It’s insane how much we have been spending for a family of 2 adults & 1 child for household, diapers and groceries. So far this month, we have spent $432.18. We have roughly $70 left in the budget for January. This spending doesn’t include pet supplies.
Yesterday, I did a LOT of stocking up – we had eaten down our freezer stash in December. So we needed to stock up on meats, fruits & veggies, diapers and basics.
I am meal planning my booty off. With a 2 year old who demands dinner the second we walk into the door on a work night, I use meals I made & froze or easy meals during the week. So that is what I am concentrating on. These meals will take us well into February.
This weekend, I am making lots of meals for the freezer. We will also grill some chicken for snacks/lunches for the week (we are doing Weight Watchers & trying to eat healthier).
I plan on making Korean Spicy Pork Loin Saturday night. Leftovers will also be frozen and I am going to try to make a healthy 2 ingredient bread recipe – I am going to make garlic sticks and pizza crust. Wish me luck!
Once all of this is cooked – we will have a freezer full of:

3 Family meal servings of meatloaf muffins
2 Family meal servings of Taco Meat
2 Family meal servings of Sloppy Joe
2 Family meal servings of honey sesame chicken
2 Family meal servings of barbecue chicken
1 Family meal serving of Korean Spicy Pork
4 Family meal servings of Potstickers (premade frozen)
1 Family meal serving of fajita chicken
2 Family meal servings of Turkey meatballs

On days I work remote, I cook a hot meal – so that will be when I do a balsamic honey pork chop and some pretzel crusted Dijon chicken. We also have turkey meatballs in the freezer (precooked) and will use that with pasta one night.

Each week, I will meal plan out of what we have to work with, and there will always be room to switch things around.

This week:
Sat 1/20: Korean Spicy Pork Loin (leftovers will go in the freezer), brown rice & veggies
Sun 1/21: Beef taco salad
Mon 1/22: Fajita Chicken & peppers
Tues 1/23: (husband’s late night): Fend for yourself – (ends up being potstickers a lot of the time)
Wed 1/24: Turkey Meatballs & pasta
Thurs 1/25: Balsamic Pork Chops
Fri 1/26: Sloppy Joe & pasta

Monday: Sesame Chicken & Brown Rice
Tuesday: Dinner for Breakfast (egg muffins & potatoes)
Wednesday: Turkey Meatballs
Thursday: Barbecue Shredded Chicken
Friday: barbecue pork chops
*can be switched around as needed


Breakfasts: Egg Muffins & potatoes obrien, fruit
Lunches: Chicken Breast sandwiches and small salad (all pre-packed)

Sunday, I took Fridge and Pantry inventory, did some grocery shopping & did a meal plan. My husband & I are both doing Weight Watchers – which I don’t find to be any more expensive really – BUT I do have more convenience foods – like natural apple sauce cups & no sugar added peach and pear cups for grab & go fruits. And of course, we have the 2 year old to feed. She’s going through a picky stage.

I use Aldi as much as possible for meats, staples & fruits/veggies. Then Walmart for the most part. Sometimes based on ads, I hit up other places.
This weekend, I spent $54.56 at Walmart & $55.62 at Aldi. We did a lot of stocking up too.

The Meal Plan for Dinners:

Sunday: Turkey Meatballs and pasta
Monday: Buffalo Shake N Bake chicken. My husband had jalapeno potatoes as a side and I put mine on a salad. The little one was hungry early, so I fed her a meatloaf muffin from the freezer.
Tuesday: (Husband’s late night at work) So we usually fend for ourselves. I am thinking leftovers from the freezer
Wednesday: Apple & onion pork chops & brown rice
Thursday: Shredded Barbecue Chicken from the freezer
Friday: Sloppy Joes
Saturday: Hubby has plans to watch football, so I am making a Chipotle Salmon Burger and the little one will have a chicken patty and pasta.
Sunday: chicken tacos

In addition, I worked remote today, so didn’t prep any meals for breakfasts or lunches yesterday like normal. This is really important since after almost a year since the announcement that our work is closing later in 2018, the cafeteria on site closed as of 1/1. So I already packed lunches most of the time, but now I have even bigger reason to J

So tonight, after making dinner, I prepped a few salads – some regular veggie only and a few with baked chicken, salad, celery, hot sauce & light blue cheese dressing. These will be my lunches.

Then I made egg muffins with a little light cheese, bacon pieces, onions, peppers, eggs + egg whites and light milk - they came out super fluffy!

I also cooked some frozen potatoes o’brien, added some extra onions and portioned them out for breakfast.

Snacks are packed – turkey pepperoni, applesauce, pears, banana.

I also have a bunch of aluminum water bottles that I reuse – I fill them in the beginning of the week for grab & go.

Saturday: Chili & cornbread
Sunday: Out of town (Atlantic City)
Monday: Make due from the fridge
Tuesday: Pasta & meatballs
Wednesday: Honey Balsamic Pork Chops
THursday: Shake N Bake Chicken

Lunches: prepped a bunch of egg salad and prepared grab & go portions of nuts, applesauce and cornbread muffins.

Breakfasts: rice chex and milk (for me), my daughter gets breakfast & lunch at daycare and my hubs sometimes packs and sometimes doesn't, using his fun money to eat out. He handles that himself though.

Although its Tuesday, thought I'd put up my meal plan for the week.

Sunday: Chicken Patties with mozzerella, pasta & sauce
and peas

Monday: Baked Barbeque Chicken and corn

Tuesday: Meatball sandwiches with mozzerella

Wednesday: Baked Potato Bar

Thursday: Honey Balsamic Pork Chops and Rice

Friday: Steak and Blue Cheese Salad

This week, my meal planning was non-existant, but we were working with a lot of freezer stuff & leftovers, so it works out.

Monday - We had leftovers
Tuesday - I made do as it was my husband's late night at work
Wednesday - Hubby made pork chops & fries
Tonight (Thurs) - I am going to dinner with a friend, so probably hubby is getting take out for our daughter & him.
Friday - We both have a happy hour with friends and my daughter is being watched by my parents.

The point of me saying this - is I am trying new recipes. The last week of meal planning, I tried a fabulous recipe for honey balsamic pork chops. SUPER yummy.

However, we are looking for new ideas. Asking anyone in the community to feel free to share ideas and/or recipes! Thanks in advance

We have done very well with not over spending with 'entertainment', but for sanity, we have left the house a bunch for lunches out, etc.

To help combat us doing that too often, I am back to meal planning! I also am working on a freezer meal plan to help with going back to work the first week of November!

This week:

Saturday:

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, sausage & milk
Lunch: salad for me, sandwich for hubby
Dinner: Sandwich for me (feeling lazy) and leftover tortellini for the husband

Sunday:

Breakfast: of multiple options: sausage, bacon, eggs, etc or just cereal

Lunch: Sandwiches and salad

Dinner: Tacos

Will be working on a plan for the upcoming week!

Used up a big part of our grocery budget this week to do some freezer meals & meal planning.

Saturday, I did some shopping and then made meatloaf muffins, meatballs, hamburger patties, breakfast potatoes and froze them. I then put together an Apple, Pear & Pork freezer meal for the freezer too; Since there's 2 of us, I split the recipe into 2 freezer meals. I also bagged the meatloaf & meatballs into single servings.

Then I made a pasta salad for lunch & took a freezer inventory to help with meal planning.

Today, I made some stuff for work breakfasts (hard boiled eggs), snacks (cucumber & tomato salad) & lunches. My husband grilled some chicken & I prepped salads for chicken Caesar salads for the week (lunches).

Friday (Husband home only): Leftover Sloppy joe & peas

Saturday: Breakfast - hashbrown potatoes
Saturday: Lunch - pasta salad
Saturday: Dinner - Out

Sunday: Brunch - Out
Sunday: Dinner - Creamy Spicy Sausage & Tomato Pasta

Monday: Breakfast - yogurt, hard boiled egg
Monday: Lunch - Creamy Caesar Salad
Monday: Snack - Cucumber & tomato salad
Monday: Dinner - Apple, Pear & Pork crockpot meal

Tuesday: same breakfast, lunch & snack
Tuesday: Dinner - leftover pasta from Sunday

Wednesday: Breakfast/lunch: TBD
Wednesday: Dinner - Meatball subs

Thursday: Dinner - Leftovers

Friday: Dinner - out

After this week, we will still have a freezer full of:

-4 servings of Meatloaf muffins
-1 Crockpot Apple, Pear, Pork meal
-5 uncooked hamburger patties
-4 servings of cooked beef with onion
-1 Crockpot BBQ chicken
-1 cooked sesame chicken
-1 sloppy joe meal
-12 servings meatballs
-potatoes O'Brien
-blueberry muffins (5 packs of 2)
-grilled chicken
-3 spicy turkey sausages

I just opened a checking account to accompany the joint household account that I have at a bank with my husband. My first direct deposit went in yesterday & I guess that they were running a special, because they gave me a 'Direct Deposit Bonus' of $75! That money goes to the Christmas Fund!

Anyway, DH went to the grocery store & I went to the Farmer's market after work. We are pretty much set for the week! I forgot to get an ingredient for sloppy joe, but will pick that up tomorrow.

Last night, we had random stuff from the kitchen. This morning, I made scrambled eggs and hash browns.

We did have lunch out with a friend, but lunch was on him as we'd done him a favor. Yummy!

When we came home, I took pork chops out of the fridge, threw chicken in the crockpot and made shredded barbeque chicken, made a side of pasta salad and made meatloaf muffins.

DH grilled the pork chops for dinner & I made baked potatoes. He also grilled chicken to be used for salads for work lunches.

I packaged the muffins into 3rds. 1 pack went in the fridge & 2 into the freezer. I split the BBQ chicken in half - half to fridge & half to freezer.

The Pasta salad is going to a friend's for lunch at their house. We are going to meet their new daughter!

We now have easy to make/put together meals for the week!

I put in 15.5 hours of Overtime last week. In addition, we decorated for Christmas, I did a lot of cleaning/organizing and a lot of socializing.

I am completely happy to have the opportunity for OT, but I am just mentally exhausted! So yesterday, I did pretty much nothing.

I went to make sesame honey chicken for dinner (SO easy) but the honey had turned hard! I was about to scrap that, but my DFH and I googled (honey doesn't really go bad) and put the bottle in some warm water and the honey became liquid again. So we used it. Yay google & frugality!

Tonight, I have a friend coming over for dinner. I am making sloppy joes and between last night & tonight's meals, I will be golden for food for the next few days. We have such busy schedules that the leftovers will go all week.

That's certainly something!