Late Meal Plan for 8/30-9/5

I never had the time yesterday to type up my meal plan for the week.

Monday - We had yummy carnitas!

Tuesday - Boca Chicken burgers and home fries

Wednesday - chili and cornbread

Thursday - Smoked chicken wraps

Friday - tuna steaks and potatoes

Saturday - crockpot barbequed chicken

Sunday - steak fajitas

Craving

Quick trip to Walmart for a peanut butter and chocolate milkshake craving.

Total OOP = $5.91
Total saved = $0.44

Also was able to bring hom 7-8 links of sausage and a bag of tortillas from the triathlon this morning. Savings = $4

My two boys catching some ZZZZ's

Marshmallow likes to sleep in the chair, and is not deterred by someone already sitting in the chair. Last night he decided to cuddle with his daddy and of course they both fell asleep. So cute!

Quick trip into town

I just got back from visiting my nieces and James had been eating the same stuff for days. We have been out of peanut butter for over a week, and cheese was long gone!

CostCo:
Total OOP = $24.89
Total saved = $2

Dog Almighty: $10.76

Baskin Robbins: $7.56

CVS trip: $59.38 value for $3.27

I had been pondering my game plan for CVS for the last couple of days and just sat down last night and finalized it. Early this morning (my favorite time to head to CVS), I executed the plan. I ran into a little problem since my CVS was out of the Purex 3-in-1 sheets, but I still think I managed to do alright.

As usual let me state that I could save a lot more at CVS, but I only purchase things we will use. I don't buy things just to get ECB. For me that's what makes this game so much fun!

Transaction 1:

1 Zegerid on sale for $9.99 (used $4 MQ and $5 ECB) - earned $7 ECB

2 Right Guard deodorants on sale for BOGO (used BOGO MQ)

Transaction 2:

1 Blink Tears on sale for $7.99 (used $1 MQ and $7 ECB from Trans 1) - earned $7.99 ECB

3 M&M products on sale for B2G1 (used $0.50 CVS Q)

2 Right Guard deodorants on sale for BOGO (used BOGO MQ)

Transaction 3:

3 Kellogg's cereals on sale for 3/$10 (used $1 MQ and used $7.99 ECB) - earned $5 ECB

1 Emerald dry roasted peanuts on sale for $1 each (used 2 $1MQ)

Total value before sales and Q = $59.38

Total sales and Q = $56.11

Total OOP = $3.27 + still have a $5 ECB (94.5% savings)

Total to be deducted for the $1200 grocery challenge = $2.28 and total saved = $16.35

Not a bad savings for 20 minutes worth of work.

Yummy Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

I had seen a recipe for 5 ingredient PB bars at The Grocery Challenge website and had been thinking about it for a couple of days. In desperate need of a sweet, I made a half batch yesterday. These were quick, easy, and yummy to make and eat! Sorry no pictures, they are half gone already anyway!

Meal Plan 8/16-8/22

Hoping to stick with things this week!

Monday - cheese pizza

Tuesday - crockpot chicken and stuffing with wheat rolls and salad

Wednesday - pasta, rolls, and salad

Thursday - hamburgers and grilled potatoes

Friday - tuna steaks

Saturday - smoked chicken

Sunday - smoked chicken green enchiladas

Raincheck and pork

We had a raincheck for the fruit bars and needed some tortilla chips as well. Found some pork on sale so purchased that as well.

OOP = $7.55

Little Caesar's for dinner last night since James didn't take out the tuna in time. OOP = $10.84

Late Birthday celebration and bacon

James' birthday was yesterday, but we were too busy to do anything. Tonight we went into town and "celebrated". James is a member of the Red Robin eClub, and he received an email for a free gourmet burger. I traded in some points on mypoints.com for a $10 Red Robin gift card a little while ago in preparation for our visit. The total OOP for our visit = ZERO. (When we set our challenge, I decided not to include tips in the budget. I like to reward good service so I pay the tip out of my allowance.) Savings = $18.38

After dinner we went to Culver's, of which James is also a member of their eClub, for his free frozen custard sundae. Total OOP = $2.59 for my custard, savings of $2.59

We also stopped by CostCo and got some bacon. We love bacon and are specific about the brands we like. Unfortunately we are willing to pay more for what we like. OOP = $11.89 for four pounds.

Rebate

I received a $9.85 rebate. I added that in to our challenge.

CVS trip

Quick trip to CVS today. Let me again express that I don't play the CVS game like everyone else. I refuse to buy stuff I'm not going to use just to get ECBs. Thus, I don't always save as much money as others, but I feel comfortable with my purchases. Today's purchases were done in two transactions.

Transaction 1:
1 Schick Hydro razor on sale for $8.97 - $5 MQ = $3.97
1 Schick Hydro shaving cream for $3.99 - Free MQ peelie on razor box = Free

Total before sales and Q = $12.98
Total sales and Q = $9.01
Total OOP w/ tax = $4.30. Earned $4 ECB

** Plus I'll send in my receipt to the Schick rebate and get a check for $8.97. **

Transaction 2:
3 Garnier Fructic shampoos on sale for $5 - 2 $1 MQ - $4.99 ECB (U Kotex) - $4 ECB (Schick)

Total before sales and Q = $22.57
Total sales and Q = $18.56
Total OOP w/ tax = $4.21. Earned $5 ECB

Meal plan 8/9-8/15

We have a birthday this week...specifically my James is turning 40 today! Unfortantely we are too busy today to do anything, so we'll celebrate tomorrow.

Monday - chicken/black bean wraps

Tuesday - Celebrating J's birthday (more to come)

Wednesday - lentil tacos

Thursday - beef fajitas

Friday - tuna steaks and potatoes

Saturday - BBQ chicken, potatoes, and corn

Sunday - Pink pasta

Finally a grocery trip!

We finally made it to the store last night for some groceries. There are a few preservative laden, fast foods in there, but it just had to be done. I also got a raincheck for some fruit bars that were part of a meal deal at HEB, but they were out of stock.

Total before sales and Q = $68.22
Total sales = $5.71
Total Q = $12.58
Total OOP = $49.93

Fiesta Texas FREE visit

On our recent "vacation" to house/dog sit for my parents we visited Six Flags Fiesta Texas. James is pictured above outside Tony Hawk's Big Spin, an awesome roller coaster ride! We paid ZERO dollars for our $50-60 tickets. How did we do it? Very easy the My Coke Rewards program.

I have been collecting reward points from boxes of soda or bottle tops for over a year. The great part is that we didn't pay for more than 90% of these points. My wonderful Mom collects all her bottle tops and saves them for me. Plus I get a bunch of box codes from both of my jobs. I've "earned" over 5000 points in a year.

Six Flags tickets were 1000 points each, so a total of 2000 points for us. I just redeemed the points and printed my tickets off the computer. Sweet!!!!!

I've also redeemed points for Powerade and magazine subscriptions. It is a pretty cool program and it probably takes me fewer than 10 minutes a week to type in my codes. Not a bad trade off of my time.

**This post is my opinion. Fiesta Texas and Mycokerewards did not compensate or contact me. **

I'm back

I just spent the last week house/dog sitting for my parents while they went on vacation. Thankfully James was able to take the time off as well so we got to spend a lot of time together...finally! On vacations our food comes out of our vacation budget, but my parents gave us $100 for groceries for the week. Are you kidding me? That's a month to two month's budget for us. I'd like to say that we spent only a little of it and saved the rest, but that would be a big fat lie. We bought some stuff to eat at the house and then used the rest to eat out at several restaurants. We definitely enjoyed ourselves!!!

As for the food situation in the house, it is pretty dire. I don't know when I'll have time to get to the store, but hopefully it will be soon.