Thursday, March 12, 2009

How Do we Do It?

People often ask me how we do it, how we manage to get by. This week is a good example of how I cook (thank you Jennifer and Rachel for helping me not slack for dinner on Monday!).
  • Monday we had the aforementioned black beans and rice, with a side of spinach.
  • Tuesday we had tacos with a side of refried black beans made from Monday's left overs.
  • Wednesday we had spinach and cheese omelets for breakfast with the leftover spinach from Monday and left over cheese from Tuesday. For dinner we had whole grain noodles with the leftover taco meat for those who wanted meat sauce, and cut up veggies on the side.
  • Tonight we're having baked chicken drumsticks, with a side of rice (left over from Monday) and some broccoli.
  • Tomorrow will be baked honey garlic lime tilapia with the extra lime I have from Monday and some salad with the left over, uncooked spinach and some field greens. For those who eat them we'll have baked potatoes. And most likely a broccoli and cheddar fritatta for breakfast.
  • Saturday I'll make some soup with the left over chicken and cut up veggies from Wednesday (at least the carrots and celery), with stock made from discarded vegetable trimmings.
And that is very reflective of how we eat most weeks. Lunches are usually peanut butter or cheese, crackers or sandwiches and fruit, though when it's on sale lunch meat will sometimes appear. For lunches we will also have soup from Saturdays, or leftovers from during the week. Snacks for us are mostly fruit, nuts, and popcorn. I buy one bag each of potato chips, pretzels, and tortilla chips every other week when I grocery shop and when they're gone they're gone.

I still don't have a good plan for breakfast, but hope to remedy that as I start feeling a little better in the morning.

I forgot to add: the cost...for 6 days of dinner and 2 breakfasts- for us 7: about $40 with organic veggies and brown rice, cage free organic eggs and hormone/antibiotic free ground beef.

4 comments:

  1. oh my! ok, i've got to learn your secret to spending less at the grocery store. i'm assuming that amt. is for the dinner and 2 b'fasts like you mentioned which is awesome. do you mind sharing how much you spend each week...including lunches, snacks, and toilet paper and the like....no worries if you want to keep that private. just trying to figure out what is possible! thanks..oh, how was the meet today? can't wait to hear about it!

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  2. For two weeks we spend right now on average $175-$200. If I didn't buy the Mexican junk food my husband really likes to have around, as well as some other junk he likes to have (but is not at all adamant about)...It'd be a little less. I go to the evil place (Wal Mart) once a month to buy trash bags, toilet paper, baggies, etc. Any deodorant or whatever that we need. I also do the grocery shopping while I'm there...the other shopping trip every month I go to Ingles. I'd like to be more diligent about making bread more frequently than I do--or doing a better job getting our double fiber, no corn syrup bread at the day old bread store.

    I could do better if I really watched and shopped for sales...planning our meals around what's on sale, and stocking up on items like bags when they're BOGO...but I am very anti-stockpiling, and I just cannot get organised or motivated enough to go to 5 different stores. I could also do better if I used coupons--but again I'm not organised enough, and honestly I make everything I can as close to from scratch as possible as often as I can--and there just aren't coupns for Organic Shoyu soy sauce in the Sunday paper (which we don't get anyway.) I don't want to spend time saving money--because that still involves cost...not monetary cost, but that time clipping and filing and utilizing coupons, or driving from store to store is very valuable to me.

    It's important to note--that though we are trying...diligently...and have been trying for years now to get her to stop. My MIL buys a huge portion of our milk. (She also buys crap like pop tarts and ice cream and brownies and will not stop buying peanut butter or coffee--though those are both things which I buy regularly). I usually buy a couple gallons when I go to the store...but she buys milk--literally nearly everyday from wherever it's on sale. If we were paying for all of our own milk-it's likely be an additional $30 every two weeks.

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  3. i'm still very impressed! i don't clip coupons either...no time and we don't get the paper either. i too go to walmart b/c you just can't beat the prices, though i'm often cursing under my breath at the checkout. i keep trying to cut our costs too....it's hard. you are inspiring me to see if i can cut back some. unfortunately fresh/healthy is more expensive. if i can't get fresh, i get frozen.i usually only do cans for beans or tomatoes, but try to do frozen or fresh for other fruits and veggies. natural p'nut butter is more and 100% whole wheat bread is more...i try to watch the sugar content in our food and save the sugars for dessert/treats on occassion. thankfully, we all love veggies! we got a cow w/ some other folks this year, so we do have a lot of beef! let me know if you need any hamburger!

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  4. my comment didn't make sense--ha---i meant that the natural pnut butter and whole wheat bread are more $$ (i forgot the dollar sign) , but i prefer to buy those b/c they have less sugar. i'm going to check out the label for the bread i normally buy...only 1 g. of sugar, but now i want to see the if it has corn syrup.....

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