Tuesday, March 2, 2010

I went shopping at Sam's on Sunday during AWANA. I felt I had a detailed list of things I needed from Sam's and a separate list of things I needed from a regular grocery store. I did well for the most part and have meals planned out for about a week and I believe I spent a lot less money than I normally due. I really want to get this down to a science.

So, Saturdays are usually easy meal days, cereal, left-overs, etc. Unless, Vance wants to cook something. We had pizza for lunch and Vance cooked up a bunch of chips so I heated up some refried beans, cut up lettuce and I also bought a 5lb. bag of shredded cheese. I have found that cubed cheese is about 23 cents per ounce and the shredded is 18 cents per ounce and we usually shred all of our cheese anyway. The only catch is having to buy 2lbs. more than usual. I've taken to bringing a calculator with me to Sam's and saving all the receipts from both stores so I can figure what the better buy is. I'm hoping to have most of our regular groceries down to a science.
For instance, I can't find any canned foods for under 79 cents a can. So, if anyone sees a sale for any canned goods under that amount, let me know!!!

Sunday, I prepared meatloaf and mashed potatoes and found that 2lbs. is no where near enough to make meatloaf to feed the whole family. Three pounds should be good.I bought more chocolate muffins at Sam's so we had that for breakfast on Monday morning. The kids always look forward to this. I can feed the whole family two mornings with these muffins that cost $6.34. We almost always have milk and sometimes fruit with this breakfast so I figure this breakfast is about 45 cents per person. That's less than cereal (unless I get that on sale).

Lunch both yesterday and today was left-overs. This is the best way to make sure food doesn't go to waste.Yesterday's dinner got the most compliments I've rec'd in a long time...Grilled teryaki chicken (it was just warm enough to stand outside and grill), a fresh green salad and jasmine rice. Certainly not a $5 meal, but I figure it was definitely under $10, so about $1.00 per person.

So, I'm thinking with a 50 cent average per person for breakfast, that or less for lunch and $1 per person for dinner...I spend approx. $20 a day to feed our family which is $600 per month. My goal is to decrease that to $400. So, more cream of wheat and oatmeal for breakfasts and may have to cut the muffins and maybe take out meat from the dinner menu once or twice per week (at least chicken and fish) the elk is already in the freezer. We'll have to test this out and see if it makes a difference.