Thursday, July 25, 2013

Costco Savings Tips

I read an article today that had some good Costco tips. 

My Takeaways:
  • Save all Costco receipts
  • Keep an eye on prices of what I usually buy to see if they have changed
  • Look for asterisk on items I am interested in
  • Look for $x.00 and $x.88 tags because they are markdowns
I also want to add that I'm not entirely comfortable with the example in #4.  What do you think?  

Have a read here: http://dailysavings.allyou.com/2013/07/25/costco-coupons/

 Katie

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Weekly Shopping - $164.97

OK - I still can't find the camera cord so I'll just add up my totals.

Tuesday morning I went to QFC for fruit and found a bunch of diary clearance stuff, too.  I spent $20.46.

Our milk also was delivered Tuesday for $11.16.

Tuesday night I went to Haggen to pick up half pint canning jars that were on sale & with coupon worked out to $6.99 for the dozen.  I also bought the 5# brick of Tillamook for $10, mangoes for $.67, and limes.   I hadn't been into Haggen for awhile, but was impressed at their big selection of organic produce.  I spent $14.65 on food.

I took the kids to a park playdate on Thursday and realized I was awfully close to Dollar Tree in Kenmore so we popped in.  I bought pepperoni, Progresso tomato base, tortillas, and whipped cream for ice cream sundaes.  I spent $13.00.

Friday I hosted a few ladies for papercrafting and wanted to make my favorite hors d'oeveres: olive crostini.  I need parsley and decided to make the trip out for it.  We went to QFC because it's closest and ended up finding sausage links on clearance for $1.99 (yay for camping!) and bought root beer for the ice cream social.  We also found some candy bars on clearance including dove dark chocolate which is my very favorite.  The worst part was spending a ridiculous $1.49 on parsley.  All of the bunches were huge and expensive.  I spent $17.56

DH picked up some $5 Friday deals at Safeway for me.  2# shredded mozzarella, 2# shredded monterey jack, and 2# blueberries.  $15.00 total.

Then I went to Fred Meyer Saturday morning before DH had to teach his teen cartoon illustration class, so it was bright and early.  I bought 6 creamers for $2.00 each, a couple bricks of cheese (because 5# wasn't enough, right?), 5 boxes of cream cheese, 3 jars of peanut butter, and 2 - 5# boxes of blueberries for $11.98 each.  I also got green onion, broccoli, strawberries, and chocolate for s'mores.  It really added up!  I spent $59.83

Albertsons was having a great sale last week so I actually snuck over there between church services Sunday since it's only about 4 blocks from our church.  I picked up 10 frozen dinners for $.50 each, ramen, pasta, canned tomatoes & olives, frozen veggies, ice cream toppings for the ice cream social, carrots, eggs, and peaches.  I spent $36.79. 

I also bought fresh eggs from my friend Sunday for $4.00.

Finally, I dashed out on Sunday to buy the actual ice cream and lemonade right before our party on Sunday.  I spent $22.52. 

Our church has been promoting block parties this summer and provided us with $50 to buy supplies & food.  So I'm reducing the grocery spending by that amount.

 In total I spent $164.97 out of pocket.
Total year to date in 2013: $3,125.19
Total average for 29 weeks: $107.77

Katie

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Monday, July 22, 2013

Weekly Shopping

Gah!  I can't find the cord that connects my camera to the computer! 

If  I don't find it today, I'll check my camera and receipts and post a total.

Katie

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Quick Garden Update - Lots of photos

I've been lax in posting the last few weeks as I've been so busy with traveling and big projects around here.  I've taken pictures of the garden several times and haven't managed to post them!  But here are some taken about a week ago.
Pumpkins
Pumpkin, under the foliage


Cucumber plants


Cucumbers growing

Nice tomatoes

Struggling yellow squash

Late plant zucchini

Green beans, second planting

Cherry tomoates

Sugar snap peas

Green beans, first planting

Romaine

Mixed Greens

The second round of green beans is slow so I might put a few more seeds in for that.  I also definitely need to plant more lettuce and spinach so I have some when the current plants wane.

Katie

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Monday Menu Plan - Leftovers

As usual I prepared way too much food for my family when I was headed out of town for the weekend.  This week we're eating it!

Dinners:
Monday - Haystacks
Tuesday - Dinner with friends - Green salad & deviled eggs
Wednesday - Taco Soup
Thursday - Waffles (DH teaching)
Friday - Ladies' night at my house - DH taking kids out
Saturday - barbeque (chicken & steak)
Sunday - soft tacos

Lunches:
Monday - Grilled cheese
Tuesday - PBJ & Ramen
Wednesday - minipizzas
Thursday - finger food lunch at the park
Friday -scrambled eggs & toast
Saturday -pizza
Sunday - pbj in the car

Our goal this week is to get the garage cleaned out.  We are hosting a block party on Sunday afternoon in our driveway and the garage will be open.

A goal of my own is to plant another round of lettuce, peas, and beans.

kp

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Grocery Shopping - $552.79

I went to QFC early in the week because we were out of fruit and needed milk.  I spent on $28.52.

 $5.29 - Organic milk
$1.48/lb - peaches & nectarines
$1.00 - sour cream
$1.29 - spinach
$2.49 - Isernio's Sausage -nitrate free - on clearance
$1.39 - Canadian bacon on clearance
$0.33 - Kiwi each
$0.69/lb - bananas

I stopped at Fred Meyer to pick up cheese and bananas because I was leaving town and wanted DH to have easy food for the kids.  I spent $9.92.
 $5.49 - 2# cheese
$0.88/lb - romas
$0.64/lb - bananas
$0.49 - English muffins on clearance
$0.99 - bread on clearance

The beef was delivered this week, too.  We paid $2.89/lb and got a whole lot of meat!  I don't know exactly how much it weighs because the 171 pounds on my receipt is likely before butchering and lots of weight is lost in the processing and packaging.  I can't find my receipt and the check hasn't cleared yet, but it was $496ish.


One more quick trip to the store as I was leaving town and needed to leave a few items for the meals I planned for the weekend.  I spent $3.19.

$.59 each - macaroni & cheese
$1.39 - sour cream
$0.62 - onions

Our milk delivery was $11.16 and I bought eggs for $4.00.

Total spent this week: $552.79
Total spent year-to-date 2013: $2,960.22
Weekly Average: $105.72

Katie

Monday, July 8, 2013

Monday Menu Plan

We're getting our quarter cow tomorrow so I'm still thinking about freezer space.  My friend assures me that the cow will not fit in my inside freezer so I guess I'm just preparing for the day it does!

Dinners:
Monday - Strata (lots of eggs to use up)
Tuesday - Easy Pot Pie
Wednesday - Sour Cream Chicken
Thursday - Pancakes
Friday - Ham Loaves
Saturday - Macaroni & Cheese Pie
Sunday - chicken enchilada casserole

Lunches:
Monday - Pizza
Tuesday - Nachos
Wednesday - mac'n'cheese pie
Thursday - PBJ
Friday - nachos
Saturday - finger food lunch
Sunday - PBJ

Sooooo.  Tired.....

kp

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Grocery Shopping - $51.74

This week was a bit strange with traveling so you'll have to bear with me.

Monday &Tuesday I did no shopping and used up stuff we had on hand. 
Wednesday we drove about 12 hours (with many stops) to Oregon.  We went to a grocery store for snacks and I spent $6.49 on juice pouches, baby carrots, and graham crackers.

Thursday and Friday we did July 4th stuff and got ready for a garage sale.  Friday night Mom and I went to the store for a few groceries and supplies for DD#1's 'stand' to sell cookies and beverages.  Total spending - $27.74 on DD #1's leftover supplies that I agreed to buy at cost, bananas, and 6# grapes.

We also went to Fred Meyer and I spent $13.82 on a couple of bags of chips, creamer, cottage cheese, and tomato & onion for the burgers we planned for Saturday dinner.  I also bought a few more bananas from the clearance rack and 4 cucumbers because my kids love them.

Finally on our drive home today we stopped at a Costco off  I-5 so I could grab the pull-ups that were on their last day of sale.  I picked up chips for $3.69, too.

There was no milk delivery because of our traveling and I didn't buy eggs for the same reason.

Total spending Week 27 - $51.74
Total spending to date for 2013 - $2,407.43
Average Weekly Spending - $89.16

I anticipate a huge expense for next week because our quarter cow is expected.

Katie

Monday, July 1, 2013

Menu Plan

I'm planning to use lots of freezer food this week.  We are expecting a quarter of a cow on July 9th or 10th and while I will plug in our big freezer to receive the cow, I'm hoping to unplug it again quickly when I can fit the meat in the regular kitchen freezer.

Here's what the freezer looks like right now:
It looks pretty full, but it's certainly more "loose" than the jam-packed freezer of six weeks ago.  We have been plowing through frozen peaches as we make smoothies several times a week and I just discovered that the zucchini sauce is a great addition to smoothies!  So that is finally starting to disappear. 

We are going to be spending time with family this week so I'll just plan on contributing things from our freezer to the communal meals.

Planned Meals:
Stone Soup (uses up oddly shaped pork bones in the freezer)
Taco Salad (uses up leftover shredded chicken)
Porks Tacos (freezer meal)
Sausage Soup (uses sausage, freezer celery, freezer turkey broth)
Finger Food lunch (tater tots from freezer, hot dogs from freezer)

Planned Snacks:
Ice cream
Smoothie Pops (Frozen peaches, bananas, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, zucchini sauce)
Smoothies (Same frozen fruit)

My goal is to get the house clean now that the construction is paused for at least a month and more likely ten weeks until my brother can come back.

A secondary goal is to organize more and find stuff for the garage sale coming up at my mom's house.

Katie