Taking It A Step Further

I've done menu planning since I got married, in fact I'm not sure how people function without it. My planning has always been for our evening meals ( dinner, supper or whatever the correct term is) and in recent years an occasional weekend breakfast or lunch. Now that my kids are able to fix their own breakfast and lunch my kitchen has become total insanity during these meals. I realize there is no way to stop this unless I implement meal planning for these times too. Another problem I believe this will solve is those days when it's lunch time and I realize that even with a full fridge and pantry I don't have the ingredients to make something to eat. Like we have sandwich meat and no bread or the other way around. I'm going to start this week off with planning our daily lunches and sticking to it, just like supper time, you can take or leave it but this is what we're having.

Banana Nut Bread Recipe

This was passed to me from my mom and I think it's the best one I've ever tasted.

Banana Nut Bread

1/2 C Butter
1 1/2 C Sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 C Flour
1/2 C Buttermilk (Mix 1/2 milk with 1 1/2 tsp vinegar and let sit for a few minutes)
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
2 or 3 Bananas
1 C Pecans or Walnuts (optional)

Mash bananas, set aside. In seperate bowl mix dry ingredients. In another bowl cream butter and sugar, add eggs, milk and vanilla. Mix with dry ingredients, then bananas. You can mix in the nuts or sprinkle on top after you pour in a greased pan. Bake at 350* until golden brown.

Making The Most Of A Great Deal

Last weekend I found a large bag of bananas in the produce clearance basket at HEB for 99 cents. I grabbed them up planning on baking a bunch of banana bread. Today they were good and ripe so I made a triple batch of my recipe and got 2 loaves of bread and a dozen muffins out of it. I put the two loaves and 6 of the muffins in the freezer. Banana Bread like most freezes great and it's perfect to pull out when you're going on a trip, I usually don't have time to bake before we leave, for last minute get-togethers or unexpected company, which happens all of the time at my house. I feel like I got so much out of the 99 cents I spent just adding staples from my pantry.

I went out and did some sale shopping and I am super excited about some of the great deals I got today. I won't list them all because I bought so much but I had $5 off Swiffer Wet Jet coupon, it was on sale at Target for $18.29. I paired it with some Bounty paper towels, which I had a 75 cent off coupon for, to get the $5 Target gift card. Also at Target I printed off two coupons for $3/2 Market Pantry Boneless Skinless Chicken. The chicken was on sale for $6 a bag so I bought four bags. At Walgreens I spent $2.97 after using $2 in register rewards from last weeks purchases and walked out with a Bic lighter, a can and two jars of Olives. I spent a total of $109 today after going to Kroger, Target and Walgreens and came home with what I listed above as well as things like 2 half gallons of Blue Bell Ice Cream, three packages of batteries, three Febrezes, Kraft Shredded cheese (B1G1 at Kroger). With my pantry and freezer pretty well stocked I'm going to start buying only sale/coupon items and see if I can get my Grocery budget down to my goal of half ($65 a week).

Serious Savings At CVS

Today's trip to CVS:

2 Crest toothpaste $2.99 each used (2) 75 cent off coupons, received $4 in extra care bucks so it was like I paid 48 cents for both

2 boxes of Special K, 1 box of Multigrain Cheerios 3/$10 had a $1 dollar and 75 cent off coupon, received $4 in extra care bucks so it was like I paid $1.41 each

2 boxes of Rice Krispies, 2 boxes of Fruit Loops, 2 boxes of Corn Pops, on sale for $1.79 each, two $1 off coupons making them $1.46 a box

I spent $20.39 after adding $1 in extra care bucks from my last trip to my coupons, I received a total of $8 in extra care bucks for my next trip so it was like I spent $12.39!!!

Microwave Living vs. Crockpot Living

Today this was posted on the Dave Ramsey FB status: Around here we do crockpots, not microwaves. Then it hit me, I had already realized that part of my problem with money is that I was always looking for a way to put our finances on the fast track to recovery . I'm not sure how I missed Dave refering to the crockpot method of doing things when we took the course but I did. I guess I've just always been a microwave kind of person. I started to slow it down a lot last year and I'm continuing to do that this year, or at least that's my goal. I'm planning on waiting for God to do things instead of making them him happen myself. Instead of microwaving my finances I started taking the approach of the crockpot, getting the most of what I have and chipping away at what I want gone. One way of doing this is working on cutting my grocery budget in half. I know I won't be able to do it right away but hopefully by the summer I'll be there. One way of doing this is by revamping my coupon system. I didn't realize I had out grown my old one until I watched the "Extreme Couponing" and realized there was a more efficient way of doing it. So last night after we went to Fuddruckers for 99 cent kids meals where we all ate for $18 I went over to Target and bought me a zip up binder and some baseball card pages. The last two days I've been on a total organizing kick which is great because it's been awhile. Since I'm on this kick it was the perfect time for me to get my new couponing system going. So on the organzing note, I managed to get my pantry organized, my Kitchen Fairy cabinet organized and my tupperware cabinet. So crockpot living it is!!!

My Brag For The Week

Had a great week saving money, I hit the Target 75% off toy aisle on Friday a day late but was still able to get some great deals.

2 Leapster games was 24.89 now 6.22
3 Puppy In My Pockets was 9.99 now 2.48
Mini Skateboard was 4.99 now 1.24
Playskool Action Heros was 14.99 now 3.74
Iron Man 2 Lego Set was 28.49 now 7.1
Polly Pocket Fashion Magic Stage was 34.99 now 8.74
Atlantis Lego Set was 10.99 now 5.48
2 Iron Man 2 Lego Sets was 5.99 now 1.49
Iron Man 2 Lego Set was 9.99 now 2.48
Littlest Pet Shop w/ trading cards was 19.99 now 4.98
Twilight Board Game was 15.09 now 3.77
Kung Zhu Mission Control was 12.99 now 3.24
Zhu Zhy Pet Fun House was 12.99 now 3.24
Littlest Pet Shop Puzzle was 4.99 Now 2.48
Kid Tough Video Camera was 44.99 now 11.24
Zhu Zhu Pet Elevator was 20.99 now 5.02

Regular Price Total with tax= $355
Sale Price total with Tax= $91
Total money saved= $264

Another great deal I came upon this week is 6 different Lysol brand cleaners for $5. I had six
couponsand they were on sale at Walgreens for BOGO! I'm new to the Walgreens/CVS shopping so I'm still learning. Like this week I lost $2 in register rewards on Pantene products. The sale was 2/$7 with $2 in register rewards, I had coupons for $3 off 2 so that would have made each of the 4 Pantene products $1 each. Unfortunately I can only get the register rewards for one of those purchases, I needed to do two seperate transactions. I was bummed about the $2 I lost but next time I'll know.

This year my goal is to cut my grocery bill in half. I want to bring it from $4oo dollars a month down to $200. This is including household items like cleaners, toothpaste, shampoo, ect. I've been looking at my last couple of shopping trips and realized that if I plan my meals according to what's on sale on not just what I feel like making,along with my coupons, I'll come out a lot cheaper. At least that's what I hope, we'll see. This will cause me to make more trips to the grocery store but if it will cut down my grocery bill it will be worth it. I've got some debt for that extra money to go to!