Friday, August 16, 2013



Butterfly Garden
The big event of the week was my 6 week post-op checkup Tuesday. I'm cleared 
for full activity again. So I wanted to do something fun with Teresa 
and Matthew since we had been stuck at home a lot.
We went to park with a butterfly house in the big city.


Teresa took most of the photos. I thought she did a great job.

It's been very nice to be able to pick up Matthew again and hold him.
Caterpillars were much smaller than I thought they would be. The park 
volunteers had to help us find them.
Can you see the big fish? Teresa made me nervous near the ponds.
The ponds had lots of turtles too.
Sweet Teresa- I distracted her from climbing the tree by taking her picture. The park is an arboretum too so you are supposed to not damage the trees.
For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

August Grocery Budget Part #2

This past week I haven't done as well on spending
.

Friday the 9th 
$55 at the farm where we have a herd share for milk.
5 gallons milk
2 lbs ground beef
7 lbs or so of hamburger patties
All of the above is organic grass fed Jersey yumminess.

Sunday the 11th
$6 Kroger
Vinegar and fresh dill for the refrigerator pickles from our garden's pickle cucumbers.
I have never ever made pickles. We are eager to see how they turn out.

Tuesday the 13th
$44 Trader Joe's
4lbs nuts
2 boxes of crispy rice
1 box of O's cereal
2 packages corn dogs
1 box of chocolate cat cookies
I had a doctor appointment in the big city so I did a stop at Trader Joe's. It's about 50 miles away so we rarely make a separate trip there.David is taking cheesecake for a work snack day soon and we use the cat cookies in the crust.

Today the 14th
$6 Walmart
Mac Cheese
Spaghettios

Total for the Month $275 so $25 above where I wanted to be but we have done our very occasional Trader Joe trip and we have hamburger patties which is one of our quick meals so we won't order pizza or something.

The pickles- These are 1/2 gallon jars. They aren't packed tight but it was too much for one.

August Grocery Budget

Mary at Owlhaven is trying this month to rein in her grocery spending. I'm joining her even though our budget is more per person I still find it hard to stick to budget. Several months ago we starting splitting out food and non food in the budget to see better our spending patterns. I'm focusing on the food portion of our budget. The non food seems to be pretty consistent. I must not overspend on toilet paper much. Anyways so my budget is $500 for August.

Last week I only spent $49. I dug deep into the freezer and we ate leftovers but keeping that week under control helped so much. We had scalloped potatoes with ham (leftover from Easter) chicken stir fry and spaghetti for dinners. Since there is only 3 adults eating the meals we can usually get two days from one meal I cook. I didn't save the receipts from last week.

Today we went to Aldi. $59

3 packages chicken breast (about 5lbs total)
2lbs talipia
2 lbs grapes
4 lbs strawberries
1 celery
3lbs baby carrots
1 large bunch bananas
sliced provolone cheese
sliced cheddar cheese
plastic (american) cheese
8oz block cheddar cheese
8 oz block cojack cheese
10 lbs potatoes
2 lbs brown sugar
1 lb pecans
1 gallon milk
2 (not 1/2 gallons) ice cream
stevia packets
can refried beans

So that brings my food total so far to $108 for the month. I need to go to Kroger tonight and I'm picking up milk tomorrow at the farm so I'm not finished for the week. I want to be around $200 tomorrow which would leave me with $50 to spend at Trader Joe's Tuesday while I'm in the big city for a doctor appt.

Here's the dinner menu for the week.
Talapia
Tacos
BBQ chicken
Chicken Alfredo
Pork Chops
Meat Pizza
Leftovers

I'm taking Mac Cheese Sun Chips Hot Dogs and drinks to a family picnic on Saturday. Megan is bringing a dessert and Teresa is trying to talk me into making lemon bars to take too.

Kroger Trip $56
2 pkg hot dogs
2 12oz  pkg bacon
2 lbs sausage
1 sm package pepperoni
1 large turkey lunch meat
5 lemons ( I bought organic since Teresa wanted lemon bars and the recipe uses the zest)
9 vitamin waters
2 2liters pop
1 pkg capri sun
2 bags sun chips
4 pork chops
1 gallon oj
1 miracle whip
1 sour cream
1 cottage cheese
 

Total for Month $164

THIS WAS ACTUALLY  LAST WEEK ON THE 8TH. I FORGOT TO POST IT! :)