Meal Plan Monday

It's monday here, and it's pouring rain. I've got 2 loaves of bread in the oven, and the house smells wonderful. I'm almost done with the laundry and K-girl is sleeping. I'm feeling pretty random today, and i need some structure. Here's what I'm planning for this week. Grocery day is friday, so I'm feeling good. I bought 10 lbs of tilapia last week, knowing that fish is healthy for you, and we never eat it. So I've got to find lots of fish recipes to try!!

Like I said, I'm feeling pretty random and unorganized today, so these meals are VERY vauge. . .

Monday: Something with tortillas, maybe tortilla stack. . .
Tuesday: crunchy fish fillets
Wednesday: chef's salad
Thursday: meatloaf, or something with ground beef
Friday:chicken of somesort. . .feeding sister and her boyfriend before her big marathon, so a carb-filled meal
Saturday: leftovers/fend for yourself--probably fish patties
Sunday: grandma's chicken

hrm. . .that's something!

Meal Plan Monday

I'm usually really good at planning our meals out. I do it for about 2 weeks at a time, from payday to payday, then shop on payday.

I also don't eat the meals on certain days, and I plan for leftovers! Mostly because I can't cook for less than 6 people. I just make a list and we'll eat them sometime during the week :)

Here's what we're doing:
baked potatoes with artichoke sauce
pasta/meatballs
gyoza, miso soup, and rice
mini meat mounds
rice and lentils
leftovers
Fend for yourself (FFY) (I do this on nights Captain jax is working nights, because I don't like cooking for just me, since K-girl doesn't care what she eats)

Sooo. . .what are you eating this week? :)

My new toy--or a late food storage friday post

I did it. I bought it today. My wheat grinder!!


I'm so excited! It was kind of pricey, (around the $260 price) but it holds 12 cups of flour, is more compact than the others I looked at, and I've read god reviews on it. Plus a lifetime warranty on the milling heads? Not too shabby. The most important thing to me was size. I needed something that I could store in my limited space here in the basement. Because this one is two parts, the mill and the flour container, I can grind a full 12 cups of flour, keep it in the container in the kitchen and store the mill in the storage room.

I'm making a loaf of bread with the flour right now. I'll let you know how it works out :)

Oh yeah, this also grinds beans! that means I can try the bean flour cream'o'chicken soup recipe I got from everydayfoodstorage. Woot! :)

What Are You Willing To Pay?

This is something I struggle with. I have a hard time knowing what a good price for something is. I try to use coupons as much as I can, but it doesn't always work. Bethany, over at The Good Ship Lollipop, posted what the highest amount she would pay for certain things.

What Are You Willing To Pay?

It made me feel better knowing I'm not doing too bad! I always feel like things are ridicuously priced, but I did a few calculations and realized a lot of things I buy are under what she would pay. And she's a bargin QUEEN.

Sugar for example, I paid about $.30 a lb, which was great, and for boneless/skinless, I won't pay above $1.50. Of course, we live in different states and things are probably different because of that.

Go check her out and see how you're doing!

Budgeting

I just went through my bank account from Jan 1st, to today. I wanted to see where all our money was going, because I seems like we can't put money away in savings no matter how hard we try, and we're not really living within our means.

Which bugs me a lot, because for crying out loud, we live in my in-laws basement. Rent is NOT that expensive, we should be able to put money away right?

Here's what I learned:

• We eat out (either Captain Jax going out for lunch, or picking food up for us on his way home) W-A-Y too often.
• We need to pay off our debt
• We need to stop using 'extra' features on our phones (like texting)
• Besides those things, we were actually doing pretty good.

Let me tell you about my budget and how I set it up, and maybe it will help you get one. I plan for two weeks at a time. We get paid every two weeks so I plan from paycheck to paycheck. And even though it scares me a little bit, I'm going to share actual figures with you here. *deep breath*

Paycheck #1/#2
Budget amount: $600/$600

Church Offering	$75/75
Rent	$250/$0
Food	$75/$75
Gas	$50/$50
Phone	$75/$75
Captain Jax	$25/$25
Krystal	$25/$25
Debt	$25/$0
Savings	$0/$250

Actual Amount:$600/$575

This is my goal. And we're starting fresh this pay period. I'll let you know how we do.

Now, tell me about how you budget, and what works for you? Perhaps I can glean some information from you that will work for us! :)

GIVEAWAY!!

I've been spending a lot of time with the Fun With Food Storage Gals lately. The desire and need to have a plan in place has been really strong lately and our family has been focusing on it. Almost all extra money goes towards that. Almost. :) We still like to play.

They have a baby-steps checklist that they email to you every two weeks. Then you spend those two weeks getting everything for the baby step they emailed you. When the next one comes in two weeks, you're ready for it. After a year you should have everything in place from where to store your food, to water, to knowing what you have on hand.

Baby steps. . . baby steps to the food storage :) (that's from "What About Bob?" in case you haven't seen it)


Anyway, now they have created an ebook for you to purchase!! Then, those of us who don't have the patience to wait for all the emails to come can download it for just $17!! WOOT!!!

And you can enter for a chance to win it for free!! We all love our free stuff don't we? I'm a cheapskate, you all know that! All you need to do it blog about, twitter it, facebook it, email it. . .GET THE WORD OUT THERE!!! Then go check out their site for their email and let them know that you did. :)

Red Box Wednesday

Every Monday and Wednesday, you can find codes to get free rentals from Redbox. I'm going to start doing my best to post those for you!

Here's today's code, good until midnight tonight: GTL456

If you need help finding a redbox near you, check out Redbox.com