Wednesday, February 17, 2010

First PB & J

Today for lunch Clara had her first ever peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And actually it was her first sandwich of any kind. I've given her bread with various toppings before, but never put together like a sandwich. Considering that she prefers to use her fork whenever possible this was a new experience for her.


She definitely thought the pb&j was yummy!

Can you tell in this last picture that she speared the whole piece of bread with her fork?

Coloring - good, Stickers - bad

I'm a big girl! I like to color! And I've grown up enough now that I'll actually color for a bit and not only focus on eating the crayons.



What is this that you gave me, mom? It's a sticker? So I'm supposed to stick this on the paper? This is interesting. I'm not sure what to think of this.

Okay, I've decided I don't like stickers! No matter how hard I try I can't seem to get them off my fingers. Please don't make me play with stickers!


Helping daddy

Clara very much wants to be part of the action lately. Last night Jeremy was washing some dishes after dinner and Clara wanted to help. Or at least she wanted a front row seat to see what was going on up there in the sink. They looked so cute together I couldn't resist taking a few pictures.


Tuesday, February 9, 2010

My grocery shopping / menu planning strategy

Since some of you have asked, today I'm going to share my basic strategy for how I approach our grocery shopping and meal planning. At least for this month, I'm trying to keep our grocery spending to about $30 per week. For those of you that do the grocery shopping in your family, you know $30 doesn't go very far so this takes a little planning before I hit the stores.

Step 1:
I gather the paper ads or look them up online and make a list of the best deals and also any staples that I know we need that week. I will usually look at Rainbow, Cub and Target for sure. Sometimes also Walmart and Aldi. I know that's a lot of stores, but I like to know what the best deals are and then I can always shorten my list later.

Step 2:
Next I scan my fridge for anything that needs to be used up that week before it spoils. It's always a bummer to throw money away because you let something go bad and had to throw it out.

Step 3:
Then I sit down with my calendar and plan our meals for the week, focusing on using what's in our fridge as well as whatever is on a great sale that week. For weekdays I just plan our dinners. For weekends I plan lunches and dinners. (I'm planning another post with more tips on choosing your meals.)

Step 4:
Next I search my coupon file and www.hotcouponworld.com for any coupons that I want to use that week. You'll see in the picture above that I bought a newspaper this week with our grocery money. They always put a flier in there for a discounted subscription so we're going to try it out and see if we like having it delivered. It is only going to cost us $.99 per week so I'm sure it will be worth it because I'll save more than that using coupons that come in the paper. I also like www.hotcouponworld.com because they keep a database of all the coupons that are available online, so each week I take my shopping list and search for the items on their website and often I find some coupons that I can print off.

Step 5:
This is probably the hardest part of the process. My final step is to take my shopping list and start trimming it down until it's within my budget for the week. It's pretty much inevitable that there will be things I will have to pass on, but I try to remind myself that there will always be good deals again in future weeks. And God is good - we have never even come close to going hungry!

Sunday is when I usually do all my planning because that's when the new ads come out for the week. This past Sunday I think the above process took me an hour or less. Sometimes it takes longer than that, depending on how focused I am and whether or not Clara is wanting my attention. That might seem like a lot of time, but I guess it's worth it to me because we just have to stick to our budget. Maybe I'll get faster over time!

After I was finished with all the planning, I left Jeremy and Clara at home and I ventured out to do the shopping. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to hit up Walgreens (for a great diaper deal), the bank, Rainbow and Cub. They are all within probably two miles of our house so I do think it's worth it sometimes to visit multiple stores in order to snag great deals. I don't do that every week though. Sometimes I'm just not up for all that running around so I decide to spend slightly more on something for the convenience of only making one stop. It's all about weighing things out and deciding what works best for our family that particular week.

And what did I get for my $30?
Cantaloupe $1.98
Green pepper $.50
Red pepper $.98
Tomato $1.67
2 1/2 lbs bananas $1.24
2 1/4 lbs grapes $2.94 (a savings of $3.88)
2 lbs sweet potatoes $1.85
3 lbs Chicken breasts $4.98
10 lbs Chicken leg quarters $3.90 (a savings of $8.09!)
cottage cheese $1.25 (50% savings)
2 packs of cheese slices $3.09 (50% savings)
Can pineapple $1.35
2 loaves of bread $3
Sunday newspaper $1.75

I spent a total of $30.38 and saved over $18 (Cub doesn't show savings very well on their receipts). I was able to get us a bunch of fresh produce and 13 pounds of chicken!

Now you want to know what we're eating for dinners this week?
M- Steak, baked potatoes, fresh steamed broccoli
T- Sweet & sour chicken skewers, brown rice, frozen veggie
W- Leftovers or sandwiches (Wednesdays we bring dinner to church and eat w/Jeremy)
Th- Pork chops, sweet potatoes, frozen mixed veggie
F- Spicy black bean burgers, tator tots, apple slices
Sa lunch- Homemade sausage pizza, orange slices
Sa dinner- Burritos (using tortillas I got for free last week on double coupon day), chips and salsa, applesauce
Sunday- Not sure yet what our plans are...it's Valentine's Day!

So Monday's broccoli and Saturday's burritos were chosen because they were items that I already had and needed to use before they spoil. I chose sweet potatoes for Thursday because there are on sale this week. And I chose the chicken skewers for Tuesday because it's a new recipe I've been wanting to try and it uses red bell pepper, which is on sale this week.

Now that this post has become quite long I'll wrap it up, but more tips to come soon.

Friday, February 5, 2010

35 weeks


I'm 35 weeks today, which means we are rapidly approaching the finish line. Or the starting line...however you want to look at it I guess. :)

The pregnancy is going well for sure. I have the typical heartburn, back pain, Braxton-Hicks contractions, etc, but really nothing to complain about considering the complications that some women experience. At this point in my pregnancy with Clara I was taking naps on an almost daily basis and enjoying the ability to rest whenever I wanted. That definitely isn't happening this time around since Clara is keeping me quite busy, but I'm still hanging in there.

At my appointment today they estimated the baby to weigh about 5 lbs. 6 oz. which would put her on track to weigh about the same as Clara if I go full-term.

Preparations for this baby are moving right along. I've got about 14 meals and a few side dishes stocked away in the freezer for those first few crazy weeks. I'm hoping to get some more made, although I'm definitely slowing down and losing my motivation for things like that now. Clara's closet has been reorganized to make room for another person's clothes, and a load of our smallest baby things have been washed and put away. The cradle is out and we've got diapers to get us through the first 3-4 weeks. There are plenty of other things that it would be nice to get done before she comes, but at this point if I went into labor tonight I wouldn't be too stressed. Although I haven't yet packed a hospital bag and Jeremy and I can't seem to agree on a name, so hopefully she waits a little longer before she makes her grand entrance. :)

Clara had to be included in this picture because otherwise you would have seen her little crying face down in the corner and her hands reaching up for me. For some reason she wants me to hold her a lot lately. Unfortunate timing considering my belly is getting bigger and bigger every day!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Grocery shopping and menu planning


I've been thinking about reviving my posts about grocery shopping and meal planning, at least sporadically on the weeks that I feel like I'm up to it. Then last night my mom saw my meal plan posted on the fridge and she said I should really be posting that on my blog each week so she can take ideas from it, so here goes.

Now that we've had a few months in our new house and we're getting a feel for our increased expenses related to that I'm feeling the need to renew my efforts to keep our grocery bill as low as possible. At least for this month, my intent is to spend only $30 each week on groceries. That does not include baby items or household items - just groceries.

So this week I went a little over and spent a grand total of $37.05 which means I'll have to make up for that in the coming weeks. I went to Aldi, Target and Walmart earlier in the week but I wasn't able to take a picture of those shopping trips because I didn't have access to my camera then. The picture above is just from today at Rainbow. Wednesdays are double coupon day there and I decided I probably need to try and take advantage of that again. I haven't done a double coupon day in quite awhile. I spent $15.54 there, but without sales and double coupons all that would have cost me $30.45. That's a savings of almost 50%!

And here's our meal plan for this week:

M- Leftover taco soup, bread w/butter
T- Love soup (terrible name but it tasted good), homemade bread
W- Red beans & rice, cornbread muffins, orange slices
Th- Salmon, roasted broccoli spears, baked potatoes
F- Spaghetti & meatballs, salad, homemade french bread w/garlic butter
Sa lunch- Tuna melts, chips, apple slices
Sa dinner- Steak, baked potatoes, steamed veggie
S lunch- leftovers or maybe omelets
S dinner- homemade pizza, veggies and dip

Several friends have asked me how I pull off spending so little on groceries. I definitely don't have all the answers and I know there are plenty of people that do better than me on this subject, but I'll try in the coming weeks to share some of my strategies here.