until January 10, 2010. I hope you can join me in mostly setting aside your coupons and just enjoying time with family and friends!
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
MoneySavingMom.com is an upbeat and encouraging blog dedicated to helping you find great deals, stretch your hard-earned dollars, and live on less than you make so you can save more and give more. I'm glad to have you here!
Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
And look for an Eat From The Pantry update and link-up here bright and early on Monday morning.
