Albertson's - Roundup Coupons this week

Albertson's is running the "round-up" coupon deal this week. Any manufacturer's coupon $.25 to $.99 will be rounded up to $1.00 off. Coupons below $.25 will be quadrupled. Even with the Pantry Challenge I might stop by for eggs and some health/beauty or cleaning items depending on the deals I find.

Katie

2 Week Meal Plan

In an effort to make our groceries stretch 2 weeks I'm planning ahead.

Week 1 dinners:
Grilled Cheese and Minestrone Soup
Stuffed Bell Peppers - meat & corn from freezer, rice & tomato sauce from pantry
English Muffin Pizza - english muffins from freezer, spaghetti sauce from pantry
Turkey/mashed potatoes - turkey from freezer
Taco Bar at Bible study
Spinach Chicken Casserole - freezer meal swap
Russian Chicken - Crockpot meal since I won't be home for dinner

Week 2 dinners:
Beef Stroganoff - Beef from freezer, noodles from pantry
Turkey Pot Pie - Mom's night out
No meal - Wedding
Roasted Chicken - from freezer meal swap
No meal - Date Night
Macaronada - pasta from pantry, garlic from freezer (and leftover chicken)
Leftovers or freezer meal

Katie

Weekend Shopping

I'm in a little disarray this week as far as organization goes. We were on a trip to California and ended up with cancelled flights trying to get home due to the big snowstorm in the Seattle area. After 5 flight cancellations over the course of three days we made it home to our cold house and empty fridge. I made a quick stop at the grocery store for necessities like milk & fruit immediately.
This was $14.17 at QFC. Definitely not as painful as it could be.

When I had time to look through the ads I made a bigger trip the following day.
I was a little dismayed to realize I had two big food events coming up including a taco bar to feed 7 families at our small group Bible study and turkey pot pies for my freezer meal swap next week. And I just remembered to pull the turkey out of the freezer as I typed that! I hope it defrosts by tomorrow morning since I want to cook it tomorrow and assemble the pies on Friday. Here's what I bought for $74.65.
On the left are the items for the meal swap. Potatoes, frozen veggies, and organic celery. I already have the turkey, carrots, and crusts. Those totaled $8.06.

In the center of the table is the food for the taco bar. 6# of ground turkey, cheese, bell pepper, 30 tortillas, 2 bags of chips, sour cream, green onions. I have salsa and olives in my pantry and a couple pounds of ground beef I'll add to the turkey. Other wives are providing other side items like rice, beans, lettuce, and guacamole. This was a costly meal, mostly because it snuck up on me. All this food totaled $36.14.

I was really disappointed to spend so much because I want to only spend $30/week during the pantry challenge. I figure if I don't count the meal swap or taco bar items I spent $44.62 on food for my family. I decided to try and stretch these groceries for 2 weeks so I bought extra bananas and milk to tide us over. The fruit is enough because we can use the canned fruit in the pantry, too, but I think 3 gallons of milk isn't going to be enough for 2 whole weeks. I'm being stingy with it so we'll see.

Katie

Weekly Shopping - Top

I went to Top this week and spent $36.82

My shopping this week included chips because I have a dinner in the freezer we eat with chips. Also, the girls love nachos for lunch.

The spiral sliced ham was $1.49/lb - $15.00
Milk - $3.75 (all organic in-house brand 30%off)
Cheese - $5
Organic 1# carrots - 4 at $.89 each (making pot pie for my meal swap next week)
Chips - $1.88 each
Sour Cream - $1.00
Potatoes - TOO MUCH! 3 potatoes cost as much as a 10# bag. I won't be doing that again.
Organic pears, conventional bananas and cucumber. A few more bucks.

I'm going to try and keep the groceries under $30/week for the rest of the pantry challenge. The point is to eat what we have so I'm going to focus more on that and not buy food for "new" meals. For example, getting suckered into an expensive ham purchase because it was a great per pound price and I love the ham slices all ready to go for lunches and breakfasts.

Katie

Thrift Store Christmas Deals

I had a great time thrift store shopping in my hometown the week after Christmas. One of the local stores had all their Christmas items on clearance for $.25 each! Can you believe it included fake trees? If I hadn't been working hard on clearing stuff out for ProjectTwentySix I totally would have gone for a small tree or two.

As it is I got a lot of stuff I didn't really need, but it was great to find so much for just a quarter!

I also snagged 8 canning jars for $1.00! And a wedding veil for my girls' dress up box for $.37 - Too good to pass up!

Katie

Pantry Challenge Menu Plan

I've been busy making meals from my freezer and pantry. Here's 10 days worth:

Cheesy Penne (Freezer Meal)
Green Curry Chicken (Freezer Meal)
Mexican Chicken (Freezer Meal)
Stew (meat from freezer dated February 2011, green beans from freezer/garden)
Dinner at my family
Dinner at in-laws
Ham & au gratin potatoes (potatoes from pantry)
Easy Turkey Pot pie (turkey from freezer dated April 2011, stuffing mix, soup from pantry)
Bagels/Finger Food for kids - we're going out for our anniversary
Leftovers

Katie

Pantry Challenge 2012

Hi Friends,

I'm using most of my spare time (ha!) to blog over at ProjectTwentySix but am continuing my annual tradition of a Pantry Challenge to start the new year.

Basically I'm going to buy only perishable food for the next six weeks or so and try to use up my store.

Here are the two food shelves in my pantry:

Here is the the pantry top to bottom including the bulk food bins on the floor:

Here is the inside freezer:

I've been doing the Pantry Challenge all week but haven't managed to blog about it until today. Here's my shopping from earlier in the week. Note that it's all perishable except the cough drops.
My Fred Meyer was out of spinach, cheddar, kiwi and roma tomatoes so I went to different one the next day for the rest of my shopping list.

I'll try to post once a week about how the pantry challenge is going. These groceries cost $42.24

Katie