School Supplies when Getting out of debt

Each year we're given a list from our schools of what they want us to buy for our student that year.  If you were to buy everything on the list at full price it will cost you around $100 per child. We just can't afford to do that this year. Here are some tips that we have used to get the supplies we need.

1-  Set your budget and stick to it. We decided we could spare $20 each month of the summer to save for school supplies come fall. Including $20 for the first month of school, that gave us $60 total to spend on 3 kids. This is for everything- clothes, backpacks, and all the supplies they need. Take what you have, prioritize what you actually truly need, and spend it on that first. Once it is gone it is gone.

2-  Check the list for what you have already. Honestly you do not need to get a new backpack every year or a new pair of scissors every year. Our school requires the kids to each have their own pair of headphones for the computers and class stations. (They can't share because it spreads lice). I found a good sturdy pair for each kid a few years ago on Amazon. I don't let them play with them over the summer, and they keep them in good condition in the class. They are going on 3 years now. Save the items that can be reused.

3- Identify the items that are necessities. Know what you must have. What folders or notebooks are required for the classes? Does that backpack need replacing this year? Do your kids have underwear that fits? Get those items first before picking up the millions of items on the teachers' wishlist. There are times when you just have to recognize that you can only get so much of what is needed. New clothes are popsicle sticks are fun but not always necessities.

4- On the items you can get the best deals buy an extra. So when it comes to the items on the list, when I find a deal that I can pick up at an awesome price- ie coupons, door busters, rebates, especially deals that I doubt many others are picking up, I get the max number or an extra one. For example, finding a box of a dozen pencils for 50cents a box is great. Even though each teacher requests 2 doz per child, it is a great deal and I pick up an extra box for each class. I may not have the money to buy one of everything on the list, but I can help out where it is a deal that I can afford. No teacher is going to say we have plenty of pencils.

5- Buy all year round or Save all year round. So putting a small amount in your budget all year to spend when those deals come is a great idea. But also watching the sales all year. In addition, things like paper, glue, crayons, cleaning wipes, and tissues are needed all year and teachers will accept donations whenever. I use coupons to pick up tissue boxes throughout the year and sent the box to class. Especially as supplies get low in the classroom the teacher will be grateful for resupplies. Also around the Holidays there are awesome door busters- like crayons for 25 cents a box. Buy then and save till September of restock your teachers. Not all the best deals are during back to school. It is also another way of looking at it if you don't have the money all at once to contribute to the class supplies. Teachers are happy to get donations any time.

6- Coupons. Yes they can be a pain but digital coupons are helping make life easier. Watch of $ off of total purchases. Or store coupons for non-sale items. when you're signed up for Staples deals, they send $10 off coupons every few months that are only good on non-sale items. You must purchase $10 or more to use it. There are lots of items that are needed that are rarely on sale-colored paper,  tissues, and cleaning wipes are great examples. I also look at the grocery store coupons of $5 off when you buy $50 worth of groceries. I'm going to spend $50 easily with a family of 6 and that money is already in my budget. When I have one of those coupons I will pick up $5 worth of school supplies. Hey that is $5 of supplies not coming out of my school supply budget. There are always the normal coupons too. As a side note, a lot of school nurses will accept donations of personal hygiene items for students who can't afford those simple necessities.  If you are super stocked from all your coupon deals consider donating them to the school nurse.

Looking at the list the teacher says you need to send to class is always frustrating when you are trying to put every extra cent toward paying off debt. I am grateful and need to remind myself that even though it  is hard on us and that is money not going toward our debt snowball, but I know that we are better off than some. There are some families out there that aren't just in debt but they don't have enough to buy any supplies let alone actual day to day needs. The things we can afford to buy help everyone in the class, not just my kids.

I know some of my friend have vented about having to buy supplies at all. That is what taxes for for, right? Personally I would rather buy what I can or if we donated money to the schools directly to let the schools buy in bulk. But taxes go to the State or County levels. I have seen that money shrink down before it gets down to the schools and getting those supplies. At least if I am spending the money myself, I know it was spend wisely and went toward what it was suppose to. No detours to another purpose here. Just school supplies. 

Doctors Bills and thinking you're out of the woods

Last year wasn't a great year for doctor's bills for us. To top it off, we choose to have my tonsils taken out just before the end of the year.
After last year we changed insurances. A number of our doctors were no longer on the plan and that was our number one consideration. I have had a horrible time trying to find a new pediatrician (our last one retired), and for where we live there was only one option left on our insurance and I was not okay with that option. Picking an insurance is hard. Luckily we have lots of options through my husband's employer. However, there is no way to see what option is truly the best option for your pocketbook. One of the frustrations under the last insurance was that going to the doctor was cheap, but they hardly covered anything if you had to go to the hospital. Unless you were actually having a baby, then they covered just about everything. But if you have a D&C because the pregnancy miscarried, it covered almost nothing- which for a grieving mother is not what you want to deal with, the financial costs cause my depression to get worse. One of the things we looked for with our new insurance, was a reasonable hospital trips. We have a $500 copay period now with hospital visits. We have a much high doctor copay but it is a trade off.

I digress from my purpose.

A three weeks ago, right after baths, my daughter comes and tells me that her leg hurts. I look and just below her bum on her right right leg is what looks like a small pimple. She is only 4, I have never seen a pimple on a child that young, nor one on the leg. It had a tiny head on it so I grabbed some supplies and gave it a squeeze. A fair amount of stuff, mostly clear, a little white thing, and then blood. Cleaned it up and put a FROZEN bandage on it and off to bed.
The next evening I mentioned it to my husband and we took a look at it, this time it was the size of a dime and had a pussy head. Again we cleaned it out. My husband, with all his BSA instructor first aid certification, said it looked like a spider bite, and since we have poisonous spiders here, we called the doctor when the office opened.
The doctor took one look at it and said it looked like "community MRSA".  We had to continue to clean it, and bathe her nightly. After bathing we were instructed to clean it with a dab of bleach before bandaging it.
The appointment co-pay was $35 and her prescription was about $2.50- all in all not bad. It cleared up super fast. I was thinking the other day at how blessed we were. This could have turned into something super bad for her and our pocketbook. Yet we caught it in time, we took care of it, and it cleared up with minimal effect. Then our new insurance sent a statement of payment, it was to the lab they sent the sample of fluid to. They said it was to verify it was "community MRSA" and not full on MRSA. The statement from the insurance said they paid $79 and that we owe the provider (hospital lab) $278. WHAT!!!! Just when I though we were getting out of the woods of medical bills from last year. We are *almost* done paying off my hospital bills from surgery. Now this. Granted it is not the bill, not yet.  It makes me so mad. In addition the tests came back inconclusive so we are going to be charged all the money for no results. Yes I am grateful for the previous things mentioned. It could have turned into something so worse.

On another note. I have since learned that the pediatrician I have started taking the kids to only uses the hospital lab. If we were going to the old office, they would have sent it to a different lab and the cost of the lab would have been a lot less. 

Christmas wasn't a BUST

We had a Christmas budget, and we kept it!! How many people can say that?
When we set up out budget to be the smallest amount we could make Christmas happen at.
When all the final numbers were tallied and we came in 85 cents under budget! Yay for us!

Life will *always* be CRAZY

When Life happened before we started our financial revolution I saw it was life happens and I don't want to think about it. I would then hand whatever it is my credit card and not think about it.

So EVERY month there has been something or multiple somethings. Each time one of these things come up it has created two responses. First, getting upset at how this is delaying our ability to pay off the debt. Then second, as we change our budget around it shows us that we can take care of this, stay on track, and have managed to still pay off some debt.

Examples:

• Between August and October our family over $600 in dental work.
• End of September I chopped off the tip of my finger and we found ourselves at the ER. Between all the bills it cost us over the next couple months over $300
• In August and September everyone got sick at least once (some twice) and we had about $200 in medical bills (doctors and prescription).
• November brought us two blown tires. That was another almost $400 to fix everything connected with it.
• My doctors have been urging me for a year now to get my tonsils out. Since we've had sooo many medical expenses this year we decided that financial we'd get the best price for having them removed if we did it before the end of the year. We now added all the surgery expenses to all our crazy medical bills this year. 

But we have to remind ourselves that we are still staying afloat.

We are making progress. Since starting in June. We have paid off almost $8000 in debt. There is a small part of me that looks at all of our "life happens" expenses and think about how that is another $1500 we could have paid off. But I need to remind myself that no matter what "life happens" and will continue to happen, but as long was we are trying to do it right we'll survive. 

Ugg the cost of EGGS!

With the cost of eggs going up I have really been feeling the pinch in my grocery budget. Just as my husband and I start talking about maybe getting 2 sets of 5 dozen eggs so that we can enjoy eggs more often for breakfast. It then becomes even more not realistic in the cost. The cost last year around this time for 5 dozen eggs was about $10, often $9.99 with on sale deals of $7.99. Right now at the same store 5 doz are now $15.99. Yes I know the reasons why, but lets get realistic here- are the cost of eggs actually going to go back down- I doubt it.

We slowly been eating less breakfasts that are giving each person their own egg or two. When we first started this path 3 times a week we had eggs with toast for breakfast. Each time my family has eggs and toast we went through 9 eggs sometimes 11 if the twins decided they wanted two eggs that morning. Almost a whole dozen eggs just for one meal. Considering that is a meal that is about $3.20 for the eggs and about a half of loaf of bread that I bought at .50, yes it isn't terrible, but for $3.20 I can do a box of cold cereal and some milk for my kids and they will be just as happy. But it isn't saving us any money. Nor is having to plan on once a week going through a whole dozen eggs just for breakfast fitting that many eggs into my fridge when I do once a month shopping.

So I have increased my search in finding less egg non cold cereal breakfasts:
as a review here are some we have been doing for a while now-

• Skillet Breakfast
• Fried Rice (using rice cooked from dinner earlier in the week)
• Waffles
• pancakes
• rice pudding (overnight in the crock pot)
• Oatmeal 

This was our rotation with cold cereal once a week and eggs and toast once a week.

New recipes I have found for breakfast-

• bread pudding (been saving all the heals and make it in the crockpot overnight), here is a suggested recipe, I don't make it exactly but until I figure the perfect one out and make a post out of it this one will do
• Muffins- how did I miss this one. You  go get coffee/cocoa at a shop and you pick up a muffin, easy to make, the thing that takes the longest is heating the oven, but can also be done the night before and stored.
  I recommend this recipe by Better Homes and Garden. The only cookbook my husband owned when we got married was their big "Cook Book", tons of basic recipes that is where you need to start. I use their muffin mix recipe and then experiment with my own add ins and such. The recipe even comes with a few variations suggestions. For my family of six I often double the recipe but only use one egg (recipe says one but would be two after doubling and either add extra milk for the missing egg or I use the flax seed substitute. )
• cream of wheat or crack wheat

It makes me sad that enjoying a fried egg for my breakfast has become such a luxury. Especially since when I was in college and first married it was a super cheap breakfast compared to cold cereal. 

We haven't Given Up!

The end of last month marked the end of 3 full month of us making over our money by making over how we deal with our money. When we realized that we celebrated by pulling out the bottle of Sparkling Cider we had saved for our anniversary but when we were both sick forgot that we had it. We celebrated that we had stuck with it, that it was getting easier, and that we were slowing changing our mindset and starting new habits.

So last month's grocery budget:
It was blown. I can't find all the receipts so I can't give you exact numbers (hence I didn't report at the time), but we decided to support a school fund raiser, that ended up costing us a lot more than we initially thought. Just about everyone in our family got sick, needed a doctor visit and a prescription, initially we budgeted that the random prescription would come out of the grocery/household budget, but this experience changed our minds. After everyone got their unexpected prescriptions we were down out of grocery a little over $20. That hurts when you're only doing $200 a month. Add to that our fund raising budget fiasco and our grocery budget was left to $140. Early in the month my parents stopped at Costco for me and we ended up having them pick up more than we should have given the big picture. Opps. I had gone shopping early in the month to pick up a couple "stock up" items we use constantly, store well, and were the best price I've seen in years. Oh and each trip to the pharmacy, also ensued an item or two to make life easier for all the sickies or on me making food for sickies. When all was said and done and I went to the store for my once a month shopping I had only $75. We upped the grocery budget for the month, taking from our snowball (and a few other places in our budget to give us $110, so I could get everything we needed for a full month. But I felt like a failure. How did it get so out of hand. How it all those things add up so fast? Why does living feel like it costs so much?
But we made it through the month. We've made it through 3 months. We've paid off my student loan and my mini van. We have made progress!

Vegetables for Less (and some fruits we use like vegetables)

When doing once a month grocery shopping you have to recognize that your fresh vegetables that you buy at the store are not going to last the whole month before going bad. I advocate a mixture of mostly fresh and frozen veggies with a few cans in there. I am sure some of you have noticed how few veggies it seems like I have on our shopping lists and there are reasons for that (I buy bulk so it is a one item on the list, free veggies from friends gardens, frozen veggies, and a pantry full of food storage canned veggies).

But this is a great time to talk about some ways to get lots of fresh affordable veggies. And when I say veggies I am not using the scientific definition. Instead I'm referring to non-sweet mostly green and yellow foods that we use like vegetables and like sweet snack worthy fruits.

1. Buy the ones on sale. Don't get hung up on that your family loves to eat asparagus or some other not on sale vegetable. Buy the ones on sale, learn to eat them and learn to like them. I have found that I like (or can easily eat) almost any vegetable when made up in a good way. Don't be picky or snob.
2. Grow a Garden- Yes this take time and money to get started. But it can be done cheaply. I have tried many times, to grow nothing. But this year we did have a tomato plant, it has supplied all the tomatoes we have needed this summer. I bought it from a nursery that was closing back in April. We figure it has saved us a little on buying tomatoes, with the added benefit of the super fresh tasty tomato. Also everyone keeps telling me to put it in my garage for the winter and it should survive the winter just fine. So even little garden things can help eat fresh cheaper.
3. Garden Extras- Lots of people where we live have gardens. We have lots of friends who have choose to follow the commandments for our church leaders to "grow a garden". Funny thing most of them plant things that they don't eat much of themselves. Keep your ears open for when people are giving away their garden extras. Sometimes it is because they don't like to eat what they grew but sometimes it is because their gardens were so plentiful that they can't eat it all in time. Also, when people talk about how plentiful their gardens are, don't be afraid to say "if you find you can't use it all, send some our way". We have ended up with many bags of random veggies on our porch from friends wanting to share before things go bad. You'll have to be open to which veggies you get. Again try new foods
4. Bountiful baskets, Market on the Move, Coops... there are many groups all over that take 2nd grade veggies (ones that are good to eat but not pretty enough to go to the grocery stores), they often have a "cover" price and then you get bags full of veggies. Ask around groups are out there. Many are sponsored by church groups. If there isn't any in your area, maybe look into starting one. Ask around and find out what interest there would be. Start a facebook group. Contact organization groups like Bountiful baskets and find out what you'd need to go to start a local group. Talk to a local Farmer's coop and see if they would be interested and able to participate.

Now that you have fresh veggies (which most of the time turns out to be some sort of squash- if you got it for free) What do you do with it?

here is a list of generic ideas:

• search pinterest - lots of ideas for unique veggies
• baked/fried with a breaded crust
• chop up small and put into pasta. I have found my family will eat ANY veggie (and I actually enjoy it too) chopped up with other mixed veggies and put into pasta sauce. This is my go to stand by for when I don't know what to a given veggie. Make pastas different by adding different things every time.
• On top of Pizza- when we went to Italy there were all sorts of veggies (mostly squashes) topped on the pizza- and they were so good. Go out of your comfort zone. My kids don't notice- its pizza.
• Stir Fry- again chop it small, when you chop large you get big tastes of it and kids are more likely to pick around large veggies in their food
• Bolgolgi- Korean bbq stir fry, same idea, add what you have.
• Skillet- sometimes known as hash. Get your potatoes going and add whatever veggies you have with a little bit of whatever meat you have. 
• Stew it- or soup it. Simmer it all together add a little tomato sauce to the stewing broth. 
• Lasagna- or a baked pasta. layer it with the meat layers, for a healthier and cheaper versions, use 1/2 the meat you'd normally use and fill the space with veggies. I lightly steam the veggie first and you will need to be careful not to add anymore extra water on the steamed veggies, you'll end up with a soup at the bottom of the lasagna pan. Or take a note from the Greeks and make Moussaka- a veggie and meat layered lasagna-like dish.
• Orzo, Rizzoto, pilaf  - I find it best if you chop the veggies about the size of the orzo or rice. make how you would normally and add in the veggies. Sauteing the veggies first can add more flavor.
• experiment

Surviving Summer

Summer break can be hard keeping a balance. There is the pressure to make every moment of life a memory and count. This is unrealistic and most people will admit it to themselves but there is still that idea that we all feel the need to try to live up to. Now I've never been a super mom who even half way actually tries to live up to this ideal. But in the past I have done things that have in one way or another contributed to our debt. Even when I thought I was making safe and savvy choices, I was still probably adding to our debt. I'm not saying the choices I was making were directly contributing to our debt, but without trying to keep to a budget or even having a budget it was contributing.

What were some of the good/bad choices I was making:

We would go to the free/$1 summer movies at our local theater- but sometimes I'd fall in the pitfall of buying popcorn or candy. We plan on going to the park and having a picnic- but the downfall for me I would run out of time and we'd stop a fast food. We'd get discount coupons to go to the zoo, but in the end the cost of gas to Tucson and then all the passes even at a discount cost us a lot. We have also gone to stay with my parents to do swimming lessons up in the Phoenix Valley where swimming lessons through the city half the price per child's lesson. However, staying up at my parents we tended to eat out a lot and do activities that we can't do at home, but end up costing us a lot more- ie museums.

story time at our local library

Suggestions:

• Wherever you are going- bring cash for only how much you plan on spending. If that means you have to call ahead and ask some questions, plan ahead.
• Planning ahead! & Be prepared. I met a mom at a museum once that she always packs a lunch and snacks for the day. Even when the plan is to be home in time for lunch. If we are planning to go out for the day, I have started making lunch for all of us while making lunch in the morning for my husband. Also I have just started planning ahead to be out for lunch.
• Find out what summer activities and programs your library and city offer. 
• Budget it in. Its not that all those things that cost money are bad, but figure it out and plan it in the budget. If you have places you love to go and would enjoy going once a week or more and they offer a family pass, figure out the cost, you might need to budget it out for the whole year and then when the year is over you can buy your family pass. For example: we looked into the zoo for a family pass. With our family's size and the family pass price we'd have to go 2 1/2 times (so 3 times) in a year and the pass is paid for. We then have to decide if that is worth it to us- right now it is not.  But maybe someday in the future (when we are out of debt).
• Check out deal sites and ask at the grocery store. Deal sites like Living Social and GroupMe can be a great place to pick up deals to local museums and attractions. (I do this every time we are going on vacation, I watch to see what local things we can get deals). Also ask at the grocery store information counters. They sometimes have discount tickets to local attractions- check all year round some tickets are seasonal. Another place to ask is at the library youth desk.

I wasn't the only mom who was taking advantage of the cooler temperatures and the park shade

This summer with an entertainment budget of $0, we have spend lots of time at the park (we have been going at least twice a week and staying for an hour or two, each time I invite all our friends to join us), at story time, and at the free movies.

July's Grocery Shopping

Finished my once a month shopping. This last weekend we went to Mesa. That means a trip to the bread store and to Costco.

To start my husband and I had a long talk about what needed to be purchased and we decided we needed to split the household items from the groceries. If I am going to have a budget of $200 for groceries it is $200 of food. But I wanted to have some flexibility between grocery and household. So for this month's budget was $230 for grocery and household $210 and $20 for household items (shampoo, toilet papers, paper towels, soaps, ect)

7/6/15 (husband had to pick up a prescription and I had him pick up a couple items in addition)

Prescription         $1.43*

Body Wash          $4.63*

cabbage                   $.94    

                                     =$7

7/10/15

Bread store                 $15

Costco

Cherrios  ($7.89-2.30) $5.59

Yellow Onions      $3.49

Potatoes 20lb        $7.79

Skippy Peanut Butter (9.79-2.80) $6.99 x2

Mild Cheddar  2#    $4.85

Chocolate Chips      $9.99

Feminine Hygiene pads (12.49-2.50) $9.99*

Trident Gum         $7.89

5 Doz Eggs           $10.99

Batteries 9V         $15.89*

Mixed Veggies    $6.49

3pk Lettuce          $2.79

Seaweed               $9.79

Sliced Cheese      $9.99

Tortillas  40ct      $3.89

Tortillas  80ct      $3.49

Mini Peppers       $5.49

Sliced Ham          $9.89

Yeast                   $4.39

Corn Tortilla Chips $3.19

Carrots                $4.79 x2

tax                       $11.00

                                        =$164.30

7/14/2015

Dill pickle chips    $1.50

butter tub               $1.29

Yogurt     (.50x10)   $5

Milk  (3x1.99)       $5.97

Salsa                      $4.99

Shampoo               $1.39*

Animal Crackers (.88x3) $2.64

Hot dogs      (.89x2)  $1.78

Jello                       $.39

Blueberries            $.97

Butter Sticks  (2x.99) $1.98

Pork shoulder         $10.80

Apples                    $1.67

Graham Crackers   $1.69

                                  +tax =$41.79

Total= $7+$15+$164.30+$41.79= 228.09

leaving me $1.91

(household $31.94, grocery 198.06) 

I made one impulse purchase at Costco- I bought the Seaweed for my husband's snack food. I also made one purchase that I would have been better to have bought at the grocery store- the mini peppers. 

There were so many things I wanted to purchase that I just did because the money wasn't in the envelope. It is hard. I have never had to be that disciplined with our money. It was a little rough. I had to remind myself we have plenty of food we aren't going to starve. 

I still need to go get honey at the local farmers market but I will have to put it off for one more month.

Affordable Bread

Bread - We all eat it. Unless you're gluten free and have given up trying to eat gluten type foods. 

Here are the problems with bread...

healthy verses cheap

time verses convenience

I have friends who make their own bread. Some of them have their bread day and the spend the day making bread and that is their bread for the whole next week.

When you make bread- cheap bulk yeast, flour or wheat with a wheat grinder bring the cost lower and lower. But it takes lots of time. Also if you're bad at bread making, like myself, it can be less affordable when you have loaves that aren't edible. 

In all my blog reading of those trying to save money I remember one mom said she gave up on buying the organic super healthy thick bread. Instead she just went to stocking up when on sale and never spent more than $1 per loaf.

A few years ago my sister introduced me to Alpine Valley Bread. She is a huge fan of Whole Foods and Sprouts- and like stores. She had found Alpine bread there and fell in love with it. Their bread is healthy and hearty. It has the weight to it like homemade bread. Then someone introduced her to the bread factory and the discounts of buying the bread at the factory.

They are located in Mesa Arizona on Southern east of Country Club.

On Wed. and Fri. at 1pm all fresh made that day loaves are discounted to $1 a loaf limit 5 per person until all the loaves are sold (they close at 3pm).

But in addition to those sales and that going in and buying fresh loaves is cheaper and more fresh then the specialty stores, irregular loaves and day old loaves are 50 cents a loaf. Considering we bring our loaves home and put them in the freezer, day old is the least of our cares. The 50 cent loaves aren't the most exciting. They tend to be the less popular breads (ie multi-grains breads or cracked wheat). Sometimes they have specialty breads, buns, rolls, and desserts for great deals.

When we go, I have found going in the morning is best. The store section opens at 8am. If you wait to until the $1 deals (best way to get the specialty breads) the 50 cent loafs are all gone.

We don't live in the Phoenix Valley. My sister lives in Mesa, almost down the street from the factory. They don't have a huge box freezer. Since she didn't have the freezer space for a lot, she would go once a week and get their family's bread for the week. For us I go every other month or every three months. It depends on if we can get up on a week day before they close.

This last trip I had $15 of our grocery budget. So I was looking at about 30 loaves that would need to last us about 3 months. When I got there they has some boxes filled with 15 loaves each. I asked the cashier about them. My first thought wasn't a discount for the bulk but instead I was thinking if they were already in a box and wouldn't get smashed on the ride back home. She said that if I bought the whole box (unopened) they were $5 a box (would be $7.50 when 50 cents a loaf). Done. 45 loaves for $15 that will make a huge difference when it comes to making our bread last for 3 months till the next time we come up.

Showing up at the right moment to places like this makes getting great deals a matter of luck or in this case I don't see it as luck- I see it was a huge blessing. Yes we are going to be eating 9 grain bread and nothing else for the next 3 months, the point is we have enough bread for 3 months and it only cost us 33 cents a loaf. We were blessed.

There are places like this all over. Do some searches make some calls.

What are some things ya'll do to make staples like bread cheap and affordable?

Metal Lunch Box for under $5

Hey everyone, today we went and let my son pick up a new metal lunch box for taking to school. I only allow him to take metal lunch boxes because he is so rough on them. Last year, we bought him a really nice thermal bag.

this is what happened to it on the first day of school. I took it back to the store.

After that he is only allowed to have metal lunch boxes. For his birthday my dad asked what he should get him and we recommended a new lunch box. After going to 3 stores my dad called and asked "Where do you buy metal lunch boxes?" I didn't know what to tell him. His one that we had (before it was lost) I had bought on the internet. I mentioned this to a friend and one day I get a text that she saw a bunch of metal lunch boxes at Hobby Lobby.

Awesome. Today we went to there, with the coupon on my phone we went to Hobby Lobby to let my son pick his lunch box for this next year.

All the metal boxes at our local Hobby Lobby are $6.99 each.

My son picked the Avengers box

$6.99 with our 40% off coupon total with tax came to = $4.52 YAY!

For under $5 we got our son a new metal lunch box. We had budgeted $20 to get something our son would be happy with and we only had to spend $4.52.

WE did it! One full month!

We did one full month. Our first month.
accomplishments:

• In our first month we were able to put aside our $1000 emergency fund.
• Pay off my student loan
• Pay on our Van's loan
• Spend less than $80 on groceries for the month
• managed to use cash for everything that is not on automatic withdraw

I know I should see this as a HUGE accomplishment. But I have to constantly remind myself of that. I have to look at this list and say "look how much we accomplished in only one month". Otherwise, I look at all the changes we have made in our lives and feel depressed that this is our new life for a while. 

So I choose to look at the list and remind myself we are making progress!

Keeping our Costco membership

In deciding that we were going to cut out all the non-necessities from our budget as a way to sacrifice.

We had a long discussion about our Costco membership. The nearest Costco is about 65 miles from our home. So going has to be a planned and calculated choice. Is a Costco membership really worth it for us when we live so far and can go so infrequently?

We travel to Phoenix about every other month to visit my family, have my siblings see their cousins, pick up our bread, attend the Temple as part of our religious commitments, and to go to Costco. So is having a membership going to be worth it to us.

Math- we started with a list of what we buy and what the cost of starting to buy those at the grocery store (or online) would be and the cost verse buying them at Costco. In Oats and peanut butter alone our Costco membership is paid for in a year.

So we determined that the membership is not worth taking off our budget as a sacrifice (and it would be a sacrifice, I love shopping at Costco). We did discus canceling the membership and having someone purchase gift cards* for us any time we needed to go, but our past experience trying to get family in friends to do errands for us before we come up to town haven't worked very well and relaying on that we'd have what we need and when would not be a smart idea considering our tight windows.

*$ saving tip- you don't needed a membership card to go shopping at Costco, a Costco gift card will do

What do I buy at Costco?
first off great resource- QueenBeenCoupon's Costco price list or Pratical-Stewardship's list
Prices at Costco change all the time, but this is a good place to check when you're debating if that item at the store is a better deal than Costco or the other way around. This list of what I buy is always being evaluated and changing. Sometimes these items are even on the Costco which makes them even more of an awesome deal

• Quaker Oats 10 lb total (2 bags) are $7.99 box = .80 per lb compare to the best price I have EVER got on the 42 oz canisters is .95 per lb- and that is Costco's everyday price- you can't beat it.
• Peanut Butter the 2 packs of the 48 oz =.10 per oz the grocery store brand in the cheapest per ounce of peanut butter is .12 per oz on sale.
• Whole Rotisserie chickens ~3lbs= 4.99 (1.66 per lb) these are huge, ready to eat, and I normally make it stretch it for at least three meals. Also great for when you are going to get home late from doing the shopping or on vacation- run into a Costco instead of fast food for your family.
• Vlasic 1 Gallon Pickle jars- 1 jar ~$4.90 that is the same price as the small jars at my local grocery store.
• Whole Almonds- $15.99 for a 3 lb bad. I love almonds and substitute them for pecans or walnuts (since I can't eat those) in every recipe, this is $5.23 per lb, at the grocery I can easily pay $7 for less than a pound of shelled almonds.
• Chocolate Chips- $9.99 for 72 oz. an 11 oz bag at the grocery store has to be $1.50 or less to beat that price. 
• Baby Carrots- we eat baby carrots almost every day at our house. As snacks with meals, yes if you don't eat carrots they will go bad and are not a good deal for you. But compared to the grocery store price about $1 per pound at its very best these 5lb bags of carrots come in at .98 per lb. If you like the pre-bags carrots, come home and split some of the bag into snack bags/containers. Without carrots we end up eating processed chips- which would you rather have your family eating. I buy at least 2 every time I'm at Costco, sometimes 3.

Now because I do once a month shopping and I'm not running into the store to grab the best deal every time it goes on sale there are things I buy at Costco because the every day price there is cheaper then the everyday grocery store price, and doing the coupons, price matching, and running around isn't worth it to me. If I happen to be at the store when they are on sale- awesome I'll pick it at there, but otherwise it is Costco:

• Ham- There pre-cut extra lean ham it comes in 1.5 lbs 2 packs for around $10
• Eggs- 5 dozen, if I can going home to my house and not traveling these bulk packs are cheaper then the local grocery store when they are not on sale. Lately eggs haven't been on sale much.
• Frozen Veggies- The quality is better than the grocery story's and if the grocery story isn't having a good deal they are about the same price.
• Cream of Mushroom Soup- yes I know, making it myself is cheaper. I'm a little intimidated that it will change the taste too much to use homemade versions. So if you're lazy like me =.89 per can, butter price then anything that isn't a lot sale at the grocery store.
• Yogurt- its on coupon at Costco a lot, and unless the local store has a super 20/$10 sale, Costco is typically cheaper
• Apple Sauce- the jars come in packs of 4 averaging $2 per jar. That is a typical sale price for the same size jar.
• Flour- 25 lb bag for 7.99 that is about .32 per lb of flour. If you bake a lot this is a great deal
• Sugar- 25 lb bag for 10.79 that is .43 per lb of sugar. If you do a lot of baking!
• Fresh Spinach bags-  - Fantastic deal but you have to have a game plan to make this happen. You'll have about 2 weeks from leaving the store. Planned meals with Spinach (my husband loves it for lunch salads) good news it you can freeze what you don't get to in time.
• Computer paper
• Printer Ink
• Tortillas
• Minced Garlic
• Otter pops- these are only available seasonally, they come 80 in a box and are a great price. I found them once at the grocery story for about the same price for 100 and thought I was getting a way better deal until I realized that the Costco otter pops are the 2 ounce pops and the grocery store are 1 ounce pops. Take your pick on what you value- if you're giving pops to 100 kids at a summer camp doing the smaller ones at 100 pops might be the better deal for you.
• Fruit Snacks- when I'm not making my own and when these are on coupon, it is a good price for fruit snacks and the ones at Costco have more nutritional value then the cheap ones at the grocery store.
• Yeast- when I am doing a lot of pizza, bread, and dough making I go through a lot of yeast. I go through those packets at the grocery store so fast and the Costco yeast is worth it. So if I'm buying yeast at Costco I am making a commitment to use it regularly and not get lazy on my dough making.

What I don't buy at Costco:

• Animal Crackers- I love to eat them,  I love to use the canisters afterwards for storing all the other bulk items I buy at Costco- but $9 for 64 oz. I have found my kids love the super cheap animal Crackers that are $1 for 1 lb from our local grocery store.
• BBQ sauce- yes there are some fun and tasty BBQ sauce at Costco, but every time I've done the numbers I am over paying even everyday prices at my local grocery store.
• Hot Dog packages- Even when on coupon it always feels there are better deals at my local grocery story
• Meats in general- I travel a way to get to the Costco- my meats have to survive the drive in freezer bags, in addition, they are never that great of prices. Yes they are around the average price at the grocery, but it is one of those items that I can regularly get cheaper at the grocery story- if I am willing to buy the meat and cuts that are on sale that week. Now if you want a specific cut or type of meat for a special occasion then this is a reasonable deal for not overspending on it. Example for me is Lamb- lamb is expensive but there are a couple times of year I like to make lamb for special occasions. If I buy it at my local grocer then I will pay about $10 per lb. I can similar cuts for around $5.50 per lb. Still more then my goal per lb cost for meat in general but it is for a special occasion. 
• Soda/pop- if you are a Soda drinker of more than a can a day, this might be a good deal for you, but even when discounted at Costco they are still more per can then I would ever spend on it at the grocery store. My purchase price for soda has be to cheaper than .20 per can, Costco comes close sometimes, but not to my purchase point.

What are your must buys or stay-away products at Costco?

Why Once a Month shopping?

I get a lot of shocked looks and questions when my local friends find out about my once a month shopping or even our twice a month limit.

How we allot our funds is the last paycheck of the previous month is for all bills that occur before the 15th of that month's budget. The first paycheck of the month is for everything else- so gas and groceries come out of that paycheck. About the 15th of the month I go grocery shopping.  We allow for a second trip that normally happens around the 5th, where one of us (most of the time my husband on his way home from work) goes in and gets milk and a couple fresh items to hold us over til I do our large trip. The second trip is normally about $10 (rarely over) depending on if there is anything else I need.

Why I do it-
1- Less times to the store means we spend less.
2- The planing it takes to make sure we have what we are going to need for a month means we spend less.
3- We live 20 minutes south of town HWY driving. Gas costs a lot. The fewer trips to town I am making means we spend less.
4- It forces me to be a planner. Planing ahead means that we already know what is for dinner, it is probably already partially made. That means dinner is most of the time ready when my husband gets home from work and we are less likely to be temped to eat out. Most of our bad choices when it comes to eating out is because dinner wasn't ready to go. Eating out less means we waste less food I bought at the store and we spend less.

What I do before I go?
-Take inventory of what I have. Make a list of what needs to be replenished and what items I need to use up in my planning.
-Go through the calendar from now until my next shopping trip. Consider plans for each day and assign a mean(s) to each day appropriate for that days needs.
-While planning the means look at the Ads. I normally plan to do on a Monday or Tuesday so that I can use that week's ad to plan what we are buying. If there are no good sales for that week I could go I will then move my shopping to Thursday so I can use Wed's ads to make changes to my plan.
*tip the meat I buy this month is often used for next month's meals, that way I am not at the mercy of what I find to reconfigure meals.
-Go though my calendar meals and add to my shopping list any items that would need to be purchased to make those happen.
-Add to the shopping list items for snacks or making homemade snack food
-Using the ads and previous shopping trips to assign an expected cost to each of item on my shopping list
-Add up all the expected costs, if the expected amount exceeds this month's budget I go through and highlight items I can do without for another month. Also take into consideration if less of an expected item could be purchased to still meet your needs ie- getting 2 lbs of apples instead of 3.
Since these items are still on my list I won't forget that I still needed them, but this way if enough items cost less then I expected to pay for them I can add an item or two from my highlighted list.
-Sit down with or have my husband take a look at my lists, see if he noticed anything I had overlooked or forgotten.
*have a second pair of eyes or do it yourself- look through everything again with a calendar of that month's events in front of them. That way they might notice overlooked things like a party in a child's classroom or that you're assigned snacks for the Tball team.
-after everything is double checked I should be ready to grab my envelope and go

While at the store:
-no item goes into the cart without writing it on the paper. I use a paper that I put three columns on- One for the item name, Two for the expected cost, Three for what the items actual cost was. As I go through the store I put what the actual cost of each item and how many I put into my cart onto the paper.
-I use to enjoy talking my kids with me, now I only go do my once a month shopping when I have no kids only one kid. In addition I only go when I have 2+ hours open to go. If I feel rushed in the store by kids or time restrictions then I make bad choices, forget, or spend more than I wanted. I make sure I can take my time.

this is the way I use to try to once a month shop

When I get home- I rotate, prep some items, and put away. I have a running list of what needs to be bought on a chalkboard inside my cupboard. The top is my Costco list the bottom is the grocery store.

use the inside of a cupboard to create a running grocery list

Last thing I do is delete off the list things I did pick up and write anything on the list I decided I could wait until next month.

Making Sacrifices: Giving up Netflix

We have decided that we need to make sacrifices in order to full commit to where we want to be.

One of the things we have decided to sacrifice is our Netflix account.

This was hard for us. We have loved Netflix. A few years ago we were unemployed for about 6 months and we cancelled our Netflix then and it was so sad. We missed it so much and it was the first thing to come back when we were employed again. It will be probably be one of the first things we put back into our budget when we are fully out of debt. It was also a hard choice for us to sacrifice because it is such a small amount out of our budget- Less than $10 a month for unlimited entertainment for our whole family. If we had only $10 for entertainment in our budget each month- it is the best value for that money.
We have been without cable for 6 years now- which was not an easy choice because we live in a rural community and there are no "local" tv channels with out cable. We watch everything online and don't feel like we're missing out on anything. Chromcast and Netflix have been wonderful to us. But we are cutting out anything that isn't necessary.
We own lots of DVDs. There are lots sites that we use to watch for free. We can do this.
Some of the online watching resources we use:
http://video.pbs.org/
http://pbskids.org/video/
http://www.hulu.com/
http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/
http://disneyjunior.com/
https://www.youtube.com/

pbskids is probably our favorite site to watch online

What are your favorite online places to view content?

If you in the cut the cord from cable boat to make sacrifices. If you don't already do Netflix consider it. Their selections of kids shows is awesome. They have a lot of shows of my husband and I want to watch, and their movie selection isn't bad and is constantly changing. The value of how many options you have is very reasonable. I look forward to the day we can put it back in our life.

Side Note- What I miss most about cable is the sporting events. I am a huge football fan and I miss my college football. Additionally I like turning on baseball games to occasionally watch. How do you give up cable when you want to watch sports?
Suggestions- Go to friend or family to watch the game. Sport events should be social anyway so make it social by watching it over there. Another suggestion is make it your date night (if your significant other likes sports too). ESPN online use to allow you to watch online if your internet was a participating company, but now it is only if you put in your cable information. Boo ESPN. Which leads me to the last method I use to watch sporting events. Bootleg TV. There are sites out there (very shady sites) that re-stream live TV. Due to their shadiness and ever changing locations I will not be sponsoring any of those sites on my blog. Needless to say, they exist and you can find them. Word of warning be careful where you click, don't let the moving or fake box closing x's to trick you. If you click wrong it will take you to sites you never wanted to see and can't un-see. I do not set up the sporting events in view of my children for this reason.

Good luck in all your efforts to live more thrifty lives. What sacrifices have ya'll made in getting out of debt or to live within your means?

Murphy's Law

Why is it whenever you set a goal for something- out of the woodwork comes all the millions of reasons, excuses, and obstacles that weren't there before? Some people call it Murphy's Law.
In college I owned this posted and it was in our kitchen. Made for a fun conversation starter- after all everyone has their own Murphy story.

So we've had our visits or about to be visits from Murphy since resolving that we are going to be financially responsible and get out of debt.
1- Our washing machine started to leak. It is leaking into the basin. It wasn't making any mess. I was running the the last spin cycle an extra time and drying them more in the dryer. I was worrying that we needed to call someone, or get a new washer. Our washer is pushing 10 years old (we've had it for 6 years and the people gave it to us told us it was about 5 years old). But we tightened the knob in looking at and it stopped dripping for a little while.  I am all ready to start doing laundry at my in-laws or a laundry mat. Looks like we are using borrowed time before we have to get a new washer.
2- Our microwave has been slowly falling apart. This last week the turning plate fell out and crashed in to tiny pieces. At the moment it is still working, but if it dies I will be doing more stove and oven cooking. I can live without a microwave for a little while if it comes to that.
3- Last week I chipped my tooth. It is my front tooth. I am not in pain. I can still eat just fine. But I need to set up a dentist appointment now.
There are other little things that have tried us. That's the way it goes. But we are resolved- it is past time. 

Grocery Budget Moving Forward

So when I choose $60 for June's grocery budget. I knew that was not going to be sustainable, and I made that clear to my husband. I just knew we could make some sacrifices in the food department in order to get more cash flow to help get our snow ball going.

But that has egged the question for me of "What should our grocery budget be?"
1- I want a sustainable budget to feed my family of 6 to be full and healthy eating.
2- Room for the occasional fun items.
3- Comfortably have money left each month for saving for food storage.
4- Wiggle room for my every-other-month trip to Costco and trips to the bread store.
5- But still reflects the sacrifice we are making to get out of debt.

What should be a reasonable amount?
After searching a ton of blogs on what other thrifty people are spending I found one of them quoting Dave Ramsey, then I found it on his web site.
"We recommend spending 5–15% of your take-home pay on food, which includes groceries and meals out."
So this was a good place to start. My husband and I did the math and decided that our previous spending (before our money make over) was reasonable for the grocery side, not reasonable when you considered what we were spending eating out. Our previous grocery bills averaged $250-300 per month.

Taking my list of what I want in a grocery budget, what we were spending before, and Mr. Ramsey's advice, I am going to aim for $210. $200 for groceries & household items, and $10 for food storage and stocking up. I know I can do this. It will mean rethinking some of our meals- I have never been a big potato using person. I will be utilizing those much more. I'm going to be cutting any store bought junk food. I will be doing better with my meal planing and making more deliberate choices on what I purchase. Yes that means no more sushi lunches (a pleasure I have always justified by buying my husband his own sushi for lunch too).
I think this is totally do able, and as we do this longer we can adjust as needed.

Setting up our Budget- $60 grocery budget

Setting up a budget the first time (especially when you had one that was actually so broken and ignored) is not a fun experience. On the same level as pulling teeth. Not actually that bad. I would rather make a budget then ever have a tooth pulled again.

To get started I recommend checking out the budget tool on Dave Ramsey's site - good place to start out.

So... when we were doing my first budget my husband asked "What are you going to spend on groceries for this month?" Now before I gave the outrageous number I am about to tell you I did give it some thought...

1- we have lots of food storage, I keep telling myself I want to rotate it more

2- I want this number to be as low as possible to we can get a snowball rolling

3- We *JUST* went to Costco last weekend. I should have enough of the big stuff

Then I said with every confidence "$60" "Are you sure $60?" came from my husband. "Yes $60 but that can't be every month just this month." "okay 60"

Now in all honesty as we reviewed our numbers a week later I added 20 to that number to make 80. But that was after I took an actual inventory of what we had and after my children destroyed my deodorant and I realized I was going to have to spend money on deodorant. Now that 60 now 80 was not including what was just spent at Costco, and it was not including the cat's food or liter since that was a separate budget.

Now looking at $80 isn't a whole lot. But I figured taking into account the other stuff it should be enough. After all prior to starting our money make over I was spending between $250-300 a month depending on if it was a Costco month or not (we do not live near a Costco, we only go every other month). I don't know if we have a "Year Supply" or not, but we do have an impressive amount of food storage that is mostly rotatable. So this should totally be possible. **in full disclosure that budget number did not reflect what we spent eating out. I am so ashamed of that number I am not going to tell you what we WERE spending eating out and letting food go bad, Not any more**

How I shop (tips for thrifty shopping):

1-Now I already have tried to follow the "Once a Month Grocery shopping" except I have made it a twice a month shopping (comes out to once a paycheck)- one BIG everything trip, and one other time trip for milk and some fresh veggies and fruits (whatever is on sale) with the occasionally totally forgot item. I normally send my husband and he is awesome at buying only exactly what I put on his list. I find it is easier to spend less money the less times I walk into a store. I learned about it from this blogger at Blissful and Domestic. Although I can't find her original post that got me thinking about it and changing my attitudes on how I shopped. 

2- I do not coupon. I know it could save me money but it is hardly worth it for me. Here are some of my reasons- it takes a lot of time, I have a hard time obtaining coupons (I refuse to buy newspapers), the coupons friends save for me are normally expired or not what I need by the time I get them, when I have used them I don't feel like I saved money because I end up spending money on things I wouldn't have normally bought, I have got viruses on my computer from downloading coupons and coupon apps -no more. I am not anti-coupons. I do use the on a blue moon. But most of the time they are the ones I get from the store to use on my next visit, or the rare one I found online or was given that is perfect.

3- If I don't have it I find a way to make do! Leave it out, find a substitute, make from scratch, mend it, put it on the list for next month.

4- I make shopping lists. One running list of when I use something up, and I make a list- based off of that week's Ads and what I need of exactly what I am going to purchase. My shopping list has 3 columns One for the item to be purchased, Two for the expected purchase price with the number next to it of how many I plan on buying, Three to fill in at the store of how much the item actually costs. If my list of what to buy is over my budget then I have to decide what comes off the list- what I don't actually NEED.

5-Save a little in your budget for stocking up (planned from sales or unplanned for that special discount you find when you get there.)

6- Part of knowing what you need is knowing what you are going to make. Plan your meals. Make the list. Use a calendar (I put it into my google calendar so both my husband and I can see it) Now I know this all sounds like I'm an organized "J" personality (Myers-Briggs for "judging" personality type of organized person who loves lists). But I am not. I am as "P" as it gets and so is my husband (and that is where we have made lots of bad choices, because we don't make choices). WE have learned that we have to start making choices, we have to be proactive, and we HAVE to make some lists otherwise we all forget the easiest things. If I can do it- you can do it. 

7- I personally don't are about "organic" or "gluten-free" those are not my family needs. We do look for items that are "Whole Wheat" "no sugar added" and "reduced-fat". These things are things you can personally value. You can value what you want to, but remember that to stick to a budget there are trade offs you have to sometimes make. Fun a new way, make do, or do without.

8- Buy in bulk (it is lasting you a month or two, if you won't use it up in that time then don't buy it in bulk, but there is no need to buy 4 off the small item if you are going to use the large one)

9- Use less meat, I use about half or less of whatever a recipe calls for. I then often add beans or veggies as fillers in the recipe. We try to do one meal a week completely meatless- we started this one not to save money but as a way to feel we were better keeping the Word of Wisdom to "eat meat sparingly". We also have a meat grinder attachment for our Kitchen Aid. I rarely buy ground meats. Instead we buy bulk meat and grind it ourselves. I use ground pork or chicken in any recipe that calls for a ground meat.

10- Confession, I don't make bread. I'm trying, but my loafs of bread of super sad. But we have found fantastic bread for .50 a loaf (I can't make it quite that cheap or good). How? Bread factories day old bread or irregular bread. In Mesa (Southern & Country Club) is a bread factory. If you go in the morning (Monday- Friday) rejected loafs or day old loafs are .50 each. On Wed and Friday after one all their loafs are $1 each limit 5. There is no limit on the .50 loafs until they are out of stock. When we go up to Mesa to visit my family we stop in and buy 20-30 loafs and freeze them. When we can't be up in the mornings on a week day we try to find someone to stop by for us and pick up our loaves. If we run out of bread before we go up again, that is when I make our bread.

(we ended up with some funny math because I had to go back and fix the cost of some items)

So onto how I spend the $80 this month:

Milk x4 @1.99

Eggs   @11.99 (5 doz pack. Local price 6/16/2015)

Flour    @3.57 (10 lb all-purpose enriched flour, I grind my own wheat flour and most things I use a 3 wheat cups to 1 all-purpose ratio)

animal crackers @1.99 (Huge bag of Mexican animal crackers. My kids like them better than the "organic" Kirtland signature ones at Costco. I use the Costco tub and refill it with the cheapies and my kids are happier- one bag almost fills the cost tub)

Peanut Butter @4.69 (store brand, largest I could buy)

Pineapples x2 @.87each
Molassas  @3.59

Cottage cheese @1.69

Sour Cream @1.69 (larger tub, hurt me but I bought full fat because the reduce fat wasn't on sale- like I said make trade offs for budget)

Yogurt  @1.99 (large tub-vanilla)

Lettuces x2 @.99 

Onion bag  @2.49

5lb bag potatoes @3.69

apples 2lbs @.99

Crazins @2.00

Tomato Soup @1.67 (family size store brand)

small white Corn Tortillas @2.69 (70 tortillas)

Hamburger buns @.89 (small store brand 8 buns)

Block of Medium Cheddar Cheese @1.67

Sliced Cheese @1.99

Chips @1.00 (store brand baked tortilla chips)

Heavy cream @1.49 (this was a frivolous purchase to make ice cream on the July 4th because it is tradition)

Jello  2x .39

gelatin @1.49

Hot Dogs @.89 (store brand, chicken and pork and I don't care what you say)

Frozen Peas @2.39 (largest bag I could find)

syrup @1.99 (I had been making it from scratch for the past few weeks but the cost of the butter and brown syrup actually came out more then the $2 for the jug)

deodorant @3.79 (husband bought the brand I wanted, died a little when I learned what he paid- oh well live and learn)

=with tax= $78.17

Now there was one item I still need to buy and I'm not sure how I am going to buy it. I need to go to the local farmer's market and buy and new large jar of local honey and that is $8. I am going to see if I can make the bit of honey we have last till next month's budget and add my change to next month. Either that or I will be raiding all my coin jars for the 6 something to go buy our honey.

So yes I did it under $80. Yes I bought a few items I could have cut out. But with the gelatin and Jello I am going to make homemade fruit snacks for my kids, I didn't need the can of soup, I found the one I thought I had already in the pantry when I got home, and I could have totally passed on the expensive never on sale Molasses for another day (my husband uses it to make BBQ sauce and I make ginger snaps for my kids). 

And yes if I didn't have a good amount of food storage and spices in my cupboard already (including meat in my freezer). This wouldn't have been possible, but then I would have been buying more of those items and less of the special items like the jello and cream.

What our meals look like:

Breakfast-
Oatmeal with brown sugar/pb/fruit, eggs with toast, cream of wheat (made with my wheat grinder), crockpot soaked wheat, pancakes/waffles, homemade cinnamon rolls (Sunday Morning), cold cereal (never more than once a week and only when it was on sale sale), fried rice, egg and potatoes skillet

Lunch-
My husband takes leftovers, or a meat and cheese sandwich with a snack every day for work. We do have Healthy Choice Steamers that I buy on sale when $1 each in the deep freezer as back ups for bad mornings when I don't make him a lunch.
Me and the kids: pb&Js, dino chickens from Costco, noodles with canned veggies, quesadillas (cheese and tortilla), bean burritos/tostadas, ritz crackers/ham/pepperonies/sliced cheese , mac N cheese, cheese sandwich (hot or cold),

Dinner-
I try to have a good variety. But using similar ingredients. Every Friday I make homemade pizza (and extra dough & make the cinnamon rolls for Sunday, they then sit covered in the fridge till Sunday morning when I cook them), Saturday is my husband's night to grill, we tend to grill a lot of pork chops, chicken thighs, and turkey burgers because that is the cheapest meats.
listing off meals: pasta with veggies, lasagna, stir fry, Korean Bolgolgi, Thai Fried Rice, Chicken Alfredo, creamy pasta, Enchiladas (bean and chicken, sometimes pulled pork), pulled pork tamales (baked Tamale Pie), pulled pork sandwiches, pulled pork tacos, pulled pork over zucchini, Pulled pork Taco Salad Stacks, chicken and rice, hay stacks, Curry, Various Chilies, Shepherds Pie (most of the time made with ground pork), Crock pot pork chops, Strogonoff, Ham and Potatoes, PoMan's, Pigs in a cloud (mashed potatoes with hot dogs), Baked potatoes, Omelets, Tuna Noodle Casserole. 

last week dinners:

Mon- Thai fried Rice, Tues- Shepherds' Pie, Wed-Chicken Salad Lettuces Wraps, Thurs- Baked Potatoes, Friday- Pasta Salad (husband and son at Church activity so I skipped making Pizza), Sat- Homemade Pizza

This week's plan:

Sun-Lasagna (mixture of veggies and meat), Mon- Ham and Potatoes, Tues- Left overs, Wed- Enchiladas, Thurs-Crock Pot Pork Chops Fri- Pizza, Fri- Hot dogs (grilled)

Sorry there are no links yet. Eventually I hope to get them all up either to other sites or on this blog.

Snacks-
apples, fruits of the month (pineapple slices this month- I cut and freeze), animal crackers,popcorn, fruit snacks (I make), mini quesadillas, carrots, otter pops, yogurt, crackers (sometimes I make them), slice of cheese, chips and salsa, PICKLES spears

Good luck with your shopping. Next time I won't be explaining all my tips.