Day 12- 14

I really am having a hard time staying on budget. I think I may go over. I really am trying, but there always seems to be a sale on something that is a great price that we really use. I am doing fine on the cooking, but the budget thing may be my downfall.

Day 12

Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Misc stuff for everyone
Dinner: Leftovers- good thing Nate will eat them

We did go to Sam's and spent too much--$25.00

Day 13
We went ice fishing this afternoon and I was really tempted to get a $5 pizza, but we were good and stayed on plan.
Breakfast: Pancake mountain with eggs from my mom's and fresh ground wheat flour
Lunch: Misc for everyone
Dinner: Leftovers again-- but at least we used them
Dick's had a sale.I did get 5 boxes for a$1 each and $0.25 yogurt for a total of $7.58

Day 14
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Misc.
Dinner: Ham and potato soup- using leftover ham and garden potatoes- the kids ate yogurt.

Grand total: $73.85
Days without spending money: 7


This week I have to do better!!! We have plenty of food. We just may need milk and cheese, but luckily the kids have really slowed down drinking milk, so we may just pull this off.

Day 9 - 11

It has been a pretty good week so far. Here are the updates:

Day 8 -Tues
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: I don't remember
Dinner: Leftover rice and salad- free from my mom

I did so to Smith's to get milk. I did falter and buy a bag of cookies and chocolate milk. Total spend $8.82

Day9 :
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: The kids ate the whole package of hot dogs I bought last night for $0.89.
Dinner: Ham Slice with Roasted Garden Veggies

I didn't spend any money on groceries, but we did take the kids to Krispy Kreme and spent $2, but I am not counting that towards groceries.

Day 10:
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Fish sticks
Dinner: Beef Tomato Mac- made with the hamburger I fried up earlier in the week
I spent $5 on clearance potty prizes for the twins, but again this is not grocery money.

Grand total: $41.27
Days with out spending money:6

Day 7 and 8

Day 7

Nate was really busy with church stuff and had a huge homework assignment due that he did completely after the kids went to bed. I was pretty lazy. Our church got out at 2:00 so I just let the kids have snacks for lunch. I also didn't spend any money yesterday so I started out good.

Breakfast: Pancake mountains with free eggs from my parent's chickens
Lunch: Snacks
Dinner: Spaghetti for us and PB and J for the kids

Day 8

Breakfast: Pancakes
Lunch: Corndogs, meatballs and leftovers
Dinner:

Grand total spent: $32.45
Total days with out spending money:

Day 5 and 6

I had a bit of a break in the challenge the past couple of days. I just couldn't resist Macey's caselot, but I was still good.

Day 5
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Peanut Butter sandwiches and leftovers for me
Dinner: Tuna Casserole- Not very good, but cheap and easy

Day 6
Breakfast: Cereal again although we eat a lot of cereal, I got it for free so I don't feel too bad
Lunch: Fishsticks and leftovers
Dinner: Homemade rolls and Mexican creamy turkey soup --using corn from my mom's garden

$$$

Here's the deal. We did make the 3 gallons of milk I bought monday last until today so I bought 3 more at Sam's. I also had to buy fruit snacks since it is the only way I can get the kids to take naps for a total of $13.40 I also bought 10 yogurts for $0.25 each (with coupon) and 2 bags of cereal at $0.89 each at Macey's I did buy a few other things, but am counting them to food storage. If it comes in a #10 can, it's food storage. So the total for today was $19.05.
Grand total $32.45. Not great but a good start. I will do better, right?

I not spend any money 4 days this week, so that was something. I also cooked out of my food storage everyday, which was an accomplishment.

Day #3 and #4

Things are moving along, but I am having a hard time not hitting the case lot sales this week. I think I am also going thru withdrawls. I feel like I need to spend money just to get out of the house. Hopefully, like a drug addict I can get over the initial shock and keep going.

Day #3- Wed
Breakfast: oatmeal and cereal
Lunch: Fishsticks and leftovers for me
Dinner: BBQ chicken, BBQ beans, sweet potato fries and brussel sprouts (from the co-op)

No money spent for a total of 3 days this week
Grand total money spent $10.50

Day #4-Thurs
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Smoothies
Dinner: Sausage Rice casserole for big people and a mixture of other stuff for the smalls.

I did break down and went out. I mainly just wandered aimlessly. I did spend $2.87 on clearance chocolate for potty prizes (and for me in a pinch.)

Grand total spent $13.37

Day #2

Yesterday went pretty well. I am taking a tip from Suze Orman to not spend any more for 1 day a week, but am going further and going to try for 3-4 days a week. 1 day is pretty easy since we don't typically shop on Sunday, so let's go for more. I didn't spend any money yesterday, so 2 days this with no money spent and I went to the library for free!!

Meals

Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Chicken nuggets and tator tots
Dinner: Steak that we got from my parents' farm and roasted sweet potatoes, potatoes and yellow squash

I also made 2 loaves of wheat bread with fresh ground wheat. My kids are very picky and won't usually eat what I made for dinner, but they will eat bread and peanut butter so that will probably save us thru this whole thing. Each loaf costs about $0.50 to make.

Food Storage Challenge

I read about this challenge yesterday on a blog. I overspent at Christmas so I am trying to get our financial house back in order. The basics of this challenge are to eat out of your food storage, limit money spent of groceries and use up food that has been sitting around for 1 month.

I decided to use my blog as a way to track how we are doing and to actually commit to "rules."

The "rules" I decided on are:

1. Eat out of our food storage -- this includes using the sweet potatoes/potates from our garden that are going to go bad soon.

2. Spend only $100 on groceries - this is a cut of $200, but will include milk, fresh item. This may be a problem since we do use a gallon of milk a day, but we will try. This will not include our veggie co-op, which is $16.50 every two weeks.

We will finish this on 1/31/10. So here is how we are doing so far.

Mon:
Breakfast: Fruit left over from a party yesterday and cereal
Lunch: Corn dogs from freezer
Dinner: Sweet potato burritos - I also made 8 more for the freezer for Nate's lunch

$$$$
Spent $10.50 on 2 gallons of milk and fish sticks for lunch at Sam's