Groceries for the week of 4/25 to 5/1

I decided to do something different this week and instead of a picture and a description, I'm putting up a video! Yay for variety ;) We had an extra 10.00 for groceries this week, love when that happens.

There were a few coupons and price matching I did.

Ritz Crackers with Bacon- Free after sample coupon offer at walmart.com
Daisy Sour Cream used a .45 off coupon I got after emailing them and asking for coupons- 1.46
New York Cheese and Garlic Croutons .50 printable coupon- .69
Baby bella mushrooms were a price match from Aldi's .79
Grape Tomatoes were a price match from Aldi's for .99
Cucumbers were a price match from Aldi's .29 each
The orange has a .25 rebate from checkout 51 making it .25
The apples had a rebate from saving star for 20% back they were 1.00 a lb at pick n save ended up being about .79 for the apples
McCormick Taco Seasoning- used a .50 off 2 coupon made them about .26 each
Kit Kat bar was free after savibgs star rebate (Friday Freebie)
Tic Tacs were free after rebate from shopium and were 20% off at saving star (MONEY MAKER +.20)
Chicken breast was 3 lbs for 5.00 at pick n save

The rest was normal Walmart prices.

The DH Extreme Couponing

My husband is so crazy! He was too excited about the coupon I gave him. If you participate in the Fresh Express salad swap program , you too can have your significant other think they are the best shopper ever! Oh, and you can have free salad too.

We are starting our Debt Free Journey!

We saved up our emergency fund! I didn't think we could hit the goal as quickly as we did! One month! i am proud of us!!
We started our envelope system this week and have already found it needs to tweaking, like DUH we need to buy clothes once in a while. I think it's going to be an ongoing process, figuring out what we need and how much we need for it.
Now it begins, paying off all of the debt we have including our house! Wish us luck this is going to be a looooong journey. Expect many frugal recipes to come.

OK love you, bye!

Apple Salad Yumminess

This is my Aunt Linda's recipe for apple salad with my Mom's tweaks. It's creamy and sweet and heavenly. You will love it, I just know it.

5 Apples (chopped)
2 Bananas (chopped)
1/2 cup grapes (chopped)
1 cup Miniature Marshmallows

1/4 cup Miracle Whip

2 cups Cool Whip

3-5 Tablespoons of powdered sugar

Splash of milk
1 t vanilla extract

Mix Miracle Whip with Cool Whip and vanilla in a large bowl

Add powdered sugar to taste (3-5 T or slightly more) 

Can add a little bit of milk if it seems too stiff.

Add marshmallows

Stir in apples, bananas and grapes

Chill several hours or overnight.

Groceries for 4/18-4/25

This is what our 20.00 budget allowed for this week. We shopped on two different days so there are two different pictures..I know what you are saying, that is not much! Where is the meat? It's in my stockpile freezer silly! Where's the milk? We don't drink much and we using a lot of the coconut milk in our stockpile for cereal. The cool whip, mayo, half the grapes and two bananas are for an apple salad I am bringing to my parents house for Easter. The recipe will be in the post right after this one. I take no credit it for it's my Aunt Linda's recipe.  The sweet potatoes and left over bananas are for making baby food the the little dude. Want to see how we eat on a budget? Check out our youtube channel.

OK the breakdown:

Pick n Save:

1 Cool Whip on sale for .88
2 Ranch Dressing on sale buy 1 get 1 free for 3.59 used a 1.00 off 2 coupon from last Sunday's paper 2.59 for two

.51 lbs Romaine lettuce 1.29 a lb .66

1 bunch cilantro .79

Piggly Wiggly:

2 sweet potatoes 1.21

4 bananas .86

2.49lbs broccoli crowns 1.97

Helmmans 30 oz jar mayo on sale for 2.99 used a 1.00 of 1 coupon from last Sunday's paper 1.99

1 lb Food club unsalted butter on sale for  1.99

.47lbs Red Seedless Grapes 1.64

1 green pepper .88

1 Dannon Oikos- Friday freebie from saving star- FREE

1.40lbs romanine lettuce 1.81

2 roma tomatoes .37

1 bunch green onions .59

1 loaf Food Club wheat bread 1.49

Total- 19.72! Yay! I made up for the deficit from last week. We were able to put 65.00 in our emergency fund because of the grocery savings. That brings us to 681.00 we are getting closer to our 1,000 fund faster than I thought we would. Go us!

Black Bean Dip Heaven

Heeeellllooo delicious bean dip! Have you ever had bean dip for dinner? You should! Seriously, no I'm being for reals. Do it. My family affectionately calls this nacho pile. It may not be beautiful but it is so tasty you don't even care. The recipe to make the beans is here. The changes I made are  I add a half a packet of taco seasoning to them, used black beans in place of pinto beans and a can of green chilies in place of the hot pepper. I love the spice, DD can't handle the spice.

Here's the rest of the recipe:

8-10 oz salsa
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3 green onions chopped
1 bunch cilantro chopped
sour cream (optional)
lime wedges (optional)
chips (mandatory)

Preheat oven to 400
Mix chopped cilantro into the beans, saving some for garnish
Spread beans in a 8x10 or so casserole
Pour on salsa and spread over beans evenly
Sprinkle on chopped green onions
Cover with shredded cheese
Bake for about 15-20 minutes until cheese is bubbly
Serve with sour cream, chips and garnish with cilantro and lime juice.

OK gotta go, love you, BYE!

It's Pizza Night!

Oh the joys of homemade pizza!! So tasty so much cheaper than take out or delivery. I use our bread maker to make the crust, I used Great Value pizza sauce, it's only a buck and it's really tasty! Here is our recipe for the crust and pizza, just follow your bread makers directions for the order of putting stuff in the machine.

8 oz water
1/2 t salt
2 T olive oil
3 c all purpose flour
2 T Italian Seasoning (optional)
1 1/2 t yeast


Set your machine to dough cycle
Once dough is done roll out and place on your pizza pan.
Preheat your oven to 425. Poke holes in the dough with a fork to prevent bubbles. Brush on a small amount olive oil and sprinkle on some Parmesan cheese and garlic powder. Bake for 8 minutes, add whatever topping you like and bake for an additional 10-12 minutes. YAY PIZZA!

We added a nice big salad to our dinner.You should too, eat your greens, I love you.

Mexican Fiesta Day Two!

Doesn't it sound SO much better to call these two days of eating leftover chicken a fiesta? I mean which would you rather go to a two day leftover chicken party or a Mexican fiesta? Yeah, I thought so too. Anyways onto the fiesta! Tonight I made sour cream chicken enchiladas and can I just say...... YUM!
So much so that my family is fighting over the leftovers. This recipe is DEFINITELY a keeper. See all those caps? I mean business amigos, serious delicious business.
The recipe is from the skinny mom website and can be found here. The only thing I changed, and no I can't ever leave anything alone was to sub the canned tomatoes for salsa.
 Go and make this recipe and eat it. You're welcome, love you, bye.

Yummy Chicken Taco Salad

I decided all the chicken we had saved from out 10lbs of chicken we made yesterday was going into some sort of Mexican dish .I took all our leftover shredded chicken and heated it up with a cup of water and a packet of taco seasoning.
Day one of this two day Mexican Fiesta is taco salad! I L-O-V-E taco salad. I could live on it, like forever and never ever get sick of it.
This is a super easy recipe and I will give it to because I love you.

2 cups taco flavored shredded chicken
2 cups spinach
2 cups lettuce
2 roma tomatoes chopped
1/2 red onion diced fine
2 green onions chopped
1 can black beans drained and rinsed
1 bunch cilantro chopped (optional, but we love cilantro)

Toppings:
crushed tortilla chips
salsa
sour cream
ranch-taco dressing (mix ranch dressing with taco seasoning to taste)
shredded cheddar cheese

10 lbs of Chicken!

Our awesome neighbor gave us 10 lbs of chicken leg quarters!! We put them into 2 crock pots one with oregano, salt, pepper, basil and herbs de provence. The other crock we used salt, lemon pepper and oregano. YUM! We shredded it all up and had lemon pepper chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner that night.Then we froze about 2 cups. We saved 4 cups to use throughout the week. We took one of those four cups and mixed with some BBQ and finely diced red onion, stuck it on some hamburger buns leftover from our BBQ and sent them over to our neighbor to say thank you. We love our neighbor! So much chicken!

First week of the super tight 20.00 a week budget

So all of this cost a total of 20.53. Well right off the bat I am .53 over in  my food budget. Dang. I'm wondering if I can actually stick to this 20.00 a week budget. Let me explain what I mean. After taking a look at our budget, in order to get our emergency fund built up quickly we will have to take some drastic cuts. These cuts are temporary just until the end of April. We are basically eating through our stockpile and only buying dairy and fresh produce. Because of my couponing we have quite the stockpile built up.

For the next couple of weeks I will be posting a little differently. I will be posting what I got and then what I am making for that week. It might help give you guys some ideas. Cross your fingers we can do this, without having to eat ramen every night.  Especially since we don't have any ramen.

What was bought:

Piggly Wiggly

2 bags Fresh express bagged baby spinach- 1.99 each used a 2.00 off 2 coupon

1 bottle of lime of like juice 1.70 (check out what is going on with limes right now, crazy!)

1 red onion 1.21

1 5lb bag russet potatoes 1.79

.87 lbs Roma tomatoes .60

1 bunch green leaf lettuce .85- used 20% back from saving star 

1.59 lbs broccoli crowns 1.26- used .25 cash back from checkout 51

Walmart

1 can chickpeas .68

1 can kidney beans .68

1 can great northern beans .68

1 bunch parsley .74

1 yellow onion .57

1 deans ranch dip- used a free coupon I got after writing to the company 

1 16 oz daisy sour cream 1.98- used a .45 off coupon from writing the company

1 cantaloupe 1.19-  price match from Aldi's 

16 oz strawberries 1.29- price match Aldi's

1.38 lbs red grapes 1.37- price match Aldi's

Pick N Save:

3 packs of buns .88 ea- 2.64

4 Granny Smith apples 1.60

Meal 1

We are having a BBQ because my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and nephew will be visiting us this weekend. That's why we bought 3 packs of buns. We are not crazy bun eaters.

So for the BBQ we are having:

This bean salad, these pork burgers, grilled Italian sausages and hot dogs (from our freezer stock). 

For dessert I am making a fruit salad that is just cut up melon, strawberries, grapes and blueberries with a couple squirts of lime juice.

Meal 2 will be leftovers from the bbq

Check back for the rest of the weeks Meals!!

Why are you so cheap?

So I realized we have never been formally introduced. How rude! Hi, I'm Courtny I have a wonderful husband, an amazing teenage daughter and a bouncing 9 month old baby boy and we are on a tight budget.



It all started a while ago. I  realized a while ago that a lot of our bills were out of our control. You can turn off the lights and hang your laundry you can turn down that thermostat but if the energy prices rise like crazy you can't control that. You have no say. So I started cutting in areas I could. We said goodbye to cable, expensive cell phone plans and regular home phones. We switched to netflix, magic jack and tracfone (just for emergencies on the road). It was still not enough.

Then a light bulb went off. We were spending a TON on food. For a family of 3 and a half we were spending close to 800 a month. That is crazy high! How did we even have that much money? We didn't. That's when glorious coupons entered my life and saved it. OK maybe that's dramatic but it felt that way. We started saving 600 dollars a month and it didn't even change the way we ate!

Now we are trying to build up or emergency fund so things have gotten even tighter. I am no longer afraid of that, I welcome the challenge. Join us on our adventure to save money and have fun doing it.

Alright love you, bye!

Spaghetti Night For 1.06!

Ok you all know how much I love Target! Amazing pasta and sauce deal going on this week! The pasta sauce ends up being 0.60 each and the pasta 0.46 each. That makes for a CHEAP meal! Just add some veggies to the sauce, a salad and a fruit and you have a healthy frugal dinner!

On to how to get the deal.

First things first Target has their pastas and pasta sauces on sale for 25% off.

Go to targets coupon section of their website and print out the 1.50 off 3 market pantry sauces and the 1.00 off 3 market pantry pastas.

Go to your cartwheel account and add both the market pantry pasta for 5% off and the market pantry pasta sauce 5% off offers.

Then go to Target and buy it! Bring a friend or significant other if you need more than 3 of each because the coupon limits are one per guest.

GET OUTTA DEBT BEANS & RICE RECIPE!

I can't wait to try this frugal yummy looking recipe. This is definatly going into my dinner rotation next week because we were just gifted 10 lbs of brown rice! These guys have a great money saving youtube channel defiantly check them out.

Rollin down the street savin' money, eatin' on beans and rice laaaaaaaaaid back with my mind on my money and my money on my mind. OK I'm done now.