Tag: what we eat

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Every Day

My Journey To Keep My Grocery Shopping Under Control

We had the spaghetti with Hot Italian Sausage last night. It was so good. Since we have sauce and sausage leftover, I will make a pizza tonight using that and the Artisan flatbread I purchased today. I will also add some mushrooms for me.

I ran errands today to Top’s and Aldi’s. At Aldi’s I purchased three of the Artisan bread. Each package makes 2 pizzas for us. Since this is our favorite pizza crust and it is often out of stock, I put one package in the fridge and the other two in the freezer. Six crusts will last about 6 months for us. My total cost for this at Aldi’s was $ 10.77.

Last stop was Top’s where I purchased 5 Shake and Bake. When you bought 5 you paid $ 2.99 each. I love using these for a quick meal in the air fryer for pork or chicken. Especially in the winter when we are not grilling outside. The cucumber was $ 1.00. The celery and carrots were on B1G1F and ended up costing me $ 3.49 for both. The half and half was $ 5.99 for a half gallon. I stock this ahead in my fridge because it has far out expiration dates. We use it in our coffee and for any milk that we need. We used to buy milk for pudding, cereal, etc. but it always went bad before we could use it up. So I quit buying milk and we use half and half instead for everything. It works well for us. Out total for Top’s was $ 25.43. My total for today is $36.20. I also purchased a 60 ct. box of eggs at Walmart this week for $ 5.18. So my total for the week is $ 41.38.

I started with $ 391.08 in my grocery budget less the $ 41.38 leaves $349.70 left for the rest of the month.

I am off to do some cleaning. I hope you all have a great day!

Did you get any bargains at the grocery store this week?

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Every Day

Frugal Things We Have Done the Past Few Days

I had every intention of writing to you about our special day last Saturday. However our celebration turned into the entire weekend.

On Saturday and Sunday, we celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary. Because we went out to dinner with friends last week, we decided to cook at home on both days. We had the same dinner each night which included a drink before dinner. Then Hubby grilled filet mignon each night for each of us. I baked a dozen potatoes in the air fryer so as to not heat up the house with the oven. We each ate one and one ear of corn on the cob each night. Dessert was cherry ices. With the exception of our son and grandson coming for breakfast on Sunday, we had a quiet weekend just enjoying each other’s company. We spent a bit of time outside in our yard because it was so beautiful outside.

On Sunday, I made scrambled eggs, French toast, many sausages and a pound of bacon. Our grandson is now a teenager and he can sure pack the food away. After breakfast, we played rummy.

It was a wonderful weekend full of good food purchased on sale, good conversation, and no cleaning.

On Monday morning, I made scrambled eggs and sliced up the leftover filet mignon and heated it through with some garlic and butter. We had leftover cold cut sandwiches and potato salad for dinner. Hubby made it from the leftover baked potatoes.

On Tuesday night, we had potato salad and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. Breakfast was easy over eggs and leftover sausage and bacon from the weekend.

Breakfast this morning was a big slice of cantaloupe. Tonight I will be making spaghetti with Hot Italian sausage and sauce. We have not had spaghetti in quite a while and we are craving it.

I will be grocery shopping tomorrow for just a few things we need.

Hubby has been busy around here. The hinge on our bottom folding cupboard door broke. He found a hinge on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0879F97QV?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details . Boy, it was expensive.

It turned into a bigger project than he thought though. The hinge is installed on the cupboard but it does not line up with the original holes. So Hubby will fix it as soon as he can get the stuff he needs to do it.

He also has been doing a great job keeping up with the weed whacking and dead heading the flowers. I have been pulling weeds as I see them.

Our lawn is lush and green again after having the sprinkler system repaired. Now it gets water every other day that it doesn’t rain.

I have done two loads of laundry this week using cold water. Some of the clothes were hung to dry and others were done in the dryer.

We should be getting our prompt from the utility company to read our meters in a few days. I can’t wait to see what difference the new efficient A/C does for our bill looking at the same period last year and accounting for the high heat we have had this time including some 90+ days.

What have you guys been doing to save some money?

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Every Day

This Week’s Grocery Haul Plus

I just came home from getting a haircut so I decided to do this week’s grocery haul. I have been trying to efficiently do what needs to be done because we have been very busy and will be very busy for the next two weeks.


My shopping this week was at Aldi’s for some things I will need in the next few months.

The almonds were needed for a recipe this week. I found something new which is this 90 second cauliflower rice. That will be handy in the next week or so. I got some more 90 second rice for Hubby too. The mushrooms are to replace the ones I used. I use them in my omelets once in a while. Hubby likes the dried cranberries in his chicken salads.

I desperately needed dairy. Hence the creamer, 2 dozen eggs that were already in the fridge when I took the picture, sour cream and vanilla yogurt.

The applesauce, parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, and cornstarch are staples in my kitchen pantry. The picnic pack of condiments were marked down so those were a good purchase.


The baking powder, baking soda, vanilla extract, and cornstarch were needed staples especially for baking for the holidays. The cookies were a treat for Hubby. The cranberry sauce is to go with a small turkey that I will be cooking soon. I opened a new plastic wrap up yesterday so this is to replace it. Lastly the macadamia nuts are for my treat.


This is my receipt. I spent $ 57.70.


Hubby’s birthday was this past weekend so we celebrated with my son and West with a nice breakfast  along with a birthday cake that I made. I planned a nice dinner of filet mignon and baked potatoes for his dinner. We were going to have broccoli with it but Hubby said don’t bother because it was already enough food. So we counted the chives as our vegetable spice. He loved it and so did I. We grilled 4 filet mignons and made 4 potatoes in the air fryer so we had the same dinner last night. Bonus!



Also, look what I recently found. They only had one but you can bet, I grabbed them. My stores have not had them in two months or more. 

I will try my best to push out a couple of more posts this week but don’t panic if you don’t see any. We are well. This is always an extremely busy time of year for us plus we are trying to fit in some extra appointments that we hadn’t planned on. 

I hope you all have a great day and a good week.

Did you get any or are planning on purchasing any good deals this week? If so, please share with all of us.  

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Every Day

Grocery Haul for this Week


The grocery ads were pretty sad this week as far as sale items go. So I made a trip to Aldi’s for some needed and not so needed things.

We needed some fresh mushrooms, yogurt, and the peppers for some meals this week. Whatever peppers we don’t use, I will slice and freeze for stir fries and pizza. It has been a long time since I had purchased spinach. I love it in my omelets and along with romaine in salads. I was almost out of the cream cheeses and use them in snacks on my diet. Hubby loves strawberry cream cheese on the bagels that I picked up for him. We always need creamer. The Skinny Pop is my guilty pleasure. The oats, applesauce and hand soap are stockpile items. The soap was so cheap. 

The triple candle was an impulse item. It is sugar cookie. I gave up burning candles when my grandchildren were born and went to the battery operated candles. But when I saw this and the price, I wanted it. My grandchildren are old enough now not to go near it. Hubby and I burned it almost all day yesterday. The entire house smelled wonderful.


Hubby loves rice. Since I rarely eat rice, I picked up these easy microwaveable rices. He is happy with them and it saves me time when I am pressed for it. That does not say that I won’t make rice. These are just handy once in a while.

The bread was needed for turkey BLT’s last night. I froze the rest of it. The Hawaiian rolls are needed for sliders this week. I am even going to have one. The rolls are small. The mashed potatoes are easy and a stockpile item. The macadamia’s are for my stockpile of them. It is a low carb nut that I can have once in a while. 


Here is my receipt for $ 56.96. The candle gets included in my grocery budget because it is a small household item that I purchased at a grocery store. Small little household items like this usually are included in my grocery budget. I will be picking up 2 Scotties tissues at Dollar Tree today. There was a coupon in the inserts for them yesterday. I have to go pick up a prescription at the drug store too.

Hubby and I took the weekend off and except for my grocery shopping we were just lazy. We watched the Bills game which we won. So that is two in a row. We spent some time in the yard just enjoying the cool weather. However, we did have to turn the heat on in the house. We have had cold nights and Hubby can’t take the cold. The house had gotten down to 64. We enjoyed grilled lamb chops and BLT’s for dinners.

I hope you all had a great weekend.  

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Every Day

Busy Monday

 I spent part of the morning cooking in the kitchen. I pressure cooked 14 eggs for breakfasts, snacks and salads this week. I cooked a pound and a half of bacon. I ate 2 eggs for breakfast with 2 strips of bacon.

Then I decided to try a recipe that I have seen everyone rave about on You Tube. It was a slow cooked roast beef recipe in a You Tuber’s cookbook. Everyone kept telling me that it is the best roast ever. I had the cookbook but never looked at that particular recipe. So I dug out the book and read it. It was no different than the same recipe that I have cooked in my slow cooker for years.

Her’s called for onions instead of onion soup mix. But then I read the cooking directions and a big NO resounded in my head. It called for roasting it in the oven for 10-12 hours at 250 degrees depending on how big your roast is. Why would I turn on my big oven instead of using the crockpot? I am sure that I am saving energy using the crockpot on low for 8 hours over using the oven for a greater amount of time.  


So in the crockpot went my onion soup mix, cream soup, and the roast beef. I just put Hubby’s potatoes in a few minutes ago. I will check it all at the 7 hour mark and if it is done to our satisfaction we will eat. I am cooking spinach for our vegetable tonight. 

After I cleaned up all of the pots, pans and dishes, I gathered my grocery lists and coupons and off I went to Walmart and Aldi’s.


At Aldi’s, I picked up 2 packages of bacon for $2.99 each. That is $ 1.01 less per package than the bacon I purchased at Top’s yesterday but it isn’t as good. But I decided at that price we would try a couple again. We use so much bacon for breakfast during the week and for our Sunday breakfasts when my son and grandson visit. So it will add to my stockpile of it.

We were out of sea scallops and they were $9.99 so I got one. I was so happy to see macadamia nuts in the store again. I got my 2 bags of pork rinds which is a snack for me. The Hass avocados were $.69 each. I have been out for a while so was happy to see this sale.

Hubby has been asking me to pick up or make an apple pie. Well, if I make the pie or buy one, we will eat it all and I really don’t want the temptation. So when I saw this German apple strudel, I grabbed it. There are two in the package and I can cook them separately on two different days for him. That should satisfy him.  The broccoli and cheese were needed for recipes the next couple of weeks. 


Here is my receipt. I spent $ 39.77.


At Walmart, I picked up the last of the OTC medicines that we may need over the winter. Walmart had the best prices locally and were lower than Amazon’s prices.

I had a $5.00 off coupon on any Hormel product that was expiring soon so the ham will be a good addition to our stockpile. The crescent rolls are needed for a recipe. The snacks are always needed and hopefully now we have enough until the holiday shopping. I had a Free coupon for the big bag of Cheetos.


Here is my receipt. I spent $ 14.09 after the coupons and a $10.00 gift card rebate.  

I have to be completely honest. I am tired of grocery shopping. I am hoping to not go out the door again to do it unless it is for dairy or produce. I will just be scouring the ads for those things next week and any meat sale that I think is rock bottom. Otherwise, I need some time home to finish the fall cleaning and work on my blog posts.

Are you getting any good deals this week?

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Every Day

Sunday Means Football in our Home

 I did not sleep well last night. So after I finally fell asleep, I woke up a little after 1PM. The Buffalo Bills game had already started. YIKES!


After watching the first half, I decided to get my weekly shopping done for Top’s. I figured that most people would be home watching the game. I guessed right. There was hardly any traffic and only about 10 shoppers in the market. So I was in and home in no time to finish watching the game.


I only had a few things to pick up this week at Top’s. The bacon was on sale B2G3free. It worked out to $ 4.00 a lb. We go through a lot of bacon pretty quickly for breakfast so it seems like I am always buying it on sale.  

The cold cuts were on sale for 3/$10. but I only purchased 2 because I had 2 Free coupons. But it looks like the coupons came off at the original price of $4.99 each.

The Chobani was $1.00 each. Since I am adding more dairy back into my diet, I picked up 5. I like to eat one with a little of the above granola once in a while for breakfast. It is delicious! 

I needed more cheddar and mozzarella cheese and these were on sale for $ 2.50 each.

This is my receipt for everything. I spent a total of 
$38.15. 

Tonight was our third night of eating the chicken tortilla soup. Hubby made some garlic bread out of leftover rolls.

After dinner, I put the leftover soup in a Ziploc using my handy stand and it is now in the freezer. There is enough left for another dinner for the two of us if I make small side salads to go with it.  

So did you do anything special today? Did you watch any football? BTW, our Bills won. They looked pretty good today.                                                                                                                                                                           

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Every Day

Filling In The Gaps

I have spent a great deal of time this past couple of days working on filling in the gaps in my stockpile for the fall and winter. I looked at my inventory list and saw what needed to be purchased. I still will be picking items up here and there every week and especially around Thanksgiving.

Aldi was my first stop because the Wednesday specials go fast at my market and I wanted 1 large package of the chicken breasts on sale for $ 1.69 a lb. I had not seen that price in about 4 months. These get cut in half from end to end and we eat one of them for a meal. The chicken breasts are so big today that sometimes I cut them into thirds. I am using two of the breasts cut in half to make dinner tonight which is Keto Enchilada Chicken Casserole. That will give us two dinners. I do not like shredded chicken so I cut mine into chunks.

The rest were cut and put in food saver bags in the freezer for future meals.

The Cup of Noodles Hubby loves. I much prefer to buy these rather than those wrapped packages of ramen because these keep much longer. But I had not found them in stock until this week. I am always picking up whole potatoes especially when we used some up while West was visiting. 


The brown gravy mixes were only $ .30 each which is a great price for here. I use them in many recipes so it is nice to add to my stash. The rices are easy to fix for Hubby and much cheaper than the regular market price.


I replaced the mushrooms that I had used over the past 2 months. The pork rinds are a Keto snack for me. The avocado oils, applesauce,and salt are for the stockpile.


One of my readers mentioned to me that she was going to get some things for her holiday meals so I took her advice. I like to have packets of turkey gravy on hand to bolster the flavor of my homemade turkey gravy. So I picked a few packets up at Walmart. I also like to make homemade fudge at Christmas. I had every thing I needed but the sweetened condensed milk. So I picked up two cans at Aldi.

This is my receipt from Aldi’s.  

Then at Walmart, besides getting the turkey gravy, I got  Skinny Pop, mounds and apple juice for Hubby, a whole bunch of muffins mixes for our stockpile storage. I have the instant milk and water to make these if need be.


I also got some spare lighters for candles and our outdoor fireplace which we can cook in.


The crispy onions and bread crumbs all went into my basement stockpile. All of the medicines went into our medicine storage for the winter. There are still a couple of medicines that I need to buy but Walmart’s prices were outrageous. I paid $ 16.97 for 1 bottle of Pepcid Complete. I am going to wait to see if the rest of the medicines I need go on sale in the next few weeks at the drugstores. 


I always pick up hand soap when they have it. They have always limited it here to 1. The rest of the items will go in my long term stockpile.


I got some fajita mixes, tortilla wraps that we were out of, 60 eggs because they were much cheaper than buying them by the dozen or 18 count. Dried cranberries go in chicken salad. The frosting is for Hubby’s birthday cake this month. The cornstarch was needed. I am almost out. Lastly the M&M peanuts are Hubby’s favorite and the peanut butter M&M’s are West’s favorite treat when he comes on Sundays.

Here is my Walmart receipt. 


Are any of you filling in your gaps in your stockpiles?

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Every Day

August 31: The Last Day of the Low Spend Month Grocery Challenge

Today is the last day of my Low Spend Month Grocery Challenge. I have no intention of shopping today so I can tell you how much I saved. 

As I explained to you in my post about doing this challenge, I have $500. budgeted every month for groceries. When I went to the bank to get my cash out for August, I only took out 1/2 of that or $250. So that was already savings for us. 

After totaling up all of my receipts for the month, I had $11.12 left in my wallet from that $250. So I spent a total of $ 238.88 for the month.

I think I did pretty well considering that I had West for almost two weeks and he had some junk food requests. Now it might not have been possible, if I didn’t have food in my freezers and pantries. Regardless, it is very nice to have $ 261.12 in our pocket instead of the grocery store’s pockets.  

I will be back to my budget of $500. for the month of September. But I will be shopping strategically and carefully so that I can keep some of that money to spend on Thanksgiving sales in November.  More on that on Wednesday.

For breakfast, I cooked a dozen hard boiled eggs in the pressure cooker. I also cooked a 12 oz. package of bacon in the oven. I ate 2 hard boiled eggs and 3 pieces of bacon for my brunch. Hubby loves it when I cook the eggs because he loves egg salad on crackers. Me, I am happy to get back to eating healthier food. It was hard while West was here. He is a very picky eater. But I couldn’t have him starve so I cooked things that he loves. 

For dinner tonight, we had taco salads. Yeah, I have been craving one.  Hubby put them together: lettuce, cherry tomatoes, diced onion, a bit of diced cucumber because I love it, sliced black olives, guacamole, and Mexican cheese. I cooked the ground meat with the hot and spicy taco seasoning. Then it was all topped off with a dab of sour cream. They tasted so good tonight!


I hope you have a great evening.

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Every Day

August 30: Low Spend Grocery Month Challenge

This morning for breakfast we had bacon, egg and cheese wraps made with one half a piece of FlatOut bread.

I am moving pretty slowly today. I have a pinched nerve in my back. It is driving me crazy.

For dinner, I cut up the rest of the lamb into chunks and made some more sauce using the leftover sauce, some bouillon and some more tomato sauce. Hubby made some rice using the rice cooker. I rarely have rice but had some tonight with the lamb concoction on top. We had green beans for a side. There is enough leftover for a lunch.

I hope you all have a good evening and week.  

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Every Day

August 29: Low Spend Grocery Challenge Month

Not getting up until 10AM is a rarity for me. I must have been really tired since I fell asleep about 10PM.

So breakfast wasn’t on my mind when I started to get hungry. I assessed everything that was in our fridge to make sure that we are using up food before it goes to waste. Since we had cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and bacon that needed to be used, I made a salad for lunch. It was so good with Skinny Girl poppy seed dressing on it.  

I already have stripped the bed that West stayed in and the sheets are now in the dryer. All the dirty towels have also been washed. When the bed is made and all other items have been folded and put away, I think I will read for a while. Hubby should be happy with college football on TV sometime today.

We had leftovers from dinner last night. I heated up the leftover potatoes in the gravy from the roast.


Hubby sliced some of the lamb.


After the potatoes and gravy were very hot. I put the lamb slices in just long heat to quickly heat them. I did not want to cook them just heat them through.


Here is my delicious dinner all from leftovers. 


I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend.