Grocery Buying 101

When I first started blogging back in 2008 I wrote this:

After reading Gayle's website GroceryCartChallenge where she spends $60 CASH every week to feed a family of six, I was inspired to try this for our own family of four. I started out with $75 per week and was absolutely sure I wouldn't be able to pull it off. I was completely amazed at how little I could spend! I found that I could go as low as $40 per week. I MADE myself go to two stores every Wednesday and spend $40 for food we needed that week and $20 stocking up on items needed for my pantry that were on sale.

Today August 31, 2011 we eat much differently and I shop much differently. Grocery shopping is not going as smoothly as it once did. I started buying in bulk again. I started wasting food again. I got into bad habits again ie. going to the store whenever I wanted to, eating whatever I wanted instead of what was on sale, etc.

So I'm starting over again. For the next four months I'm going to be journaling my journey.

I'm going back to the basics! 

1. Every Monday I'm making my plan using the only menu planner I have found that works for me (please let me know if that link doesn't work).
2. On one piece of paper I will list the following
• all the stores that I plan to shop at that week
• the items that I'm going to buy along with the price
• the total amount I plan to spend at each store (cannot exceed budget amount).
3. During the month of September I'm only going to be buying items that I NEED to feed my family for that week. No stocking up on items on sale, no planning ahead, no bulk buying, nope nope nope. While this truly freaks me out, the reason for this is to find out exactly how much it takes to feed my family. The following months I'll determine how much my grocery budget will be and the maximum amount I can spend stocking up on pantry items.
4. By Saturday, I will post my menu plan, grocery list, and what I bought for that week.

What is my budget?
Great question. I've posted before about comparing grocery budgets. If you look at my grocery details you can get an idea as far as my budget and grocery goals. I'm sure that yours will be different than mine.

For now, I'm setting my grocery budget to $90 per week ($390 per month). I have a well stocked pantry (fridge, freezer, cupboards) and we're going to start using our tax refund money to buy a 1/4 of a cow so I don't have to worry about that anymore. Time will tell if I need to adjust that amount.

What kind of food will we be eating?
Mostly primal foods, including a lot of vegetables, good fats, eggs and meat along with some fruit, rice, dairy, and nuts. Very limited amounts of honey and corn (since it is corn on the cob season here!)

Grocery shopping this week:
I spent $50 at Walmart; $13 stocking up on Jasmine rice. Meant to buy Basmati rice instead. I'm stocking up on things that absolutely don't make sense! I'm looking forward to the next month.

Any questions/comments/concerns, I'd love to hear them!

This post has been linked to:
Grocery Cart Challenge
Money Saving Mom
11th Heaven Homemaking Haven
Life as Mom

Tell Your Time by Amy Lynn Andrews

This weekend I was family-less. My kids and husband drove to Denver to go to a Broncos game. My husband received tickets for this pre-season game when he won a 5K road race. I really didn't want to make the trip to Denver again. When I reminded my husband that we'd have to take two dogs to doggie daycare, he quickly uninvited me from going (in a nice loving way of course)!

Every year at this time I review my priorities. I started doing this when we stayed in our camper at the beginning of August, but I didn't have Amy's re-vamped ebook "Tell Your Time" yet.

I originally reviewed Tell Your Time in a post back in February 2011. Then wrote an update about it in March. Well, track season hit, Clothe-A-Kid hit, the kids were home for the summer and I just focused on feeding my family and keeping up with laundry.

Now that my whirlwind life has died down it's interesting to look back. I worked WAY too much on Clothe-A-Kid stuff - mainly because it's hard to say no to good things even where there are greater things (hanging with my kiddos) out there. I wasn't at all prepared in dealing with being so busy.

When I started reading the ebook again, I had to print it out and highlight the items that jumped out at me. Now the entire ebook is COLORED!!!

Here are a few highlights though:

So why do our goals so often go unrealized? As with our Switzerland trip, there are two reasons:

1. We don't like to wait.
2. We don't want to work.

You'll have to read the ebook to understand about the Switzerland trip...but it's important to note WHY our goals go unrealized. I have realized that for me, it's not that I don't want to work, it's that I don't always want to work on the right thing!!!

Here's another blurb:

The stress associated with a too-full schedule has little to do with time at all; it has everything to do with our choices.

Yes, I've read that before many times. In fact I probably have written it and said it! However, when you are so busy, it's hard to realize you have a choice about anything.

Action Plan:
So once again, I decided to try my hand at creating a schedule. I had Amy's schedule in hand and then I tried filling out "The Grid" worksheet. Here's what happened.

Perfectionism reared it's ugly head!!!

Oh my goodness - the little snotty girl voice in my head said "There's no way your schedule can look like Amy's....why bother trying." Silly girl....this isn't about Amy, it's about me!!! Amy just guides us through the steps and gives examples. "The Grid" just doesn't work out for me because as a homemaker without any kids at home all day long I view my day as totally and completely flexible. Maybe some day I'll change my mind, but for now I'm not going to use "The Grid" worksheet.

What I really needed to do was set a schedule that works for me for the next four months (through the end of the year and then I'll add more Clothe-A-Kid activities again.) I opened up my TOW MATER file folder and got to work (I just love him in CARS and CARS 2!!!) I listened to the song "Set the World on Fire" about 52 times while working on my schedule.

I was going to really impress you by showing you my calendar, but I have no idea how to do that. I just started using Microsoft Outlook 2010 and while it's a great program it's a big learning curve.

Suffice it to say, I now have a plan in mind. The following are a few items that are on my schedule:

• time with my hubby
• time with my kids
• time spent at home
• working on my blog
• errands, walking, grocery shopping, scrapbooking, stamping, free day

This verse has been jumping out at me today:

Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed.

I highly recommend Amy's new ebook "Tell Your Time." It's a steal at $3.99!

This post has been linked to:
11th Heaven's Homemaking Haven
We are THAT Family

**please note: this post includes affiliate links

Recipe: Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

• Honey
• Mustard
• Olive Oil

Mix together on the plate, add your salad!

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I started to eat more primal food was the salad dressing. I LOVE ranch dressing and the ingredients in it are the furthest thing from primal food. I tried homemade mayo, and it didn't turn out at all. I tried vinegar and oil, lemon juice and olive oil, and a few other variations.

It wasn't until I discovered this mixture that I was able to stop putting bad ingredients on my salad. Now technically I use raw honey and cold pressed olive oil to try and make it even better, but even if you don't do that, it's better than buying something with soybean oil in it. Read the labels - even when the salad dressing says it has olive oil, I've found they still contain soybean oil.

This recipe has been linked to:

Grocery Cart Challenge

Homemaking: Making Choices

I was going to write a really profound blog post. Instead I'll leave you with a thought ... The picture above was the view from our campground site.

The picture below was taken 10 feet away.

When you are caught up in the "busyness" of life, often times we only see what is right in front of us. Ten feet away, there is a breathtaking view, but we don't see it because we're too busy trying to get through one hour at a time.

My friend once said - the hours go by slow, the days fly by.

What changes do you need to make in order to enjoy life?

 The change I needed to make today, was to NOT write a long blog post. I need to spend time getting caught up in all areas of life. I finally feel like I have a chance to breathe again and I don't want to cram more things in. Next week I'll be back to posting more!

Grocery Shopping & Boxers & Random Info

You know what you should do when you are really really busy? Get another DOG!!!



Angel is on the left - Caesar or Ozzie (haven't decided yet) is on the right.

We got Angel from a couple of people who breed boxers. She has been returned to someone who purchased her because they could no longer care for her. She lived with Caesar, but they kept him for breeding. They are no longer going to breed boxers so they asked if wanted him. He's a sweet sweet dog, but TWO dogs? Good Gravy!

I started my day off by picking up my Azure Standard order. What a wonderful way to start the week. I won't order cherries in the future...there were too many bad ones among them, but other than that I'm a happy camper.

• 5 lbs peas $7.70
• 5 lbs frozen beans $7.80
• 10 lbs frozen blueberries $24.20 (we haven't had these all summer and we are missing them big time. I can't wait to make smoothies!
• 1 lb raw sunflower seeds $3.35 (I keep these on hand because they aren't so good, but have a little protein in them. If I keep any other kind of nut in the house I'll eat them all day long.)

My kids start school on Wednesday. I will miss them a lot, but I look forward to ROUTINE in our day!

My daughter finds out if she makes the volleyball team on Wednesday. She is still going to two-a-day practices so I miss her a ton while she is gone. We went school shopping for her yesterday - she only needed a few things, but it took forever to find those few things.

My family is going to Denver next weekend for the football game. My husband won tickets to the game when he won a road race. I'm staying here to babysit dogs LOL! I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.

I've been making my son get up early every day so he gets used to it for school. I think Wednesday morning could be a challenge for us all. He starts cross country practice today.

My garden was a success. Not because we got very many vegetables, but now I know we can grow veggies in that part of the yard. The deer are still eating off of it. I tried a spray, tried human hair and a few other things. I think our deer are so used to people/smells that it doesn't bother them. Somehow we'll have to put up a fence next year. We're eating tomatoes and cucumbers daily. I will definitely have to improve my soil next year.

Clothe-A-Kid ministry fair was held on Saturday.

We had 135 kids come to a church in a town about 10 miles from here and 43 kids come to different local church. The kids were able to get their clothes, pick out a backpack, pick up their school supplies, get a brand new book, a bag of goodies, get their faces painted and get a shaped balloon.

I think it was a great success. Of course there were a few problems, but we learn more every year.

I look forward to writing more on my blog and figuring out how to continue feeding our family on $400 per month eating a primal diet. Lunch for the kids is definitely an issue - did you know that bringing a thermos to school is just not cool at all?

This post is linked to Grocery Cart Challenge.

Home making: Life Choices

Just because you can....doesn't mean you should.

When you ask your child to do something, do you come alongside of them and show them the "right" way to do it every time? Or do you let them struggle with the issue and see if they can come up with their own solution?

When you are managing a project, do you ALWAYS have to know every single detail?

When you have time do you find yourself doing more for your family or for yourself or others?

Do you complain about not having enough time?

Here's what I have found during the past week while I was busy working on Clothe-A-Kid stuff.

I do WAY WAY WAY too much for my kiddos!

 My kids are 12 and almost 15. I thought I was having them do quite a bit around the house, but I really need to let them do things and let them be. Even when the big 2 cup measuring cup gets put away with the pans (it looks like a mini pan says my son).

I found that when I manage the Clothe-A-Kid project, I'm micromanaging my help so I'm spending way too much time on CAK issues instead of working around my house.. These are people that I know I can trust to get their piece of the puzzle done so there is no reason for the micromanaging. When I worked outside the home as a technical support person, it drove me nuts when my boss tried to control everything that I was doing.

When I had a few spare minutes I would spend time by myself. As an introvert, working with people is exhausting to me...I needed that down time. It's okay to take a break!

Yesterday my son was reading a book and I was laying by him trying to nap. The phone rang and he held me down so I couldn't get it. "NO MOM"...you need to rest. Smart kid!!!

I had very little time to spare the last six weeks. Sometimes I'd think "oh that felt good"... yeah, I took a breath - didn't know breathing could feel so good. I cannot imagine going through my life that busy. Next year we are doing things a lot different. I don't mind being busy for a few days, but I have just a few years left with my kids before they leave home. I can volunteer more at that point. My family life cannot suffer when I volunteer outside the home.

Although I am still going to lead the CAK project next year, I won't spend as many hours on it when my kids are home. Here's my reward for working on CAK...when a mom, with tears in her eyes, came up to me and quietly said "thank you, you have NO idea how much you have helped".

My tip for today:

Just because you can....doesn't mean you should.

Staycation Update

I was going to add more pictures, but blogger isn't letting me!!!

So imagine if you will other pictures from our Staycation (not really a staycation, but not really a vacation):

• camping
• tire blowout on our 40 mile journey
• free bowling (kidsbowlfree program)
• sand volleyball
• shopping for Clothe-A-Kid clothes
• fighting and irritating one another for a week stay in the camper
• time with friends
• $.99 pancake breakfast (yuck! I had sausage that was good though!)
• swimming, jumping off the diving board and going down the slide
• have I mentioned arguing?

It was a great week, but I am very glad to be back at home. We had 39 teenagers come to shop at Walmart last night ... We spent almost $3,000 on school clothes and supplies for them! Thank goodness for generous donors!

Using CASH

I mentioned on Monday some issues that I was having with using cash, but I need to ramble on about it so I can figure out exactly what went wrong with my system. You're more than welcome to listen to the rambling, but then hopefully I'll have a frugal tip for you. No guarantees though as my mind is running a million miles a minute.

Every July there is a huge festival in the park. I always get money at Christmas and for my birthday that I use to purchase items at the festival. For some reason this year I decided that I should buy as many birthday gifts and Christmas gifts at the festival as well.

Sounds like a great plan right? It was until I got caught up in the moment and stopped keeping track of the money that I spent and the money I had left.

AFTER I got home from the festival I realized how much money I spent on birthday gifts - whoops...I spent too much cash AND my daughter's birthday is coming up. Hmmmm...no big deal so you just borrow from yourself right. And that my dear friends is the problem. BORROWING is BORROWING whether you do it using a credit card or from another envelope.

Frugal tip:

If you don't have the money in the envelope...

DO NOT SPEND MONEY.

Could I be anymore clear? Sheese you'd think this was rocket science or something. Why can't I get this through my thick skull. Repeat again....

If you don't have the money in the envelope...

DO NOT SPEND MONEY.

Do you think if I repeat this enough it'll sink in?

Borrowing is a bad bad BAD idea!!!

Staycation

This is my daughter's last week at home before she starts two-a-day volleyball practices (from 9-3!!!) Apparently the coach has them run until they puke...ought to be interesting! Welcome to High School I guess!!!

I'm going to enjoy her company this week and will catch up with you next week. I'm still knee deep in my Clothe-A-Kid project as well. That keeps me busy the week of August 15th.

I have one frugal tip for you today....if you don't have cash you shouldn't borrow from another envelope to buy your items. Pretty soon you'll pull from your "house" envelope" only to find a bunch of receipts and NO cash!

Cash is KING (well, the envelope system),

but only if you actually use the money in the envelope for it's intended purpose!!!

Ask me how I know...

Flylady

Note: this post was originally written last July. Apparently I'm on a flylady mission lately!

I've mentioned before how much I love Flylady and her cleaning system. I hear comments from people that say that woman is way too intense, there is no way I can clean all the time like she does.

If you have read her story, you would know that she has this cleaning system because she can't/won't clean all of the time. Here's what you are supposed to do when you join her email list:

Clean Your Sink

That's it. Why are you supposed to do that? Does it really matter? If your house is a mess and you want to try something new, JUST DO IT (says NIKE). If you aren't willing to try something new then you aren't ready to try something new.

Before Flylady, if I had company coming I would clean for HOURS! I was so exhausted that I didn't enjoy my company.

After Flylady, I clean because I want to have a clean house (not perfect, but decent). If I "bless my home" on Monday and have company over on Friday, I might take 5 minutes run through living room and kitchen with my dust mop and feather duster, but that's it.

What doesn't work and does work for me is the daily 15 minutes in a zone. It doesn't work because I don't  make it a priority, it does work because my house LOOKS AMAZING when I do it!

Are you ready to try something different to get your house in order? Follow Flylady for 1 week and see if you notice any changes. You are NOT supposed to do everything she does, you are supposed to baby step your way through this life style change!

This post is linked to We are THAT Family.

Homemaking - Laundry

Got this in my email from Flylady:

Morning Musing: Laundry, I know why it is hard!

flylady, 8/1/2011 6:00 am

Dear Friends,

Clutter takes over our lives in many different ways but the clothes become a never ending battle. When we have too many clothes the mountain keeps growing! We wear clothes till we run out and then we go buy more instead of doing the laundry. Those mountains take over our homes. Every corner, every flat surface and the floor are covered in dirty clothes and clean clothes that are stuck in the never ending wash cycle.

This is all because you have too many clothes and your children have too many clothes. You don't even know what fits because they are not worn often enough.

You can't organize clutter! This means those clothes too. I know you want to save them! But they are taking over your life! I have a simple challenge for you! Let's reduce that pile by half.

I want to look at why you are hanging on to these clothes. Are you afraid that you will not be able to get any more if you give them away? Most of these were given to you anyway. Why are you hoarding them? When you hoard you have sealed your fate! What you hoard turns into worms! Do you remember the story of the Israelites in the book of Exodus? When they hoarded the manna a gift from heaven, it turned to worms.

We are clothes hoarders; plain and simple! We live in fear that we will never be able to afford to buy what we need when we need it! Fear is lack of faith! Faith in ourselves and faith in God to provide for us! When we hoard we separate ourselves from pipeline of love! We try to take control!

Release the perfectionism of having to be in control and let go of these clothes! You can't organize clothes clutter; you have to get rid of it!

Are you listening to me? Or have you gone back into your hoarding mentality! Let them go and find the peace you deserve! Bag them up as you do your laundry and get them out of your house. As you put away a handful of clothes; declutter a handful. Don't allow your perfectionism to win again and keep you stuck in this mountain of never ending clothes clutter!

I want you to FLY and as long as you are struggling with hoarding clothes you are going to find it difficult!

FlyLady

Especially this part:

We are clothes hoarders; plain and simple! We live in fear that we will never be able to afford to buy what we need when we need it! Fear is lack of faith! Faith in ourselves and faith in God to provide for us! When we hoard we separate ourselves from pipeline of love! We try to take control!

Oh gravy!!! I don't have that many clothes, but I do hang on to clothes that I don't love and that don't fit.

Time to go fling some of them!

The New Food Pyramid

Check it out!!!

The New Food Pyramid

Now if only I made the right choice every single moment of every single day:

I choose not to put processed crap into my body.

I loved this post from I'm Losing It Here:

I Got Tired

I can relate on so many levels.