January 13, 2018

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Money I Spent $:  Total: $193.21!! Say WHAA?? Well let’s break it down.
Groceries:
at Sprouts $5.65
at Smiths $38.29
at Costco $34.27 (salmon and tilapia as we are trying to eat more fish!)
total groceries $78.21. We had $11 carryover from last week, so technically we were only over by $17. Overall I still think this is a success, as we can easily spend $150/week when we aren’t paying attention AND BECAUSE buying the fish was a conscious decision. Like… do we want to be over budget for this fish? We thought about it and decided that yes, this was fine. This is better than just mindlessly tossing stuff in the cart because it looks yummy or we MIGHT be ALMOST out of it at home.

Other: I bought a case of protein shakes for $19.99 for 18 shakes. Typically these run about 1.80-2.00 each, and these are only $1.11 each. I like these because they are only 2 points each on WW and they actually taste good. So I am OK with this expense.

Other Other: Sabrina has been complaining about ankle pain for a few months. I think her footwear is to blame as she wears generic Walmart wanna-be-keds to PE and cheer practice, and they have NO support. So rather than taking her to the doctor, I took her to get new shoes. We went to Famous Footwear and found some good Nike cross-training shoes for $60, which after tax was around $65.  Expensive but cheaper than $400 in copays and x-rays and stuff. And if she outgrows them before she destroys them I’ll sell them on ebay.

Other Other Other: Sabrina needed new school supplies for the new semester, which ended up costing almost $30 (the big-ass binder alone was $11.99… crazy).

Money Victory ($ I avoided spending): Worked extremely hard to get our grocery bills for Sprouts + Smiths to under $50, and came in at about $44. I look through flyers, online sales, paper coupons, coupons.com, Sprouts App coupons, Smiths app coupons, ibotta rebate app, and Checkout 51 rebate app. It’s a ton of work, but it’s worth it. Got some good deals with coupons today. A free chobani flip at Sprouts, 2 chobani yogurts for 33c each at Sprouts, 1 free chobani at Smiths, a free bag of organic popcorn at Smiths, bagged and brick cheese for about $1.20 each at Smiths. Ed wanted some blue cheese crumbles for salads, but they are $4.99 per tub. But I found a Manager’s Special chunk of blue cheese for $1.50, and asked him if he could just crumble it himself. Saved some good $ there.

Every now and then I actually remember to do my ibotta and Checkout 51 rebates. I have $13.55 in ibotta and $15.50 in Checkout 51, so it adds up over time, slowly.

Use It Up Challenge: For dinner, I made a ham that’s been in our freezer since Thanksgiving. Made a glaze out of stuff we had: dijon mustard, worchestershire sauce, brown sugar, and red chile powder. It was great! Also used up an acorn squash that’s been on the counter for months. Cut in half, scrape out seeds, microwave 7 minutes. Sautee mushrooms (homegrown shiitake mushrooms!!) and onions until brown, then fill the acorn squash halves with this mix, sprinkle some Parmesan on top, and bake for 10 minutes. I also fried some parsley leaves in brown butter to go on top. I also took the acorn squash seeds and roasted them for a little snack.

Saved mushroom stems and onion skins for the beef stock I’m going to make tomorrow.

Thoughts:  Tomorrow I’m going to roast a chicken and make some beef stock. Then we should have enough chicken and ham leftovers to eat for lunches and dinners all week!

One day this coming week I’m going to stop by the Farmer’s Market on Eubank/Snowheights to check their produce prices.