Shopping was egg-cellent; also dinner is breakfast

November 21, 2012

Today was my first attempt at grocery shopping with my kids since trying to cut back on how much money we spend on food. I told them ahead of time that they could not ask for a ton of items. I was sticking to my list.

My pre-challenge average was $175 per week at the commissary. Today I spent $7.23 on toiletries and $10.53 on magazines. I spent $3.37 on impulse items. I'm happy with that amount. 79 cents of it was on guacamole. Uh, who can pass up guacamole for 79 cents?! Not this girl. I also got a container of cool whip for $1. I figured Thanksgiving dessert probably needs it. I found a package of deli sub rolls for 98 cents. It has 4 feet of sub rolls!! My son did ask for several items but he didn't whine when I said no. However, when he asked for a sweet potato I certainly didn't turn that down (only 60 cents too). Cutting back on spending doesn't have to mean cutting back on nutrition. Alot of people buy packaged food for its convenience (I admit I do buy some of that too); my son's one impulse item was a vegetable and he was so excited that I said yes. My daughter never asked for anything. I asked her after shopping if it was because she didn't see anything that she wanted or if it was because of the challenge. She said the challenge. I couldn't believe how easy it was for my kids to stick to it. I have great kiddos! After adding in the commissary's surcharge and taking off my coupons, I spent $69.01 out of pocket today. I saved $105.99 today! While having my kids with me! Unreal. I feel a little like I can do anything now. Ha. Our restaurant savings for the week were good too. My pre-challenge average was $80 per week. My hubby had to work a different shift for 8 of the past 9 days and didn't get to eat dinner with us. That kept us out of restaurants so our weekly savings were $80! My son packed leftovers for lunch one day so that saved $2. This week I saved $187.99 which brings my grand total to $750.68 in the past 35 days!!

Finally my hubby got home at a decent time so it was his turn to make dinner. We all agreed that breakfast sounded good; although I wanted an omelette, my daughter and hubby wanted eggs over medium, and my son wanted french toast (probably because my hubby tops them off with powdered sugar) and some of my father in law's homemade maple syrup. Of course all of us wanted bacon. I sat back and hubby cooked us all a delicious breakfast. I mean dinner. Oh yeah, and he used up the rest of the pumpkin egg nog in the french toast batter.