Making "Cents" of a Budget

My house isn't in perfect condition. Aiden and I were busy playing today with cars, his kitchen, and reading LOTS of books. And this weekend we went on a few excursions, as well. Some that I often prefer not to do with Aiden, but I decided to be brave this weekend: we went grocery shopping. AND...we went to Costco on a Saturday. 

I've typically placed a limit on how much I'd like to spend each month on groceries, but it used to be much different a year ago. I didn't worry as much about the cost of meat, and I had plenty of pantry space to store a stockpile of sorts with canned goods, dry goods, and a fridge large enough to store a decent grocery trip. 

Since I've moved, I've been very aware about how much I'm spending on everything - groceries included. My goal each month is to stay around $200, which has been fairly attainable...with some work and planning. I could have taken a trip to the Farmer's Market this weekend, but instead, I opted not to since I didn't know what I really needed to buy. So why go if I didn't have a plan? So I finally came up with a plan for the week, and headed to the store. 

My entire receipt from my trip to the store - $43.28

This trip was a bit for stocking up - pasta, guppies (generic goldfish) for Aiden, and the ever-important...toilet paper, which took up 25% of my grocery bill. Nothing fancy on the list. Popcorn for Aiden & me, since we like to have an after-dinner snack of popcorn, and a bag was only $3.39 and that will make about 8 batches of popcorn. Cheese is my splurge at $4.99, which is the sale price for the generic brand. 

My little guy hogging OUR popcorn

That shopping trip, with the exception of probably purchasing some more milk later in the week, will get me through until next weekend, without a doubt. Though my meals are quite simple, they're good, healthy, delicious, and...economical.

I often try to cook for at least two meals - dinner and the next day's lunch. Tonight, I noticed a leftover chicken thigh that needed to be cooked, plus I have fresh zucchini & mushrooms, and I cooked up some garnet yams last weekend, so they're ready to go. 

Tomorrow's lunch, and tonight's dinner
 (the chicken was still cooking)

So I started up a skillet with the mushrooms (and of course, a bit of butter), and then added 3 zucchini, cut lengthwise, then into semi-circles. While that cooked, I fired up another smaller pan for the chicken, and peeled two chunks of cooked yam. At the same time, I pulled out a container for tomorrow's lunch, peeled yams for that container, and left room for the zucchini/mushroom mixture. I estimate I spent about $1.80 on the zucchini for both meals (so, maybe $0.90 each), half the container of mushrooms (about $1), and the yams were passed onto me before my mom left for Italy (so...free!). So except for the chicken, and my yam...my lunch and dinner were around $1.90 each. 

So now, it's time to wrap up the last of the meal planning for the week, which includes planning for lunches. It just makes...cents.

From Scratch

I've loved having adventures in my kitchen for years. There are so many things to explore, and it's fun to see just how much can be done from scratch. Through the years, I've created cinnamon rolls, peanut butter balls, asiago & onion bagels, pot-stickers, breakfast burritos with beans, bacon, eggs and cheese, pulled pork, roasted chicken and vegetables, grilled pork tenderloin, cookies of all sorts, citrus stuffed turkey, my grandmother's enchiladas, stuffed shells, lasagnas, corned beef and cabbage, soups and chili, stuffed cabbage, mocha cupcakes with Bailey's icing...and now I'm drooling on my keyboard. And that's just the short list of what I can think of right now off the top of my head.

When I'm in a good mood, I love to cook. I don't necessarily want to eat it all, but I want to cook it. Thankfully, I can bring some of the items into work. Now, it's a bit harder to get into the swing of cooking. Half of the time, it's just me at the dinner table, so it has been a little bit of a challenge for myself to make real food, rather than another turkey sandwich on wheat, not that I don't do that on occasion.

The other half of the time I have Aiden, and though I try hard to just make something I would eat, and have him eat it too, I've resorted to shortcuts on occasion. Any mom who tells you they never had, is likely lying through their teeth. I'm already proud to say that I never fed him jarred baby food - I made my own, and had control of the ingredients. Plus, meats should not be any shade of gray.

In the past few weeks, I've been making a sincere effort to meal plan both for when it's just me, and when Aiden's with me. When Aiden's here, he often wants to see everything I'm doing, so I make sure to lift him up, he reminds me the stove is "hot," and I show him what I'm doing as best I can. His interest in what I'm cooking spurred me to get him a play kitchen for his birthday. Together we go through the play foods, and I let him know what they are.

Momma's kitchen helper in his very own kitchen

So tonight, I decided to make something...from scratch. It wasn't fancy. It wasn't gourmet. But it was good, satisfying, and I got myself back in the kitchen. Tonight it was just dinner for me, so I was able to eat after the sun went down rather than before. It was simple, and it was delicious: teriyaki marinaded chicken with sauteed snow peas & onion. Again, not anything fancy. No high tech gadgets used, no huge prep time (other than marinading the chicken, but that was passive prep).

So it wasn't anything fancy, but it was GOOD. It's small steps getting me back into my kitchen. Some of my kitchen is still packed in boxes somewhere in my garage, but I'll get to them soon. In the meantime, I'll just have to "settle" with dinners like these!