Another Money Saving Monday

What are we doing this week to save money on our grocery bill? Well, this week will be easier in some respects and harder in other. We are really busy this week with swimming lessons and vacation bible school. The easy part is that since we are camping out, we will have to keep to our menu (since that is what we'll have). The hard part is that I have to be really, really organized and be sure that we have everything we need so we don't have to make extra runs to the grocery store. I still think one of the best grocery savings techniques is to stay out of the grocery store.

So here are my goals for this week:

1. One trip and only one trip to the grocery store


2. Buy only what is on the grocery list and only put things on the list that are necessary for this week


3. Plan meals around food that we already have


4. Use real plates (stop buying the paper plates - even for the camper)


5. Decrease paper towel usage - this has been hard for me - I can use a roll a day. We've purchased cloth napkins and more dish cloths which has helped, but I need to try even more to limit our dependence on these. They are so expensive!!

For more Money Saving Money, visit Beautiful2God.

Weekly Menu Plan for April 26 - May 2

This week I am going to challenge myself to spend no more than $30 for groceries. That will include trips for milk, bread, etc. This may be a little difficult because on Tuesdays and Thursdays (our t-ball nights) I am trying to feed 7 people instead of just 3. We have invited my little one's grandparents over each night before the game (or after as the case may be on this Thursday). We call him "Boo" so I may refer to him at times by that name. Anyway, here's the plan.

Sunday - Grilled cheese sandwiches, Tomato Soup (or I may try this recipe) - freeze leftover soup for later in the week

Monday - Tacos

Tuesday - Campbell's Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings, Field Peas, Fruit Salad

Wednesday - Quick Beef and Rice, Steamed Cabbage, Biscuits

Thursday - Swanson Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore, Ceasar Salad, Garlic Bread

Friday - Easy Hodge Podge Soup (this recipe is from the ebooks available from my blog - I have listed this one below) - I'm going to use any leftover tomato soup and vegetables from earlier in the week instead of the canned items that it calls for

Saturday - Grilled steaks and hot dogs, roasted potatoes, salad


Easy Hodge Podge Soup
1 lb Hamburger
1 Chopped onion
Salt and pepper
1 cn (10.75-oz) tomato soup
1 cn (16-oz) mixed vegetables
1 cn (16-oz) kidney beans
1 Box (14.75-oz) spaghetti
Brown hamburger and onions. Drain excess grease. Add tomato soup and half a
can of water. Stir in vegetables. Run knife through spaghetti to cut strands. Add
to soup mixture. Bring to boil, simmer 15 minutes.

For more Menu Plan Monday, visit Organizing Junkie.

Dying Produce? Nearly Out of Date Leftovers? Use them NOW!

Do you have produce in the frig that is nearly dead? Maybe you have leftovers that have one more day before they need to be tossed. Go through your frig each day and find these things. Use them up NOW! They are already paid for and will only fill up the landfills if they go unused.

We have used this tactic this week. It has modified our menu plan somewhat but no drastically. We actually had dessert one evening because the strawberries that I bought a week or so ago were starting to mold. Not all of them, mind you. Just a few on top and in the middle. I threw the bad ones out (or to our chickens and they just loved them) and served the rest with whipped cream.

We grilled hamburgers today for lunch and the leftover burgers are going in the crockpot on Sunday with some gravy to make hamburger steaks. I'll add a few side dishes and Sunday lunch will be a snap.

Think of all the ways you may be able to use up some of those dying, decaying, nearly rotten things in your frig. We all have them so save a little money this week and use them up. Your budget and the trash guy will thank you.

One Bag and 5 Dinners from Kraft Foods

If you are in a money crunch and/or menu planning crunch, try the 1 Bag 5 Dinners at Kraft Foods. There are 4 choices of types of dinners: Chicken and Beef, Chicken and Pork, Chicken and Seafood, and Healthy Living.

Once you choose which types of dinners you want, then you have several samples within that choice. Five dinners are included with recipes and a shopping list for Monday - Friday. Everything that you need should fill one grocery bag.

We've used this before and most of the meals are good. Best of all, the service is free and you know that when you leave the store you have everything you need to cook for the week. If you're in a money crunch, try to pick dinners that include things you already have on hand.

I am going to use this site for my next week's menu planning. Check out their site and then back here on Sunday to see what we'll be eating this week.

My Most Recent Best Buy

This week our grocery store had ketchup for $.78 (36 oz size of Heinz) and green, seedless grapes for $.99 per pound. My little one loves green grapes and they have been so expensive lately (like a lot of other fresh fruit). I had purchased grapes at nearly twice that earlier in the week, but I bought these today anyway. I washed them good, sacked them up and threw them in the freezer. A lady that I work with does this and says they are fabulous. I decided since we already had a bag in the frig, these could be put in the freezer for a later time.

Just to let you know, we have tried the frozen grapes and they are really good. My little one likes to let them thaw first (kids sometimes don't like to try new things), but I think they are best frozen. This will make a fabulous summertime treat. The best part: No more spoiled grapes!

Challenge of the Week

I am taking a hard look at whether or not using coupons might be good for us. Since I think that I only buy name brand mayonnaise (I won't touch the store brand), I don't think couponing is going to be worth the time. BUT this week I am going to take an inventory of my cupboards, refrigerator, freezer, laundry room, bathroom, cleaning closet, etc. to see exactly how many name brand items we have. The next step will be to determine if we think that we MUST have the name brand and then if coupons are available for those brands.

If you have been considering couponing, why don't you take this challenge with me? Let me know what coupons you find and at what sites. We don't have a CVS or Walgreens close by (my husband has both in the town where he works but getting him to shop AND use coupons would probably be a stretch). I would have to use mostly coupons just for the grocery store and dollar store, but other ideas are welcome here.

Ultimate Blog Party 2009

The Ultimate Blog Party 2009 is going on over at 5 Minutes for Moms. Check it out!! It is the ultimate in meeting up with other bloggers.

Just to introduce myself and what my blog is all about, I am a working mom with one child. My family enjoys camping (wait - I mean RVing), gardening and taking care of our new pet chickens.

My blog is all about how we are using various techniques to try and save money at the grocery store. We live in a rural area with only a few grocery stores and no chain pharmacies. I am blogging about what is working best for us and what is not making much difference at all.

Blogging has become my new recreation so come back and visit often. Check out my Mr. Linky's and add your blog if it applies. If your blog is entirely (or mostly) directed at the Mr. Linky, it is fine to just link to the entire blog. I really like that as opposed to linky to one specific blog.

Menu Plan Weekly for 3-15 - 3-21

Here's my weekly menu plan for the week of 3/15 - 3/21. If you have a weekly menu plan, head on over to $5 Dinners and include your in the link there.

Sunday - Hamburger steak, mashed potatoes/potato salad, green beans
Monday - Teriyaki beef tips, rice (brown or white or try a combo), steamed vegetables
Tuesday - Chicken pot pie, sauteed collard greens
Wednesday - Fried cubed pork, macaroni and cheese/ macaroni and tomatoes, steamed cabbage
Thursday - Taco soup with corn chips and sour cream
Friday - Grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, baked beans, baked potatoes (crockpot recipe?)
Saturday - Grilled chicken, pasta salad, cucumber salad

I have mashed potatoes and potato salad listed on Sunday because my husband doesn't like mashed potatoes so I fix some of the potatoes in potato salad. Same goes with the macaroni and cheese. He likes macaroni and tomatoes instead so I just fix a little of both. My little one eats it all (thank God for small miracles - if he were picky like my husband I think I'd go crazy - LOL).

CrockPot Recipes, Anyone?

I would like to have a list of blogs with crockpot recipes. This week is going to be lots of rushing around for my family and the ease of using my crockpot would make things easier. BUT we're tired of roast and potatoes and carrots and we can't eat that numerous times this week. If you have a blog that is dedicated to crockpot recipes or a post with a crockpot recipe, please include it below:

Challenge of the Week

This week coming up I want to challenge any of you who are up to a challenge to go to the grocery store only once. After your initial shopping for the week, don't be caught "dead" in there again. I am slowing realizing that each trip I make back to the store for bread or milk or whatever quickly turns into $20, $30, $40 or more.

I will be doing my shopping for next week on either Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Then I am resolving not to go anymore for a whole seven days.

If you decide to take the challenge, let us know how it goes.

UPDATE: My week was horrible. I was in the grocery store three times due to unexpected illnesses in my household which required items that I didn't have and an unexpected chore which sent us to get convenience items. I am seriously considering undertaking some type of freezer meal cooking project just for those unexpected times when you really want to just go grab take-out. Let me know how you did. Hopefully, better than us. I think we spent more this week in groceries than in the last few months (just due to the number of trips we made).

Weekly Menu Plan for March 9-15

These are the plans for this next week.

Sunday: Roasted turkey , fried okra , corn on cob, coleslaw

Monday: Tacos with flour tortillas, black beans and rice, homemade salsa

Tuesday: Grilled chicken , potato salad, tomato, cucumbers and onions salad

Wednesday: Homemade pepperoni pizza, salad

Thursday: Vegetable soup , cornbread

Friday: Baked ham , sweet potatoes, collard greens, leftover cornbread

Saturday: Sausage and egg burritos, leftover salsa , pineapple chunks

Meal Planning Form

I found a great meal planning form from the Hillbilly Housewife that I thought would be useful. It's a PDF file so you'll need Adobe Reader.

Need Help with Meal Planning?

If you are having trouble with meal planning, here are a few websites that you may want to look at to get you started.

Menus for Moms is a free website that emails you once a week with a weekly plan. It includes a grocery list and recipes. These recipes are easy to fix and don't require that you be a chef.

Saving Dinner is a website run by the Dinner Diva, Leanne Ely, in which you obtain a weekly PDF file with the meal plan and grocery list. The cost is minimal ($9.95 for 3 months, $17.95 for 6 months or $29.95 for an entire year). You will save the cost of this service in just one month of being prepared and skipping the drive thru. Her recipes are extremely good. My family has only found one in nearly 18 months that I used this service that we didn't like and my husband is a very picky eater. The only drawback that I found with this site is that it requires a lot of spices that I don't generally keep on hand, but the grocery list has it so you are sure to grab it when you go shopping. You can try a week of free menus by clicking on the green bar at the top of her homepage.

Another free site that I have used is Dinner Beat. It allows you to plan your menus and print a grocery list. There are recipes to choose from or you can add your own if your family has something that they are craving for the week.

There are also lots of blogs with meal plans if you are having trouble getting started. My biggest problem when I first started meal planning was not having the same old, same old every week.

If all this is too overwhelming, just make a copy of a calendar page for the month of March. Write down every meal that you have this month (planned or unplanned). Now next month, you have a month of menus to use. This idea also has a 2nd advantage. You can quickly look at the calendar page and tell when that grilled chicken was cooked and if it is still usable or needs to be trashed.

Strategy: Refrigerator Organization

Our refrigerator has helped us save grocery money. How you may ask? Well, in the organization of course.

Something I read somewhere got me thinking about organizing my refrigerator to give me easy access to everything that needed to be cooked during that week. I have a shelf for leftovers which reminds us to eat them. I have a shelf for breakfast items which keeps us on track with using up breakfast items for the week. I have a dairy shelf so I can quickly see when I am running out of sour cream or butter. We keep vegetables in the drawers which are see through.

I continue this in the freezer. My refrigerator is a side by side which means that I have various shelves. Again, there is a shelf for the frozen meat for this week. There's a shelf for the vegetables and side items which reminds us again to use these up. There's a shelf for breakfast items here as well. Then of course, there's a shelf for the ice cream and other items that we want access to during the week but that don't necessarily make up the meals.

Having easy access to the foods that we intend to eat during the week keeps us on track with our meal plan and grocery budget.

As a side note, I do have another freezer in my laundry room where I keep meat/vegetables that I have found on sale or the meat that we have had butchered from my husband's hunting expeditions. This has allowed me to use the refrigerator freezer for only the week's items.

Strategy: Meal Planning

What have I done that saves me the most grocery money? In a few words, meal planning. This is one of the most successful strategies that I have tried.

Here's how this works for me. One day a week, I sit down with my family and ask for input for what they would like to eat for the next week. We try to put together menus that include everyone's likes and what they feel like for the next week. It mostly consists of the main course. We usually try to fill in side dishes with what we already have in the pantry or freezer. Of course, if there is a side dish that someone prefers to have, we try to add that. Next, I make a grocery list which includes only the items that we need to make the meals for the week.

This idea to plan meals was foreign to me even though I had read about it from various websites. It didn't occur to me that I could actually do this AND save money until we bought a camper and started camping. With limited space, I had to find a way to take only the food that we needed. I found a wonderful form to use when we went camping (http://www.thecampingjournal.com/PDFs/RV%20Meal%20Plan%20&%20Shopping%20List%20PDF.pdf) and this form helped me to make sure that I had everything necessary when we got there. After camping several times, I started thinking maybe this form or one like it could help me with my weekly grocery budget. All I can say is IT HAS!

Try this for a week and then compare your grocery expenses this week to last week. This is definitely a worthwhile strategy for us.

Pricebook: Useful or Not?

Have you used a pricebook to track prices? I did this a couple of years ago and found it to be too time consuming for me for what I got from it. With only a few stores in my area and two of them owned by the same company, it just wasn't a worthshile strategy for me. I do think that it would probably be very interesting now if I had kept up with it because I would actually be able to put my finger on how much things have increased in the last year, six months, two months.

A few tips if you do keep a pricebook:

1. Be sure you note the package size with the price. If you haven't noticed, package sizes (cans, cereal boxes, frozen vegetables, etc.) have changed - gotten smaller - even if the price hasn't changed much. You start to notice this when a recipe calls for a 12 oz. can of something and you can only find a 10.5 oz. can.

2. Categorize your book by grocery store aisles. This makes locating an item easier.

3. The following web article is a wonderful resource for price books: http://stretcher.com/stories/05/05mar14c.cfm

I would be interested in your success stories on price books. I think the idea is good, but I just wasn't willing to put lots of time into it. Maybe I gave up on it too soon.

Strategy: Clean Out That Refrigerator Before You Shop

One of the best tips that I have learned is to clean out the refrigerator before grocery shopping. It reminds me of the things that I need to use up so I don't buy extra vegetables if I already have 4 of them in the frig waiting to be cooked. I try to incorporate these into my week's meal plan (which we'll discuss shortly). It also helps me to be certain that I have enough butter, sour cream, milk, eggs, etc. This eliminates extra shopping trips for things that I don't have when I need them. That always costs me more. I've never been able to just go into the store for one or two items. There's always something else that gets added to the cart.

New Blog Started

I am starting this blog to share my experiences with trying to reduce my grocery bill. I think lots of people are interested in this topic in our current economy and hopefully will find something helpful here. Some of the tips, hints and strategies may be things that you have seen or heard before. My blog is going to be about what works best for me and what really hasn't had much effect.

Keep in mind that I live in a rural area and there are only three grocery stores within a short distance. Some of the strategies that I use may not produce the same results if you live in a large city where supermarkets are on every corner.

Check back often and let me know what you think.