Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Saving with spuds

March 27, 2013

My daughter packed leftover chicken wings for lunch today. My son packed a ham sandwich. Wow. I asked him if he wanted to eat up the ham but I was fully expecting him to ask for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My hubby grabbed the wrong container for his lunch (thought it was shepard's pie but he grabbed just mashed potatoes) so I brought him the shepard's pie on my way to get groceries.

My pre-challenge weekly average at the commissary was $175. Today I spent $12.46 on toiletries and cleaners. I spent $85.65 on food. I grabbed a bunch of potatoes from the loose bin for our Easter dinner. I weighed them. It was 6 pounds and would have costed $2.64. I looked over at the bags of 10 pounds of potatoes. They were on manager's special for $2.99. I figured that I may as well pay 35 cents more and get an extra four pounds of potatoes! This also includes $15.82 for our ham. I wanted just a little bit of lunch meat. I saw that lemon pepper chicken was on sale for $3.99/pound. Chicken it is. I spent 95 cents on impulse items. I saw some Easter chocolate/mint that I couldn't pass up. I spent $5.08 on gossip magazines. There was only two of my usual four at the register and I didn't feel like running around looking at other registers. After adding in their surcharge and taking out my coupons, I spent $100.85 out of pocket. This is a savings of $74.15.

The kids did good packing their lunches this week which saved us $16. Our pre-challenge restaurant weekly average was $80. This week we went to our friend's restaurant and also to Moe's. We spent $56.26, which is a savings of $23.74. This brings our savings for this week to $113.89! I can't believe we hit over $100 with us going out to eat twice. Our grand total savings is now $2,774.64 in 161 days!!

I even had a good mail day. My mailbox was stuffed with awesomeness. I got four laundry soap samples, one toothpaste sample, two emergen-c samples, 10 coupons, and a coupon for a free 20 ounce soda!

I needed to find an after school snack for the kids. What did I see? Strawberries past their prime and bananas that were past firm and a few days away from needing to be turned into banana bread. Smoothie day! I decided to keep this really simple and see if my daughter wanted to make it. She added two bananas, about a half a container of strawberries, and a splash of milk into the food processor. After they were blended, she added about a cup of frozen blueberries (from the farmer's market). After it was blended, they sampled. My daughter wanted honey stirred into hers. My son had his as is.

I decided to do a dinner re-do. My hubby was out of state when I made this meal before so I wanted to make it again so he could try it. I sauteed onions and garlic. Then I added a cup of local white wine and half a container of sliced mushrooms. I let it reduce for a few minutes and then I added a little bit (maybe half a cup) of homemade chicken broth, a container of pea pods, rotisserie chicken, salt, pepper, and basil. Most of the juice reduced and then I added cooked angel hair pasta. My hubby grated in some romano cheese. I served it with an easy side of steamed broccoli. Yum! My hubby said it was really good. My son said that I should make that dinner every night. Ha. I guess that means it is a winner.

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