It's to hot to cook!!

I worked last night, and for breakfast this morning, the children had bagels with plain cream cheese. It's very warm out, the air is set at 78, with the ceiling fans on, and it's still 80 degrees in the house. it's over 95 outside. We are not adding to the heat in the house, so it's going to be a sandwich kind of night. There's several kinds of lunch meat, sliced cheese, and peanut butter with jelly.

It's hot outside!!

We broke down and put the air back on, it was off for a few days. It's set at 78 degrees, with the ceiling fan running. Hoping for the best!

dinner 6/28

Oscar Meyer hot dogs
corn on the cob
fried potatoes with onions

July Shopping

I stopped at the bread store, bought:
two raspberry danishes
three packages of English muffins
2 bags of bagels 
one bag of mini bagelsv
one loaf of english muffin "bread"
three loaves of white bread.  We have one and a half loaves left.
Spent 13.07 there.

We went to Walmart.
one bottle of dandruff shampoo
two aim toothpaste
one deodorant
package of stay free pads  opened
two containers of sun screen
spent 22.50

We went to Aldi.
2 dozen eggs
a container of plain cream cheese
blueberry pancake mix
whole wheat garlic crackers
9 ox roast beef
9 oz turkey
margarine
cream of mushroom soup 2
cream of chicken soup 2
chicken noodle 2  We have one can left.
tomato soup 2  We have one can left.
can sauerkraut
package of roma tomatoes
miracle whip
pancake mix
crackers
pita crackers
deli cheese
cheese slices
cheddar cheese grated
cheddar chunk cheese
Colby cheese sliced
garlic and chive cream cheese
mild cheddar block cheese
3 gallons of milk  WE have half gallon left.
hamburger buns
cheese crackers
dish detergent
one bottle garlic marinade
2 loaves white bread
4 packages of toilet paper
pita crackers
2 lb polish sausage
whole chicken 85 cents a pound
ibuprofen
frozen peas
4 Oscar myer wieners We have two packages left.
frozen corn
asparagus
2 packages of 2 lb chicken breast 99 cents a pound
frozen broccoli
2 lb carrots
3 rolls ground turkey  We have one roll left.
4 lb bananas
2 packages of chocolate chips
2 packages 4 ct corn on cob
4 lb mixed fruit
2 rolls hamburger   One left. 
40 oz ketchup
4 lb sugar
10 cans cat food
grape jelly
1 lb peanuts
2 cans mushrooms
1 strawberry preserves 2 24 count waters
spent 164.90

total for month 300.00
spent 200.94
left for month 99.06

The highlighted items are no longer available. this is updated as of 7/14/2012.

Dinner 6/27

I worked a 14 hour shift, Gary made the kids spaghetti (only pasta 0.79 lb, and jar sauce 2.50 for prego, didn't use the whole jar). Nothing fancy, but filling and kept the kids content.

Milkshakes

We went to the store to buy a 5 gallon container of ice cream (vanilla). I plan on using the peaches I thawed for milkshakes for everyone after dinner. The cost was 4.99 for the ice cream, much cheaper than going to the ice cream place and ordering five milkshakes.

Lingering items found

Going through the kitchen, I found a package of onion soup that I put into the crock pot. One package of pizza crust and garlic butter in the fridge. These two will be combined with some left over spaghetti sauce in the fridge to make bread sticks for the kids for lunch. I took out a lingering package of frozen peaches to serve with dinner, along side a can of pears for the kids.

Today's plan

One load of laundry hung, another in the wash, dinner in the crock pot, living room clean, working on the dining room and kitchen....gotta get some things done around here. I wash in cold water, using on sale liquid soap (like extra), and hang to dry. Our dinner is a beef chuck roast, potatoes, onions and a few pepper slices. May make a salad to go with it!

Air conditioning

The high last night was 50's, and today it's in the low 70's. We shut the air conditioning off, opened the windows. It's about 8 AM, and it's a chilly in here. A nice change from the 90's we were having.

Savings

Since I have been working overtime for the past two weeks, I just put some of the money that was left in my checking account, into my savings account. What a nice feeling. how is savings going for you?

Dinner 6/26

There is a chuck roast thawed in the fridge, will cut up some potatoes and other veggies and put this into the crock pot to cook all day.

Dinner 6/25

We went out to see a movie and had dinner at the theature.

our pantry

I put the pantry items out today that we half full, or close to being empty. My daughter and son finished up a end of a box of "captain Crunch", and hot chocolate. My oldest finished a box of blueberry morning type cereal. Both boxes of cereal were almost gone, and needed to finished.

Dinner 6/24

We have a ham bone from May or June in the freezer. I cut five medium sized potatoes, two small onions, a garlic clove, some basil, thyme, and sage in the crock pot. We were opening three 32 ounce cans of pinto beans, did not drain them, added everything to the crock pot. It's on low, and dinner will be ready around 5.

Dinner 6/23

My husband had made some homemade pizzas (we have had a lot of this lately). Using a pizza crust from the store that I had bought a while ago, some left over spag sauce, left over mozzarella cheese, red and yellow peppers. Quick, easy and filling for five of us!

air conditioning

Since my mother left town, I turned the air from 70 degrees to 78 and set our ceiling fans to run. It's warm, but not unbearable. The kids each have fans in their rooms also.

Left overs

My husband ate the ziti, I had two plates of pork roast with sauerkraut, and my kids refused to eat. All that is left is taco fixings.

Dinner 6/22

Looking through the fridge, we still have a plate of ziti (from olive garden), lots of taco fixings (will be set out for lunch today), and still have pork roast with sauerkraut. This weekend will be a clean out the fridge and have left overs since I'm working night shift for the next three nights. I'm hoping that Gary and the kids will get this food out of here and eat it. (I hate throwing away food!).

Breakfast 6/22

Breakfast this morning for the children will be a choice between scrambled eggs, toast with peanut butter, or cinnamon sugar, or if they choose oatmeal with skim milk and hot chocolate. I'm trying to use up the last two english muffins and will toast those with a cup of tea. Since my Mom left yesterday, there's so much food in the fridge that needs to be eaten, there's no reason for anyone to be cooking dinner.

Dinner 6/21

Since we have all different kinds of left overs, it's going to be a pick and choose night. There's a few english muffin pizzas left, taco fixings, and pork roast with sauerkraut. The kids can choose what they would like, with Gary and I finishing what they don't want to have. It's going to be 94 degrees today, the AC is on at 74 degrees, blinds closed, ceiling fans running, and hopefully everyone can stay cool. Tomorrow it is predicted to be in the 80's. No AC needed for tomorrow.

A/C

Since my mom is in town to visit and staying with us, we have had the air conditioning on for three days. I long to turn it off. I sit out side and occasionally look at my electric meter, watching it spin. N the other and, we have eaten at home, and washed clothes in cold water, only to ang them outside.

Our banana bread

I used up the last three bananas, and added some cinnamon chips to the mix, it turned out great. Flour, baking soda, two eggs, some vanilla, 1/2 cup of sugar, and a 1/4 cup of milk.....baked for 40 minutes at 350...it was awesome, two slices left for those who want some in the morning for breakfast.

Ripening bananas

Since we have three ripening bananas, I 'm going to make some banana bread for the kids.

Today's plan

Using half the package of hamburger I bought last night, we are going to have tacos for dinner. I have two kits in the pantry, comes with ten hard shells, ten soft shells,spices, and sauce. I will cook some of the ground beef, use tomatoes out of my garden, shred the last of the deli cheese ends, use some onion and garlic, and pick some of my lettuce in my window. I have some cucumbers that I'm going to slice and serve with the tacos on the side.

Over budget for June

I went to Food Lion last night to get some groceries and snacks. My mom is in town, and she was asking for a few things. I apparently need to stay out of the stores.

I bought:
one gift card for sister 25.00
one half gallon of vanilla ice cream
one container of sprinkles
two bags of chips
a 2.65 lb package of ground beef (two meals for us)
a case of diet seven up
a case of coke cola
a container of ice cream cones
a package of barettes for my daughter

spent 76 dollars, over budget and still ten days left of the month. I had 50 left to spend on MILK, EGGS, and BREAD!!! Notice what I bought??? No eggs, milk or bread. UGGGGG.

Our garden

Yesterday, I picked three cucumbers, a handful of blueberries, two strawberries, and a few black berries!! We may slice the cucumbers to have with our lunch today!

Today's frugal plan

I made breakfast for the crew (scrambled eggs, two apiece), there was a choice of toast, or blueberry bagels I had in the freezer. Since I have some english muffins that need to be used up, we are going to have english muffin pizza with marked down cheese ends, red and yellow peppers, and tomatoes for lunch. The peppers need to be used, I sliced them very thin for pizza. I also have two tomatoes that need to be used, sliced then with some onion to top our pizzas. The cheese ends are two weeks old, will be shredded, need to be used completely. The tomato sauce used will be spag sauce. Dinner is crock pot pork roast, onions, garlic and sauerkraut. The pork roast is almost 3 pounds, I paid 3.16 a package on a marked down shelf. Garlic and onions I had, I did buy two cans of sauerkraut to go with this. It's in the crock pot cooking. 

Not very frugal plumbing repair

Over the weekend, I worked night shift. My daughter called me and told me that we had a leak in the pipe in our laundry room. Well, at 11 oclock at night, there's not much I could do, except at work, call a plumber and have them come out. Needless to say, my savings account is empty, and my checking account is in rough shape after paying for the repairs. I signed up for lots of overtime at work to help with getting my finances back on track.

Dinner 6/16

Using two chicken breast (2.5 lbs) bought on mark down for $3.15 at Food Lion, they are being marinated in Aldi garlic and herb mix, will make our last package of frozen beans, carrots, peppers and zuchinni mixture, sliced watermelon, and rice (not the instant kind, the one that is made on top of the stove).

Dinner 6/15

We had left over roast, wild rice pilaf and green beans...

Beef stock

After putting what was left of the roast away last night, there was about a cup of stock left in the crock pot. Scraping the bits out, I put the leftover stock in a container and let he fat gel in the fridge. I will scoop the fat away, and then freeze this for a night when we would like a gravy with dinner.

Pick your own breakfast

I had raspberry and chocolate yogurt, a banana, and a cup of tea with skim milk. My son had two packages of apple oatmeal and a cup of hot chocolate. My daughter had scrambled eggs, and chocolate milk. The other two, Sarah and Gary are not awake yet.

June challenge

I'm finding that 300 dollars a month covers all of what we use during the month. We have 50 dollars left for the month. This will be used for milk, bread and eggs. We should be all set for the rest of the month with what we have in house.

Lunch for the kids

I bought some pepperoni (one package), cut up some of the deli cheese ends, and opened a sleeve of crackers....big hit with the kids.

Grocery Shopping

We went to Martin's to pick up 4 twelve packs of Coke, two packages of yogurt, two individual cups of yogurt, two packages of gogurt, two jugs of laundry soap, and spent a total of 22 dollars.

We went to Pet Smart to check out some new pet food. Spent 31 dollars, and bought  a 12 lb bag of cat food, a 12 lb bag of dog food, a 8 lb bag of litter, and got three cans of "free" pet food.

Stopped at Sharp Shopper and bought grapes, cherries, bananas, red and orange peppers, tomatoes, some canned items, whole chicken for 69 cents a pound, several packages of yogurt, three gallons of milk, deli cheese ends, two thin pizza crust, two cans spag sauce, several deli meat ends, a watermelon, capri sun, a box of cereal, cake mix, two pounds of pasta, several canned veggies (fifty cents each), 2 15 packs of taco kits, two dozen eggs, one container of juice, 10 chicken breasts, 4 packages of bratwurst. We spent 99 dollars there.

Dinner 6/14

Tonight's meal will be a nice chuck roast originally 14.90 for 3/5 lbs of meat, marked down to 8.50...brown wild rice (half an opened package), the last few corn on the cob,  and green beans for dinner. The beef chuck roast will be out in the crock pot with a package of onion soup mix.

Breakfast 6/14

We have 25 blueberries that I picked yesterday from our garden. We are going to use my daughter's waffle maker today for Belgium waffles with blueberry topping!! I have a can of blueberry topping in the pantry, going to combine that with the ones I picked yesterday for a nice breakfast for the family.

Dinner today, grilled hot dogs, with carmalized onions (using half an onion that was sitting in the fridge), grilled carrots, green beans and zuchinni, corn on the cob, and raspberries!! Did FIGHT the urge to get take out, and won! The kids loved it.

Savings

So, with the economy is terrible shape, a savings is a must for all families. The thought process is enough living expenses for six months.....how do you manage to save enough??

I have $223.00 in my savings. 

Breakfast 6/13

The last few eggs and a couple of cheese slices, became scrambled eggs with cheese for the children.

Been working and what's for dinner??

We had out of state company for two days, my parents came to visit. They left yesterday morning, and we did spend some money. On Monday, my husband sold some of his "comic books", and earned fifty dollars. We ended up using that money to buy boneless pork chops (seven of them), corn on the cob, and several baking potatoes. That is what we had for dinner on Monday. The remainder of the money went to the gas tank. On Tuesday morning, we took my parents out for breakfast at Golden Corral. The money for this was taken out of my savings account. I have been working Sunday night, Monday night, and taught Tuesday evening for five hours. I ended up leaving work last night and bought McDonald's for the ride home.....UGGG.

Staying within my goals

I had to increase our budget for groceries to 300.00 a month (back in May I believe). We have spent 108.30 so far this month. This leaves 191.70 left for June. We are in pretty good shape, I get paid every two weeks, and only see needing milk until pay day.

The pantry is pretty full, the fridge has a few things that need to be replaced (items half full), but the freezer is pretty full. For meat, we have two packages of chicken breast, 3 pounds of smoked sausage, one chuck roast, one package of (two) chuck steaks, and two pork roasts. There are a lot of frozen veggies in there that need to be used. I also found a few packages of frozen fruit.

Today's plan

 Lunch today will be the left over pasta, I will make a white sauce and add some of the deli cheese ends to it, melt this and hand it out to the children as mac and cheese. The meatballs will end up in the freezer today, for a frozen asset night. There are six of them left, that's enough to use with another spaghetti meal, or a quick lunch for the kids (meatball sandwiches).  Looking through my freezer, I have half a package of hot dogs (3 pound package), and a small bag of french fries, and many packages of frozen veggies. This will be dinner for tonight. I'm working tonight and need something easy that requires little time.

Meatballs

I have a lot of empty cereal that can be crushed, added to the hamburger mix, spices, eggs, and assorted breadcrumbs. Going to mix this all together and roll into balls.

Using english muffins that didn't get eaten yesterday, I will make them into garlic bread, will bake them, with butter, crushed garlic and parsley.

Dinner 6/9

Using what I have, I had a half a jar of spaghetti sauce brand Classico, and another Classico bought on sale in the pantry, using two small onions, three cloves of garlic, and a pound of pasta, we are going to have that for dinner, along with small meatballs (using what was leftover hamburger from my husband's chili attempts).

A gallon of milk

Went to Food Lion to get a gallon of milk, found one pound of beef chuck steak for 0.11 cents...put it in my cart, and the register employee asked me if it was correct, she pulled back the food lion sticker to make sure it was matching labels and it scanned....0.11 cents. YEP! It's mine......score one for the Adamski freezer!!

Using what I have for dinner 6/8

I was digging through the freezer and found a package of nine english muffins (1.50 at the bread store), a package of frozen potatoes with bacon and cheese, and figured that we would have breakfast tonight, add some scrambled eggs, and I am going to cut up the pineapple that has been sitting on the counter.

Using what you have...

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/applesauce-2/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=applesauce&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page

Since I have a bag of apples that need to be used, I'm going to try this today.

Dinner 6/6

It was the kids last day of school and we have a party every year for them. Their request was chicken, french fries and baked beans. I ended up going to KFC and bought them a family meal package. I account for this separately, as I knew that this was going to be sort of expensive. I used some cash out of my savings account to pay for this.

Dinner 6/5

Pasta and sauce, pasta was bought at Sharp Shopper at 79 cents a pound, sauce was bought at Martin's for 2.00....no meat tonight.

Dinner 6/4

Since we had all that cooking and baking going on, it was a pick and choose night....leftovers from Sunday!

Keeping cool

Since the weather is warm, the need to be comfortable is a big priority. We have a lot of sun in the back of our home, and when it's warm, those blinds stay closed, and the ceiling fan is running. The front door is open with a glass screen door that has a screen option on top. The screen gets pulled down to let in the cool air. We have french windows in the living room, keep the blinds closed, but one window half open, it gives the pets a view of the world. The window in the kitchen gets opened, and all the Windows upstairs are open. We try and live without the AC, but we end up breaking down, so far we have had three days with AC since May.

Laundry

Since there are five of us, laundry is a constant ongoing thing. We have a washer and dryer that are separate units, almost ten years old. They work beautifully. We wash clothes in cold water, use liquid soap (usually an off brand such as Sun, or Extra), and use the 14 minute cycle. For drying clothes, since we have a town house, we are not allowed to have a clothes line, but I do improvise. I hang clothing over our 12 by 12 deck, using the sun to dry on most days. We do this all year long (in the colder months when the weather cooperates), and I have a 5 foot drying rack in my hallway on the first floor, next to the washing machine and dryer with clothes pins to hang clothes. We try to do two loads a day to keep the laundry to a minimum.

Gardening

We are attempting to garden fruits and veggies....we have strawberry, three kiwi, three blueberry, one black berry, two pumpkin, four bean, two raspberry, two tomato and one cucumber plant in our yard. I picked three ripe blueberries, and a ripe strawberry today. All my husband did was laugh at me. His comment "Our crops will feed us for a week".

Breakfast for the kids

Two children had scrambled eggs (2 each) with sliced melted cheese, and one kid had oatmeal with milk.

June 3rd

Ham is in the crock pot, will make potato salad, and some sort of veggie...that's dinner!!

The potato salad I will make, with various potatoes, an onion, some mayo, eggs, and spices. Anything left over from today will end up being served tomorrow. I'm hoping for left overs from all this food I baked and cooked. The apple crisp, two loaves of banana bread, a fruit and veggie plate, the ham, potato salad, and a steamed veggie will be awesome!!

Banana Bread

So, found another recipe on the internet, using 3 bananas , 2 cups of  flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 eggs and a touch of baking soda....it's baking in the oven. This makes two loaves of nice banana bread at 350 for an hour.

Easy lunch for everyone

Way to productive this morning, cut up lingering veggies and fruit for a nice lunch for those that will be home, (kiwi, green peppers, munster cheese deli ends, cucumber, strawberries), and have apple crisp in the oven baking...thinking of banana bread at some point. 1st load of laundry washed, needs to be hung outside.

Dinner 6/2

Well, we had a picnic of sorts. I fried some hot dogs (10), and used up the last of the hot dog rolls. We cut and diced an onion, and three sweet pickles (our own relish of sorts), ketchup and or mustard. I also used the last of the cucumber to slice and serve with our hot dogs. Easy dinner, the kids choose to top their hot dog with some of the left over chili from yesterday.

June 2 dinner

Tonight, since I worked the past two nights, tonight is going to be a left over night...everything that is hanging around will be put out for the children to pick and choose.

June 1st dinner

My husband made chili in the crock pot, using garlic, onion, ground beef, diced tomato, and kidney beans.

June

Well, it's a new month!! My husband was able to help with groceries, as he received a check for his birthday (late one). He bought green peppers, a roll of ground beef, and some "chili" fixings. That was dinner last night for the five of us. He also bought a nice small ham to help with our monthly grocery problem (We only had two chickens, a package of dogs, a marked down pork loin, and a small tube of ground turkey, to get us through two weeks). He bought garlic, and two loaves of bread too.

He also bought a few snacks for the kids.