AllYou Give away at $5 Dinners!

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Great resource for money saving ideas. While you are at the $5 dinner blog, check out some of her great ideas as well. This is one of my favorite blogs!

There is Nothing Better

There is nothing better than the excitement of finding veggies growing in your garden! We have been eating lettuce from our garden for several weeks. We now have green beans and tomatoes! The tomatoes are not ready to eat yet but the green beans we will start eating this coming weekend! Here are a few pictures of our success so far.

Chicken Packets

I tried a new recipe this week. I saw a similar idea on another blog and decided to create something along the same lines. There are no exact measurements just how many packets you want to make and how much you want in each one.

Boneless skinless chicken tenders
red potatoes cut into pieces
green beans broken into 3rds
brussels sprouts halved
onion sliced thin
sprig of rosemary for each packet
pat of butter for each

I seasoned these with salt and Onion Onion and Garlic Garlic from Tastefully Simple (my 2 new FAVORITE spices)

Take a piece of aluminum foil and lay in all of the ingredients, season. Put the pat of butter and sprig of rosemary on top. Seal up the foil packets. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 45 minutes to 1 hour until the potatoes are tender. You could also cook these on the grill!

Grocery Shopping Week of 7/12

As I posted earlier, we are going to be moving YEAH!! I am going to try to use up whats on hand in the pantry/freezer so will just be buying what we need to fill in for our menu.

Dollar Tree:
hashbrowns $1
3 bags chocolate covered pretzels $3
TOTAL: $4

Cost Cutter:
Store meat deal 5/$19.99 (3 boneless skinless chicken tenders, 2 ground beef)
2 gallons milk $3.98
2 turkey dogs $1.36
.59# green beans $117
1.59# red potatoes $1.54
.35# bulk chocolate chips $1.66
4 mac & cheese $3.56 (ODD is getting braces on Thursday she may live on this for a few days)
2.47# bananas $1.45
coffee filters $1.50
6 yogurt $1.98
spaghetti noodles $1.50
2 boxes capri sun $3.94
TOTAL: $44.09

Total for the 2 stores $48.09

Check out what Gayle and the others have done this week at the Grocery Cart Challenge

Changes, Changes, Changes

Well, big changes coming to our household. We finally after 2.5 years in a 3rd floor apartment are moving back into a house. We cannot wait. The apartment complex where we are living has become a toxic environment with the type of people moving in and the activities going on. God has truly provided us with the perfect house for us. I will post pictures later. It is a rental, a farm house and exactly what we were looking for in the kids same school district.

I am going to try to use up as much of my pantry/freezer before we move as I can to reduce having to pack/move those items. So my grocery list this week was very small menu for this week is below.

MENU:
7/12
Dinner: Chicken/potato/greenbean packets

7/13
B: Waffles, pears
L: Mini homemade pizzas
D: meatloaf, mashed potatoes and peas

7/14
B: Eggs, hashbrowns and toast
L: sandwiches/chips
D: Spaghetti, homemade french bread and salad

7/15
B: Cereal
L: Sandwiches & Chips
D: Grilled steak, baked potatoes and veggies

7/16
B: cereal
L: soup/grilled cheese sandwiches
D: roasted chicken & veggies

7/17
B: apple/cinnamon muffins
L: tuna casserole
D: eating at a church event

Happy 4th of July

We had a fabulous 4th of July. The afternoon was spent BBQ'ing with friends. I picked up some foam craft kits for the kids to use while we waited to go to the fireworks after the BBQ and they were a HIT!

We went and met up with some other friends at the Bay to watch the fireworks. We sat and visited for a while before watching the amazing display. $2 worth of glo sticks kept the kids entertained for quite some time. It was a fun yet frugal celebration day.

Above are some pictures of the festivities. My oldest daughter had gone with friends for the day so she didn't make it into any of our pictures this year but she had a blast with the parade, rodeo and fireworks show!

Shopping trip 7/3-7/10

OK went to 3 places but took 1 picture. I thought shopping today would be easiest with the Holiday weekend and because our store was having a 2 day sale that started today. It was CRAZY!! But I did stick to my list.

Our store had whole chickens on sale that were a good price but didn't look good so I passed. I had roasted chicken on the menu one night so I will make a roast turkey breast instead (that was already in the freezer at home). See post below for my menu to use todays purchases.

FREE ITEMS:
2 - 18pk eggs FREE from my moms chickens!
1 box raspberry filled donuts (free with my purchase at bread outlet)

BIG LOTS:
3 boxes cereal $5.85

Hostess Bread Outlet
5 loaves bread $4.64 (this will last us a couple of weeks)
twinkies $1.59
Ding Dongs $1.59
2 boxes donuts - $4.18
2 pkg gravy mix $2.58
2 pkg hotdog buns $1.78
croutons $1.45
TOTAL: $17.81

COST CUTTER:
2- ice cream $3.94
1 tater tot $2.50
1- french fries $2.50
2 pkg bs chicken breast $4.90
2 bags lays chips $3.54
2 bacon $3.00
2 milk $3.98
1 family pkg steak $14.53
3 hotdogs $2.94
3 shredded cheese $5.00
1 meat marinade $1.49
skewers .99
2# tillamook cheese $5.77
1 cream cheese $1.77
bananas $1.35
5- butter $5 (I couldn't believe these were on sale for 5/$5!!!)
watermelon $2.97
salad dressing $2.50
2- mac & cheese $1.78
2# baby carrots $2.50

Total: $73.00
(total saved with sale prices $44.20)

TOTAL SPENT: $96.66

I am upping my grocery budget to $400 a month for the summer due to having the kids home for 3 meals a day 7 days a week plus snacks.

That is $100 per week or $20 per week per person.

Planning Ahead

I find that if I take the time to plan ahead life seems so much calmer, less stress. And we can ALL use less stress! We have a couple of extra expenses in the July budget so I am trying to stick to meal planning around whats on sale at our grocery store. Here is my menu for July 4th-July 10th.

4th:
B: Waffles
L: Quesadillas
D: BBQ for the 4th of July with friends

5th:
B: Donuts (from bread outlet)
L: Tuna casserole
D: Roast turkey breast, mashed potatoes and veggies

6th:
B: Bagels/cream cheese and pears
L: Sandwiches/chips
D: Spaghetti, homemade french bread and salad (from our garden)

7th:
B: Biscuits and gravy
L: Mac & Cheese
D: Leftovers

8th:
B: pancakes
L: Redneck Casserole
D: Grilled steak, baked potatoes and veggies

9th:
B: Cereal
L: Homemade pizza
D: Chicken & rice, veggies

10th:
B: Coffee cake and fruit
L: Sandwiches & chips
D: hotdogs for the kids and I am having a Tastefully Simple Party so there will be plenty of munchies from that!

Today I am off to see how I do at the grocery store for the week.