TEN BUCKS A WEEK!

[stayhomemom77]

My new breadmaker arrived on Thursday. I unpacked it this morning, cleaned all the removable parts and hunted up a good recipe on the internet to use on my gluten free setting. I've got it going now. It hasn't risen much (so I'm sort of worried about that) and the baking is set to begin in about 20 minutes. So in an hour and a half...we'll see how my first attempt went. Fingers crossed.

The amount of flour I need for the loaf currently costs about $3. So, I really need to find a cheaper alternative. $1 for each cup of flour is friggin' ridiculous!! By the time I factor in all the other ingredient costs, the loaf is only slightly cheaper than the store bought one I really love (about $0.32). I have to compare the sizes, obviously because that will also affect how I compare the price (I can get 7 sandwiches from the store bought loaf but they are pretty tiny) but if they are similar in size and the home made one doesn't crazy wow me in terms of taste...I may just keep buying the store bought stuff.

I can still use it to make non gluten free stuff though. My kiddos love my homemade bread and have been missing it since my breadmaker broke and I had to start buying it.

Just peeked at it again. The baking time is just about to begin and it has risen noticeably in the last 20 mins, so yay for that!! Hope it's tasty.

 

[barkley]

If you have the opportunity to buy quarters/halves/whole cows I HIGHLY recommend it.

great value-but make sure if you're in an area prone to power outages (or not prone to-but live in a lower priority neck of the woods for restoration if an event occurs) to be able to protect your investment. I say this b/c of all the frozen food loss people around us experienced with our big outage in November-and I know folks that went RUNNING after day 1 to get generators b/c they had those half cows worth of beef filling their freezers. buying a smaller generator that can handle even just the freezer is MUCH less expensive outside an emergency (and can be budgeted for).


now to my accomplishments this month-

not able to strictly stay w/dairy and produce b/c (1) ds had oral surgery so it's been trying to just find stuff that will suffice-not easy w/a kid who detests most soups, all puddings and jello, (2) lousy weather that got me to choose to increase meat supplies in freezer so I don't have to venture out once our real winter hits (so 2 Costco packages of ground beef-broken into 1 1/2# packages, 2 packages of their stew meat-broken into 1# packages).

I also splurged a little short term-but long term it will be a savings. I know lamb isn't popular with allot of folks but we like it several ways including 3 ways in particular that use ground lamb (shepard's pie, greek sloppy joes and kafka). ground lamb is never on sale so it runs $7.99 per pound a package so when semi boneless legs were on sale for $5.00 per pound I grabbed a couple. dh deboned, trimmed them and ground them up into 1# packages so it saved about $1 per pound. nice roasts (we do French dips for Christmas eve) were on sale earlier in the month for a mind boggling $3.88 per pound so I snapped that up-and for some unknown reason prime rib roasts are selling for as low localy for as low as just under $6 per pound, while I opted to save gas (and dealing with crazy crowds and traffic) by paying about a dollar more per pound (so only $5.00 more for the entire roast) I grabbed one to freeze for sometime after the new year.

BEST SAVINGS-a recent shopping trip netted me a $10 off promotional coupon for $50.00 in purchases at safeway. I had also taken advantage beginning in october of a promotion wherein a new prescription filled garnered a $25 gift card w/ a second $50 gift card after 5 refills (of any individual person's other prescriptions). yesterday I hit safeway to do all the holiday grocery shopping w/hopes of not returning until 2016 (after I went on line and 'clipped' all the appropriate electronic coupons).

total bill (before coupons/member savings)- $277.04
coupons/member discounts -$ 36.06
$10 off promotion -$ 10.00

total $230.98
2 pharmacy generated gift cards -$ 75.00


TOTAL BILL $155.98

(and about $75 of this was prebudgeted holiday spending money for liquid 'holiday cheer' so in reality-$80.98 for a VERY large shopping cart filled).


hope everyone has a great holiday!

 

[stayhomemom77]

Top and side view of my first homemade gluten free breadmaker loaf!! Taste test to follow, but I am pretty pleased with the outcome.

 

[barkley]

I love our bread maker-we often make flavored loafs by using commercially packaged dry dip mixes. I know you are doing gluten free loafs, but if you know/like any gluten free powdered dip mixes all you have to do is toss an envelope into the machine along with the other dry ingredients to get some WONDERFUL flavors.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Okay, so I can get 10-12 sandwiches of similar size out of the homemade loaf and it is quite tasty!! I had three pieces of bread from that first loaf and then brought it to my mom's house and she commandeered it. LOL She is a certified celiac and is always on the look out for delicious, safe gluten free foods. Anyway, I made a new loaf today...so I actually have bread to eat again and I think I'm prepared to make a loaf each week instead of buying two loaves to cover my needs. This will definitely save me some money and fresh, homemade bread is better than the ones full of preservatives from the store.

On Tuesday, DH and I went to the store and stocked up on boneless, skinless chicken breasts and frozen pizzas. My freezer now has room for about a large cereal box size amount of items. I am so geeked!! We've been powering through the dry goods though, so I look forward to January, when I can stock up on that stuff once again.

My approach next month is going to be a little different. I will be using more than $10 a week to stock up on sale items. I'm pretty excited about it.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Ran to the store today just for milk, potatoes, pasta sauce and Pam spray and ended up getting a head start on next week's TEN BUCKS!

I got...

2 bricks cheese $7.54
2 cans pasta sauce $2.18

The cheese was such a good price, I couldn't pass it up!! I was already getting a can of sauce for the chili I'm making this week and got some PC points for going with the No Name brand, so I decided to grab 2 more for a few extra points. One thing that certainly gets used up around here is pasta sauce, so I never seem to have enough!

 

[Angeejoe]

Ran to the store today just for milk, potatoes, pasta sauce and Pam spray and ended up getting a head start on next week's TEN BUCKS!

I got...

2 bricks cheese $7.54
2 cans pasta sauce $2.18

The cheese was such a good price, I couldn't pass it up!! I was already getting a can of sauce for the chili I'm making this week and got some PC points for going with the No Name brand, so I decided to grab 2 more for a few extra points. One thing that certainly gets used up around here is pasta sauce, so I never seem to have enough!

We go through a lot of pasta sauce also

 

[BrerRabbit66]

Thanks for starting this thread OP! I've enjoyed reading thru your planning process and the successes you have had with your stockpiling. It's been interesting to read how all that have posted approach stockpiling /saving on groceries. For me, I especially like to hit the mix&match 10 /$10 sales at my local Krogers or Marsh stores....bonus when I have coupons too!

 

[stayhomemom77]

Small issue with the home made bread. It doesn't last well after 36 hours. It gets crazy crumbly. I have half a loaf full of breadcrumbs in the freezer right now because after 2 days the bread was unusable. So that was sad. I'll still make SOME homemade bread, but at least the store bought stuff lasts me the whole week. Longer if I keep it in the freezer and just pull out a slice or two as needed.

Anyway, I went to the store yesterday to take advantage of some sales. I ended up spending $37.82 on stock up stuff. TEN BUCKS times four. I had planned on using another $2 on sandwich bags but they were the fold top ones...I missed that detail in the add. So that was no good.

There was a decent sale price on cases of KD. We were completely out. The boy was going through withdrawal. So the deal came in the nick of time. I bought 3 cases for $6.97 each. The cheapest I've ever paid is $5.88. I'll watch for that one to come around again but in the mean time...$0.58 a box is a pretty good deal.

I also got a 10 pack of naan. Since I can't eat them, it should last DH a couple of months. We have butter chicken once or twice a month but he always makes up extra naan for the kids even though they don't eat the rice or butter chicken. I also got the Jane's chicken strips (800 g box) for $4.44. I bought three of those also. The kids will gobble these up no problem! If I'm lucky, I'll be able to make them last three months. They're in the freezer right now.

And can I just brag about the state of that freezer? Four months ago it was completely empty and now it's completely full. Like "too full to run efficiently" full. Some of the goodies will come out for our New Year's Eve celebrations tonight and I'm taking out a ham tomorrow...but it's still going to be pretty full of good stuff.

This is such a fun challenge. I'll be shopping again on Monday, but just for perishables...not stock ups. My next trip involving potential stock ups will be January 11th. I hope to have photos for that one. And hopefully some really amazing deals!!

Happy New Year everyone!!

 

[Debbie]

Happy New Year everyone!!

Happy New Year, to you, too, stayhomemom77! Do you ever check out the deals at Shopper's Drug Mart? (the Jane's reminded me). I often get the wood-fired salmon or lemon haddock at a decent price. Not super cheap, but super good!

 

[stayhomemom77]

Occasionally I do. Not regularly though. I have picked up the odd item here or there for a good price (and they usually have the cheapest eggs) but most of the time I find the stuff we eat for cheaper at No Frills, FreshCo or Walmart.

Thanks for the tip though. I'll pay better attention in the future!!

 

[Arich01]

Happy New Year!

I did a bit of stocking up on Tuesday. We seemed to have really gone through our meat in the freezer, so I decided to make a Sam's Club trip

I got a 5lb pack of ground beef for around $14 and portioned it off for the freezer when I got home into 1lb bags (After making a double batch of meatballs for meatball subs. Dinner that night, then the cooked meatballs in the freezer for a quick easy dinner!)

A big 3.5lb beef roast for about $15ish. I've been having such a hard time finding a deal on roast beef around here. This is kinda expensive compared to what I used to pay, but I bit the bullet because we miss having roasts for dinner

$11 for blsl chicken breasts...I'd guess we got about 9-10 breasts and I froze them individually as well.

$6.50 for a 5 pound bag of shredded cheddar cheese, again portioned myself for the freezer.

Jet Dry was on sale with a $3 off coupon making the giant bottle $6.33!!! I desperately needed some for the dishwasher and I would normally pay about $4 for a one use bottle and this I can get 3 uses out of! Score! Honestly, I should pick up a couple more bottles next time I'm near Sam's!

Target Cartwheel had 40% of Stove Top Stuffing, plus I had a Buy4 Get1 free coupon! 5 boxes of Stove Top for $3!!!! $0.60 a box, woo hoo!

All in all, a pretty good little stock up on meat! Not the best, but one stop shop as I had to get a bunch of stuff for Hubby's work there

 

[Angeejoe]

Small issue with the home made bread. It doesn't last well after 36 hours. It gets crazy crumbly. I have half a loaf full of breadcrumbs in the freezer right now because after 2 days the bread was unusable. So that was sad. I'll still make SOME homemade bread, but at least the store bought stuff lasts me the whole week. Longer if I keep it in the freezer and just pull out a slice or two as needed.

Anyway, I went to the store yesterday to take advantage of some sales. I ended up spending $37.82 on stock up stuff. TEN BUCKS times four. I had planned on using another $2 on sandwich bags but they were the fold top ones...I missed that detail in the add. So that was no good.

There was a decent sale price on cases of KD. We were completely out. The boy was going through withdrawal. So the deal came in the nick of time. I bought 3 cases for $6.97 each. The cheapest I've ever paid is $5.88. I'll watch for that one to come around again but in the mean time...$0.58 a box is a pretty good deal.

I also got a 10 pack of naan. Since I can't eat them, it should last DH a couple of months. We have butter chicken once or twice a month but he always makes up extra naan for the kids even though they don't eat the rice or butter chicken. I also got the Jane's chicken strips (800 g box) for $4.44. I bought three of those also. The kids will gobble these up no problem! If I'm lucky, I'll be able to make them last three months. They're in the freezer right now.

And can I just brag about the state of that freezer? Four months ago it was completely empty and now it's completely full. Like "too full to run efficiently" full. Some of the goodies will come out for our New Year's Eve celebrations tonight and I'm taking out a ham tomorrow...but it's still going to be pretty full of good stuff.

This is such a fun challenge. I'll be shopping again on Monday, but just for perishables...not stock ups. My next trip involving potential stock ups will be January 11th. I hope to have photos for that one. And hopefully some really amazing deals!!

Happy New Year everyone!!

I've never made bread in a bread maker, can you just make smaller loaves?

What's KD?

 

[Debbie]

What's KD?

In Canada, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is called Kraft Dinner....hence KD. Although we still have 6 boxes left from the last time I picked it up, I'll be getting another case of KD this week. With just 2 of us (usually) at home, it will last.

 

[stayhomemom77]

I don't think you can make small loaves in a breadmaker. One 1.5 lb or 2 lb ones are the only options I've ever come across but others might have had a different experience.

Sorry...didn't realize KD was a Canadianism. Thanks to Debbie for explaining.

 

[stayhomemom77]

DS loves yogurt tubes for his school lunches. They come eight to a box and went on sale for $1.98. I checked the expiration dates and got enough to last him six weeks, so he squealed a little when I brought them in from the car. I only buy them when they are on for $2 and I don't generally buy that many at a time, but I got PC points, so I figured I'd stock up.

I also stocked up on a month's worth of cereal. I got 4 family size boxes (which should last about 4 weeks if DH keeps his mitts off them ). I got 2 boxes of Frosted flakes and 2 of Corn Pops. We do have some healthier cereals here at home but these are their faves!! I paid $3.88 per box. DH helped put the groceries away though...so he knows they are in the house. So, we'll see how long they ACTUALLY last.

 

[taymaesmom]

DS loves yogurt tubes for his school lunches. They come eight to a box and went on sale for $1.98. I checked the expiration dates and got enough to last him six weeks, so he squealed a little when I brought them in from the car. I only buy them when they are on for $2 and I don't generally buy that many at a time, but I got PC points, so I figured I'd stock up.

You can freeze the yogurt tubes to make them last longer, my kids liked to eat them frozen like froyo. If you put one in a lunchbox frozen its usually thawed by lunchtime.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Thanks for the tip!!

 

[Angeejoe]

In Canada, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is called Kraft Dinner....hence KD. Although we still have 6 boxes left from the last time I picked it up, I'll be getting another case of KD this week. With just 2 of us (usually) at home, it will last.

Thank you! I was racking my brain!

 

[barkley]

I'm getting back on the dairy/produce only purchasing bandwagon. the freezer and pantry are well stocked so no real need to buy allot else-the challenge though is with ds whose been restricted from allot of his favorite 'go to foods' due to oral surgery, if I let him go shopping with me the cart would be filled with everything he's had to avoid this past month.