Yep, Even Blogging Can Be Frugal

Every once in a while I get a question asking how much it costs me to run my blog. I usually blink a lot, tilt my head to the side and think, "Well.....um, nothing." I mean really, what kind of frugal woman would I be if I had to pay to do this?

I have gone both routes. I've paid for a blog design on my personal blog that I was pleased to purchase and absolutely loved. And I've also done some research to add things myself. Oh...but the headaches of having to figure out HTML. Yikes!

Blogging could easily cost alot. There are certain hosts that charge, numerous designers who can make your blog look fancy for a reasonable price, tricks and tools that cost money...but there are also just as many free resources to trick out your blog. And while I only know of a few, I thought I'd pass them along to you.

Blogger as a host is FREE! It costs absolutely nothing to start your blog. While Typepad, on the other hand, has a monthly fee as do some others.

For an easy to install blog design, Cutest Blog On The Block is the way to go. You can change up your design without messing up your sidebars all as simply as cutting and pasting. And they have bunches to choose from.

Statcounter keeps track of # of visits, who visits, how people are finding you and all sorts of other stuff. It's kind of fun to figure out who is talking about you and sending their friends over to check out your blog.

Mr. Linky has a free service too. If you want to host some sort of central-linking post for a subject, then their basic services cost nothing.

Random.org is a free site that can help you pick the winning number for a giveaway you may be having. It's so much easier than writing 400 names down on a piece of paper and then drawing one out of a hat. Believe me.

Here's a site that shows you how to remove the navigation bar at the top of your blogger blog. I really didn't like having that thing up there.

Flickr is a great photo hosting site. You can use their site to create graphics or buttons from photos, with borders, writing, and other special photo features, all for free.

While I'm not opposed to spending money on my blog, I'd rather not. So hopefully these links will help you customize your little spot in blogland without the cost.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap

Well Allegra made dinner tonight with very little help from me. This is going to be fabulous. She whipped up a yummy taco salad and some rocky road candy for dessert. The dessert was so easy it was crazy but so good I had three pieces. Can't wait for tomorrow so I can have a reason to eat some more.

Rocky Road Candy

2 8oz bars of milk chocoalte
2 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts.

line and 8 x 8 x 2 baking pan with foil. Butter foil and set aside. In a medium saucepan melt chocolate on low, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in marshmallows and nuts. Spread in pan and chill for at least an hour. Use foil to lift candy out of pan and cut into 36 pieces.
Can't wait to see what recipes you have to share.

Please remember to link directly to your post, not your homepage.
Please remember to link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge from you own post.

Keep a look out for a couple of really great giveaways coming up!

Sandwich Bag Savings

We use lots of sandwich bags in our house. I use them to freeze homemade bread, to take food with us when we’re on the go, to freeze leftovers, to hold crayons or markers and to store craft supplies. I just use them a lot. And that can get really expensive if you throw them away every time you use them. It seems that the good sturdy kind can cost as much as your child’s college fund if you use them as often as I do. So I stopped throwing them away and started re-using them. That’s a pretty easy concept if all you’re doing is storing crayons but when it comes to food it can get a little tricky.

Once or twice a year I buy a box of gallon size Ziploc bags and a box of quart size Ziploc bags. And that purchase will last me several months. The seams in the Ziploc bags are about the toughest I’ve found so that’s why I’ve stuck to that brand. And I wait till I find them for a bargain before purchasing them.

When I’ve emptied a bag of it’s contents, maybe a batch of sticky cinnamon rolls or leftover hot dogs, I turn it inside out and put it over the tines on the top rack of my dishwasher. Then I just wash it when I do a regular load of dishes. When the washing and drying cycle is done I pull out the bag. It’s usually still wet because water gets trapped in the bends and folds of the bag. So I’ve rigged a string, like a clothesline, over my kitchen sink and I clip them on there with a clothespin so they can drip dry. Then they get folded and stuffed back into their box for another use.

And once I got the kids on board (HEY! Don’t throw that in the garbage!) I started to save lots of money.

GCC Shopping Round Up

This week we are instituting something new in the house. Being homeschoolers and having a daughter who is interested in broadening her cooking horizons, we have decided it would be fun to have Allegra cook one meal per week. So she picked Taco Salad and Rocky Road Candy. I guess we'll work on nutrition later, huh? Because of this I had a few more exotic ingredients on my shopping list this week, like taco sauce, marshmallows, chocolate bars....I'm not complaining. This could be a really good thing and a night off of cooking for me. Good stuff.

S & S Liquidators

4 onions $1.00
bag of mini marshmallows $.79
4 chocolate bars $1.96
4 bags of fresh cranberries $1.00
5 roma tomatoes $1.00
1 english cucumber $1.00
Salsa $.99
3 cans veggies $1.17
tomato paste $.33
4 treats for the kids $.99
2 bags Starbucks whole bean coffee $5.00

Grocery Outlet

Corn chips $2.99
Pasta $.99
frozen peas $.79
frozen corn $.79
2 containers feta cheese $3.18
nail polish remover $.99

Win-co

Lemon Juice $1.58
sour cream $.98
vegetable oil $2.22
2 lbs cheddar $3.98
frozen blueberries $1.98
frozen raspberries $1.98
1/2 lb bulk dried strawberries $1.77
1/2 lb bulk bulgar wheat
31 packets of bulk Equal $.93
2 lbs bulk brown sugar $.99
taco sauce $1.78
1/4 lb bulk walnuts $.84
garlic bulbs $.78
1 lb bulk chocolate chips $1.43
1 lb bulk granola $1.52
head lettuce $1.28
leaf lettuce $1.48
turkey ham $3.47
1/2 cup bulk flax meal
5 lb potatoes $1.48
5lbs sugar $2.69
pickles $2.98

Grand Total $61.69

How did your grocery gathering go this week?

Menu Plan Monday

I'm so ready for spring. We are gearing up to start our seeds inside over the next couple of weeks. Planning a new fence around the garden too. (Sorry elk and deer, I'm totally winning the battle this year. You'll have to find something else to destroy.) I can't wait for all the fresh salad greens, homegrown green beans, sun warmed tomatoes. Mmmm. In the meantime, I'm digging out all the weird grains hidden in the back of my cupboards to try some new things. Last week I also happened upon a sale for whole chickens at $.79 per pound and picked up two of them. So we'll be having one of those this week.

Here's what's cooking.

Breakfasts

Oatmeal

Yogurt Parfaits

Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

Crockpot Whole Grain Breakfast Cereal with dried fruit and brown sugar

Spelt Muffins and fruit

Farina porridge

Oatmeal

Dinners

Whole crockpot chicken, mashed potatoes & gravy, peas

Scheherazade Casserole, Frizzled Cabbage, Quinoa Pudding

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (with leftover chicken carcass) with Buttery Bread Machine Rolls

Taco Salad and Rocky Road Dessert (daughter is cooking tonight) from BH & G cookbook

Dinner at my Mom's but I'm bringing the rolls

Quiche (doubled) with easy quiche crust and fruit

Leftover night

Check back tomorrow to see how far I stretched my $60 budget and link up and tell the rest of us about your recent grocery shopping trip. And don't forget to wander over to see more Menu Plans here.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap

A couple of my recipes lately have called for dry ranch dressing mix. And even though I can find them for about $.78 a pack they most likely have MSG or other stuff in there that I'd like to avoid. But it's a hassle to buy these since I mostly do all my shopping around the edges of the store (where the meat, produce, and dairy cases are) and not on the inside aisles (where the packaged/processed food can be found). And I know I could make it cheaper, with healthier ingredients and in a way that would be much more convenient for me.

So I came across this recipe on recipezaar. Tried it. Liked it. And now I have a small recycled glass jar in my spice cupboard full of ready made Ranch Dressing Mix.

Ranch Dip or Dressing Mix

6 Tablespoons dried onion flakes

5 teaspoons paprika

2 Tablespoons parsley flakes

4 teaspoons salt

4 teaspoons sugar

4 teaspoons pepper

3 teaspoons garlic powder

Mix together and store in an airtight container in a cool dry place for up to 12 months.

For Dip:

Combine 1 Tablespoon dry mix with 1 cup sour cream or yogurt

For Dressing:

Combine 1 cup mayonnaise with 1 cup buttermilk and add 1 Tablespoon of dry mix. Shake or whisk to combine and refrigerate.

What's cooking this week for you?

PLEASE remember to link directly to your post. Not your homepage.

PLEASE remember to provide a link back to the Grocery Cart Challenge in your post or the link may be deleted.

Weekly Menu Organizer - Free PDF

I shared my shopping list here. I keep it on a clipboard as I'm doing my grocery shopping. But what I didn't mention is that underneath that paper is another one. My weekly menu plan. Sometimes I forget what I'm buying my groceries for and if I get to a point where my money isn't stretching as far as I'd like it to, I have to cross some things off my list. That's where it comes in handy to have my menu plan at the ready. Just to make sure I don't cross off something that will screw up my whole weekly menu.

Then when I come home from shopping I throw my grocery list away and hang my clipboard with my menu on it on a hanger on my kitchen wall. This avoids the inevitable "What are we having for breakfast (or dinner)?" question that my kids like to ask me, oh, probably a bazillion times a day.

So here's my Weekly Menu Organizer.


Menu Plan Organizer

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Menus Cooking & Menus weekly menu plan

And The Winner Is...and other stuff.

So today is the day. The two winners of the DivaCup giveaway are Heidi and Stephanie. Congratulations! Please respond back within 48 hours to claim your prize. If you didn't win and you'd like to get one for yourself see my left sidebar. Amazon has them for a little cheaper price. I've got a few more giveaways I'm working on so check back to see what else you could win.

Also, my newspaper column came out today. Check it out here. My friend Emily (who is the goddess of all Goodwill Outlet shopping) went with me. These are the photos of the strange and nasty things that I couldn't put in the paper. But see the bonus you get for actually reading my blog?

This is what the outlet actually looks like. Big rolling bins that they periodically rotate with fresh stuff.

Pretty sexy, huh?


I swear it was nasty underwear day. Just piles and piles of underwear that had seen better days.
Even found a disposable pair of boxers with a built in diaper. See how brave I am? No gloves. Just a lot of hand sanitizer in my purse.

GCC Shopping Round Up - Pardon Me While I Whine

Stupid president's day....stupid bank rules....stupid check that hasn't cleared yet. (sigh) It looks like I'm going to have to shop twice this week. Fortunately I had some cash to get part of my groceries, like oh, TOILET PAPER! I was seriously starting to look at my cleaning rags as a viable alternative.

We made it through last weeks $38 budget. We even managed to squeeze some peanut butter cookies out of the stuff we had on hand. I do love a good challenge...and a good peanut butter cookie. But it about wiped out all my supplies so this week is going to end up being more than $60 to stock back up. And as soon as the stinkin' check clears (stupid bank) I'll have to finish the last half of my grocery shopping.

So here's what I got so far.

Franz outlet store

4 loaves of bread and 1 bag of bagels $4.70

S & S Liquidators

1 head cabbage $.50
12 apples $2.00
Butter flavor Crisco $2.99
2 cans pinapple $1.58
1 can spaghetti sauce $.69
2 cans mandarin oranges $1.38
cream of celery soup $.59
2 cans green beans $.78
1 lemon $.25
2 containers fresh blueberries $2.00
Starbucks whole bean coffee $3.49

Grocery Outlet

4 double rolls of TP $2.99
Soy milk $1.99
Garbage bags $.99
2 bags spaghetti $1.98
Margarine $2.29
24 oz Activa yogurt $.99
4 boxes Mac & Cheese $1.00
shampoo $.99

Win-co

5 dozen eggs $5.98
5 lbs sugar $2.69
4 lbs bananas $2.29
25 lb flour $7.98
celery $1.09
2 lbs carrots $.88

Grand Total $55.08

So how did YOU do this week?

Menu Plan Monday

This week I have a full $60 to shop with. I feel rich!

Breakfast

Oatmeal

Banana Banana Bread

Pancakes

Lemon Yogurt Muffins

Leftover Muffins (quick breakfast for a busy day)

Eggs and Toast

Amish Baked Oatmeal

Dinners

Quiche made with leftover cheeses and bacon, served with fruit

Hamburger Barley Stew (from freezer) Bread Machine Rolls

Sausage and Potato Bake with green beans

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup with French Bread

Spaghetti with meat sauce and green beans

Leftover Night

Taco Soup from the freezer

Normally I shop on Mondays and post the results late Monday night but due to the holidays I won't get to shop until Tuesday. So if you'd like to participate in the Shopping Round Up it's just going to go up a little later than normal. And go see Organizing Junkie for more menu plans.

Organized Shopping List

So here is the PDF of my no-frills shopping organizer that some of you were interested in. Feel free to use it for yourself.


Grocery List

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Other Cooking & Menus grocery shopping org

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap

I'm going to just jump right in and let you get started. I don't have a recipe today to share but I bet you all do. Give me some ideas girls!

PLEASE remember to link directly to your recipe post. Not your home page.

PLEASE remember to provide a link back to the Grocery Cart Challenge in the body of your post.

FAQ's - Calculating As You Shop

A question from a reader...

I know you try and stay below $60 a week. PLUS I believe you only bring cash right? So how do you calculate your groceries while going through the store to ensure you are only spending so much? Do you have a calculator with you? If you do, what happens if you hit the wrong button and zero everything out or something? I've always wondered how people keep track while in the grocery store. Thanks so much for sharing your groceries and stuff! I LOVE your blog!

You're right. I do only bring cash, no debit or credit cards. It helps me to stay accountable to the fact that I truly have to stay on budget. I usually shop with a clipboard with my shopping list attached. The clipboard is so I have a sturdy surface to cross out what I've already bought and to make notes or calculate as I go.

My shopping list (and maybe I'll make a PDF that you can download and use if anybody is interested) is in several rows and columns. It's all organized under headings like Produce, Canned Goods, Baking Supplies, Meat...etc. so I don't have to backtrack all over the store for missed items. I like to get in and get out.

In the margins I keep a running total of everything that goes into my cart. Number one, so I can control how much I'm spending and how much I have left to spend. Number two, is so I know if the checker is charging me correctly. I can't tell you how many times I've arrived home to find out that I've been overcharged for something.

Also, I don't use a calculator for the very reason that I've slipped up too many times to count and accidentally erased my running total. The woman standing in the aisle with the horrified look on her face would be ME after slipping and hitting the clear button on my calculator. Ugh.

To make it easy I always round up the price of the item as I'm adding them up. If I bought something for $.98 I would round it to the nearest dime which would be $1 so that it's easy to add and I have a built in cushion for any addition errors I might have made or to allow for tax.

So that's how I do it. Again, I want to say that mine is NOT the only way to do this. It works for me but I know there are tons of great ideas and resources out there. I'm smart enough to know that I don't know it all. So if it works for you too, great.

GCC Giveaway - I'm Such A Diva!

I hate having to spend my hard earned grocery money on unedible things. I want it all to go to food not cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and feminine hygeine products. So I'm constantly trying to find ways to save in these areas. The cleaning supplies I've figured out, the toilet paper I'm not willing to part with yet but ahhh, the feminine hygeine products have officially been erased from my budget.

Do you know that the average women spends $150 - $200 per year on disposable pads and tampons? That's a whole lot of chocolate that I'm not able to buy just so I can hope that I'm not going to leak through my khaki pants onto my chair in church on Sunday morning. And there's still no guarantee that I'm safe.

But several of you have mentioned a reusable menstrual cup as a way to save money so I took it upon myself to contact the company that makes the DivaCup and see if they would be willing to let me review their product (they did) and then graciously they supplied two FREE DivaCups (a $35 value per cup) to give away to my readers.

Now before you get all grossed out let me tell you that is exactly why I poo-pooed away any notion of using one of these things. It sounded messy and nasty and just plain yucky. But when it meant a huge decrease in my grocery budget I started to warm to the idea.

I used it for the first time a few weeks ago and I'm kicking myself for pre-judging the thing. Not only was it way more comfortable than a hunk of tampon up there but it wasn't any more messy or difficult to use. And my plumbing wasn't in peril because there was nothing major to flush away.

The DivaCup can be worn for up to 12 hours at a time. On my heaviest day, which usually means a trip to the bathroom every hour to remove a super size tampon that hasn't done it's job, my DivaCup lasted 8 hours before I finally gave up and checked it. It could have lasted a lot longer but it's hard to get used to the fact that I can just forget about the darn thing and let it do it's job.

It took me about three days to get comfortable with inserting it and getting it in the right place but after that it was quick and easy. And I loved not having a used pad discreetly wrapped in toilet paper and shoved in my wastebasket where little hands might be able to find it.

But the best part for me was knowing that I will NEVER have to spend money on tampons or pads again. It's totally worth it. So head on over to the DivaCup site to have all your questions answered. They have a ton of information on FDA approval, silicone versus latex, environmental issues and all kinds of good stuff.

So if you are interested in winning one of your own here's how to enter...

• Leave me a comment! It's that easy. No hoops to jump through. Make sure there is some way to contact you if you win.
• If you 'd like a second entry just post about this contest on your blog and come back and leave me a second comment.

Two winners will be randomly chosen on Wednesday, February 18th. Open to US and Canada residents only.

Go check out more Works For Me Wednesday ideas HERE.

Free Stuff! I Just Love The Sound Of That.

Pssst. I have another giveaway going up this week. Check back on Wednesday for that.

Weekly Shopping Trip

Woowee! Found some good deals this week and Thank God! One of my cheapest local liquidators decided to start selling produce at rock bottom prices so I totally cashed in. My shopping trip wasn't near as tragic as I thought it was going to be. I learned to prioritize my necessities better and to use my creativity to the extreme. Good things to learn, right?

12 apples $3.00

4 bunches of organic bananas $1.00

Cornbread stuffing $.49

13 cans veggies and beans $4.89

2 onions $.50

5 loaves of bread $4.70

1 bag of bagels $.99

Plain yogurt $1.68

Paper Plates $1.53

2 1/2 lbs bulk sugar $1.14

5 dozen eggs $6.69

2 boxes margarine $1.56

Tub of margarine $.68

3 envelopes of Ranch Dressing $1.29

Paper bowls $1.99

Cheddar Cheese $1.66

10 lbs potatoes $2.48

Grand Total $36.54

The bananas were pretty ripe. We'll get to eat some now and the rest will either be frozen for smoothies or made into banana chips. I'll use the yogurt I bought as starter to make some batches of my own this week. It will make quite a bit since it only takes a small amount of starter to make a large batch of homemade yogurt.

So how did your trip go this week?

Ha! I Laugh In The Face Of A Menu Plan!

You know me. I'm a die-hard menu planner. But when I left the house today with only $38 in my pocket to buy groceries I was at a loss as to what to plan. So this week I'm winging it using mostly what I already have in my cupboards and freezer. About the only thing I DID plan was Taco Soup on Tuesday night because we have 21 people for dinner.

I know that I have enough to do New Mexico Pinto Beans for dinner tonight. (see Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly in my left sidebar) and Thanksgiving Memories Casserole for Wednesday night. And by then our paycheck will have cleared and I might be able to hit the store again. Wouldn't it be great if I could just stretch it till next Monday?

Breakfasts will be the basics; oatmeal, pancakes, maybe I can squeeze some muffins out of my supplies. And lunches will be leftovers, maybe hard boiled eggs and sliced veggies, lots of fruit, pickles, I'll be making some fresh batches of homemade yogurt, and homemade banana chips.

And just so you know I'm not a permanent Pollyanna, I did have a meltdown when I realized I only had $38. I cried, I panicked, I prayed and then I dealt with it. Laughter can work wonders.

Check back tomorrow to see what I DID buy with my $38. And go check out orgjunkie.com for more menu plan ideas.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap

Since I was internet-less last week when I planned my menu I had to draw from the piles of cookbooks in my kitchen cupboards. I hadn't forgotton what a wealth of recipes were in there. This one is from Lean and Luscious by Bobbie Hinman (see left sidebar) and it was a huge hit for breakfast.

Strawberries 'n Creme Breakfast Cereal

recipe is for 1 serving (I multiplied by 6)

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

sweetener equivialent to 2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 cup sliced strawberries (fresh or frozen) we used blackberries because they were cheaper

3/4 ounce corn flakes or any other dry unsweetened breakfast cereal

In a serving bowl, combine yogurt, vanilla and sweetener. Stir in berries and cereal.

I'm excited to see what you're posting this week.

PLEASE remember to link directly to your post, not your homepage.

PLEASE remember to inclue a link from your post back to The Grocery Cart Challenge

A New Winner!

Seems I'm having a hard time giving that Keurig Brewer away. My first winner didn't respond within the 48 hour time frame so I'm picking a new one using a random generator.

So The Bertones at the3kidsandme@yahoo.com is my new winner. I'm sending you an email with instructions on how to claim your prize. Please respond within 48 hours and Congratulations!

Did She Just Say "Frugal Fertility"?

When Chris and I were engaged we knew we wanted a family. We talked over the different birth control options that we had….pills, barriers, devices and even using none. We tried most of those options and all of them were expensive. The pills and the results it had on my body cost us money. The barriers cost us money and we were newlyweds. Sheesh, you know how many of those things we were buying? And when we tried the “none” theory we ended up with two kids in two years. VERY expensive although looking back I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

But sometimes you come across a resource that just blows your socks off. And for us it was the book called Taking Charge Of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. Not only did we no longer need to spend money on birth control methods but it was an education in itself.

After decades in this body I thought I knew how it worked. I mean, I had the basic gist down. But what I found out was that I knew 1/100th of how my body really worked. This book taught me how to recognize when I was ovulating so that I could choose to either get pregnant or not. As simple as that. No cost, no supplies, no ovulation predictor kits, no “hold on a minute while I ruin the mood and go get something”.

Basically it teaches you how to chart your basal body temperature, your cervical fluid and your cervical position to know what day you are ovulating. It seems that all these things change when you are fertile. And it also seems that there is no standard 14th day ovulation for every woman. We are all different.

Many people use this book to overcome what they thought was infertility. Other use it to know when to naturally prevent pregnancy. Whatever reason you use it for I can guarantee it will change your understanding of how your body works. And for us it was a natural and frugal way to plan our family.

And it worked.

So click on the book link in my left sidebar and read the overwhelmingly positive reviews that people have written about this book. There are over 1000 of them. And yes, even fertility can be approached frugally.

In The News

Check out my most recent article in The Daily News HERE. Tomorrow I'll be posting on Frugal Fertility. Got your curiosity piqued?

How To Navigate The Grocery Cart Challenge

To answer a couple of questions in my inbox.....

Find out what we do about lunches HERE.

And for the microwave popcorn recipe go HERE.

If you ever have a hard time finding something in my archives I've added a great search feature somewhere in my left sidebar. Cruise on over there and you can do a search for "microwave popcorn" or "lunches" or "laundry soap" or whatever you're looking for. And if you can't find it you might be the first one to ask. I'd be glad to answer.

And The Winner Is...

Congratulations to Lindsey at LMMann124@hotmail.com. You won the Keurig Brewer and coffee!!!

You've been notified via e-mail on how to claim your prize. Please contact me within the next 48 hours or another winner will be chosen.

Thanks so much to everyone for participating. I've got another giveaway lined up and will be announcing it sometime within the next few weeks.

Weekly Shopping Trip

You know what? It was like the loaves and the fishes today. I ONLY had $60. That's it. No mistakes. No back-up. But not only did I get enough but I even had extra money when I was done.

4 double rolls TP $1.56
Starbucks Coffee $3.49
2 cans green beans $.78
1 can corn $.39
1 can garbanzo beans $.39
1 can tomato sauce $.39
1 can cream of mushroom $.59

4 loaves bread &
1 bag of wheat rolls &
2 bags of bagels $6.68

2 tubs of low fat cottage cheese $3.78
Frozen peas $.79
Frozen blackberries $1.99
Sliced ham $1.99
Silk Vanilla Soymilk $1.99
Bowtie pasta $.99
Orange Extract $.99

Bleach $1.18
10 lb potatoes $2.48
Dozen Eggs $1.55
4 lb sugar $1.95
Broccoli Crowns $.97
50 lunch bags $.95 (for microwave popcorn)
Ketchup $.78
Maple Flavoring $2.88
Margarine $.88
Frozen Orange Juice $.98
3 grapefruit $1.14
3/4 lb bulk powdered milk $2.28
1 3/4 lb bulk oats $.71
1/2 lb bulk corn flakes $.63
1 1/4 lbs bulk pinto beans $.84
1/4 lb bulk raisins $.27
1/4 lb bulk baking cocoa $.79
1.5 lbs bulk popcorn $1.20
1/2 lb bulk seasoning salt $.90
2 3/4 lbs apples $1.90
3 3/4 lbs bananas $2.18
Lemon Juice $1.58

Grand Total $55.81

How did it go for you this week?

Menu Plan Monday

Ok, there is now proof that it is possible to survive without the internet. My internet service has been down for a few days and should come back up sometime this week. In the meantime I've been camping out at the library and at the houses of friend and family to keep up. But it's amazing how many non-internet projects I've been able to get done with all my freed up time.

And unfortunately since I can't use recipezaar for my menu planning I've had to resort to the old fashioned cookbook to plan my meals this week. Which means no links. But it's been fun pulling out some of my favorite cookbooks and perusing the pages again. I have some really great resources to tell you about.

All of my breakfast recipes came from a great book called Lean & Luscious by Bobbie Hinman and Millie Snyder. It's full of healthy, low fat, low cal recipes with nutrition breakdowns. My dinner recipes came from several books; Fix It and Forget It by Phyllis Pellman Good, The Meatless Gourmet by Bobbie Hinman, and The Bread Machine Cookbook II by Donna Rathmell German. You can check my left sidebar for more info on these books and where to buy them at a discount.

Breakfasts

Cinnamon Yogurt Muffins

Strawberries N Creme Breakfast Cereal

Broiled Grapefruit Delight and Raisin Scones

Dutch Apple Pancakes

Banana Fritters

Orange Upside Down French Toast

Oatmeal

Dinners

Herbed Chick Pea Patties, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans

Hungarian Goulash over Noodles, green peas, Rice Bread

Buckwheat Cheese Bake, Steamed Broccoli

Taco Rice, green salad

New Mexico Pinto Beans, spicy corn

Leftover Night

Ground Beef Casserole, Portuguese Broa Rolls

And Lindsey, you asked about bread recipes....the Bread Machine Book II is amazing!

So don't forget to check back tomorrow and see how the $60 budget stretched to cover all my ingredients. Oh, and don't forget to check to see who won the Keurig Brewer! I'm so excited.