happy at home

TUESDAY MENU AND GROCERY SPENDING

Today's Menu:
For breakfast this morning we had eggs in a basket. We have just recently started having these, and the boys love to make AND eat them. We also had fresh peaches and milk
For lunch, I had leftover pesto pasta and salad. The boys had PB & J, baby carrots, and water.
We will have having dinner tonight at my parents house, to celebrate Darcie's tenth birthday. We are so happy that we will be celebrating at home, instead of in the hospital!

I bought groceries this morning and am already waaaaaay over the $50 a week budget. I had several big items to pay for this week. No worries though. I will just make up the difference in next week's grocery bill. I still have apples, eggs, and milk to purchase later on this week. We are also running low on bread, but I am planning to make some. Here is what pushed my grocery budget over the edge this week.

10 pounds of sugar to make jam: $5.11 (just as an aside: I am planning to make two kinds of muscadine jam, then compare. One, that uses only grapes and sugar (no pectin), the other, that uses only grapes and pectin (no sugar). Who knows, I may end up making a third kind that uses grapes, pectin, and sugar!).

Ingredients for Darcie's birthday cake: $5.56 (cocoa, butter, cream cheese). She wanted a rich chocolate cake with pink frosting. I am using this recipe for the cake, and this recipe for the icing.

Bulk order of grapes and pizza crusts from Matt: $27. Two days after saying that I usually don't order from Matt, I placed an order! Oh well. I ordered 22 pounds of grapes, which I split with Brandy (who is also doing 30 of Nothing). I ordered a case of pizza crusts to make pizzas to freeze for nights when we have lots of company with kids, and for date nights when the kids are with a sitter. I am going to keep experimenting with homemade crusts until I find one that I like (the last two haven't been great) but for now, these will do. My kids love frozen grapes, so most of these will be washed, dried, and frozen for a yummy snack. They should (hopefully!) last us through the month.

Stocking up at the Discount Food Store: $25.94 Since they will be closing, I stocked up on things that I have no need for now, but will in the future. Here is an itemized list.
Taco Shells $0.85
Kids Vitamins $2.50
Airborne (2) $6
Loose-leaf organic Earl Gray Tea $3.50
Ivory Bar soap (2, for laundry detergent) $1
Shampoo/Conditioner (3) $5
Facial lotion w/ SPF $3
Artichoke hearts $1.25
Black beans (I normally use dry beans, but I do like to keep a can of beans for those days that I haven't planned ahead) $0.50

For the rest of my grocery needs, I went to Sav A Lot. I had never been, but several friends have recommended it. I was very pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness and the selection. I also prefer small stores, so I appreciated that too. I purchased the few things I needed for the house, as well as baking supplies for Darcie's cake.
Baking Soda $0.49
Toilet paper (4 double rolls) $2.19
Cream Cheese $1.08
Butter $2.29
Cocoa $1.79

This brings my grocery spending for the week to $68.13 and my weekly allowance (in order to stay under $200 this month) down to $43.95.