My son wanted to pack a lunch today. Sad buddy couldn't have a snowman sandwich again because we were out of bread. Instead he picked some cocktail hotdogs, string cheese, and yogurt. His teacher asked him to bring in the snowman sandwich again so she could see it. Instead I emailed it to her. Turns out, my son got to do a little presentation on it today. She even projected the picture up onto the board. Pretty cool.
I went to the commissary today. I knew it was going to be a big trip. I needed a pretty good amount of cupboard stuff. My pre-challenge average was $175 per week at the commissary for toiletries/cleaners and groceries. Today I spent $20.67 on toiletries/cleaners ($6 of that was the kids' vitamins). I spent $3.75 on impulse items. Wohoo! I'm doing pretty good with impulses lately. The two items that I gave in to were a bag of flour and rolls. They had a coupon for 50 cents off if you bought two Pillsbury products. Well, I was already buying a cake mix for our Christmas baking so I figured I would go ahead and buy the flour today too. I spotted a bag of deli kaiser rolls for $1.80. I figured that I could probably tempt my hubby to stay home for lunch and make hamburgers one day. An impulse of $1.80 will probably save me a lunch out ($30ish). I still had not read all of the gossip magazines from last week so I only allowed myself to buy one today for $2.90. I spent $122.85 on food. However, that includes the $10.60 for soda (go figure both hubby and I both ran out of our favorite kinds). It also includes $14.31 for Christmas baking ingredients. It also includes a big splurge. I have been craving crab legs for weeks. I found a coupon for them (wow, never ever see coupons for crab) so I put them on the list this week $16.99. After adding in their surcharge and taking out my coupons, I spent $145.02 out of pocket. Ugh. I was so disappointed after shopping. However, this week just happened to have a lot of expensive items all at once. So, I saved $29.98 this week at the commissary. We went out to eat this week. We spent $101.64 between our two times out. This is over our weekly restaurant average of $80 per week. My daughter packed a sandwich one day and my son packed a sandwich one day and leftovers another day. That saved $6. So taking my savings of $35.98 and subtracting our $21.64 overage, equals a savings this week of $14.34. Wow. That stinks. Oh, one other thing. My hubby starts vacation today. That may be why I spent a little more too. I knew he would be around and we would be needing more lunches. My grand total of savings for the challenge is now $1,024.79 in 57 days.
I wanted to try to make something for dinner that I have never made before. Meatballs. Sure I have made spaghetti with "meatballs" as in meat that I chop up tiny. I have made mini meatloaves. But never once have I attempted an actual meatball. Here goes. I found a recipe for creamy marsala meatballs with mushrooms in the sauce. The sauce has Italian cheese and herb cooking creme, marsala wine, milk, and mushrooms. The meatballs were topped off with some freshly shaved parmesan cheese and parsley. I also made my own bread crumbs prior to making the meatballs. I used the scraps leftover from when I made my kids snowman sandwiches the other day. I served the meatballs (made with local grass fed beef) and sauce over a bed of angel hair pasta (my fav) and with a side of local corn that I froze.
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