Thursday, March 26, 2009

Cooking/Grocery Challenge to Myself

I am bad very bad at sticking to a grocery budget. There are times I really love to cook and times I can't stand the thought but I love baking and this is where my grocery budget goes haywire.

I have made a challenge to myself for the end of this month and into April. Mine and Jeremy's grocery budget is 75.00 every 2 weeks now keep in mind there's only 2 of us and we live in a low cost of living state so that should be more than enough. Well the entire month of march I went over. So I have challenged myself to come up with a real meal plan like 2 weeks worth of meals and buy all the ingredients at once and not go over budget. This also means I don't get to do a lot of baking :(

Now obviously we do eat out sometimes and I am accounting for that I have a friends birthday dinner and Jeremy and I usually eat out about once per week. So I took that into consideration and then proceeded to plan 10 meals for the next two weeks. This means I must cook after work I have been being really lazy and not wanting to and eating crap because of it which is not good for my migraines or my sleeping issues. I'm trying a lot of new recipes too so we'll see how it goes.

So here are my 10 meals.

Chicken alfredo pizza
pulled pork sandwiches
bbq chicken
penne with turkey sausage and peppers
chicken quesadillas
meatloaf with carrots
chicken kiev with green beans
crockpot hawiian chicken with steamed rice
pork tenderloin with twice baked potatoes
biscuit topped casserole

and my grocery list:
I am a big nerd when it comes to grocery shopping and like to write down prices as I go so I have a way of knowing about how much I'll spend and I plan on doing that tonight as well.

tortillas
bell peppers
pizza dough
alfredo sauce
milk
shredded cheese 3 flavors cheddar, mozzarella, & monterey jack
chili powder
ground cumin
red pepper flakes
pork shoulder
turkey sausage


Wish me luck I'm trying really hard to stick to our budget and to cook some good meals.

Later...

Love,
Mrs. A

4 comments:

Mrs. S. said...

I need to do that, too. Mr. S. does not seem to understand that groceries need to be budgeted. Your meals sound yummy!!!

Molly Jean said...

I commend you for trying to stick to a meal plan AND a grocery list. I'm awful at both :(

But to answer your question, YES! I'm taking Course 2. I hope I can be a little better this time around!

Michel-lee said...

I found your blog because I love cake decorating also. I wish you luck with your grocery budget. I've been reading other blogs about making a weekly meal list, saving coupons, and shopping for what you need for the week. I would love to find out how things work out for you.

P.S. I like to write the prices down too and add them all up before I check out. Sometimes I end up putting stuff back on the shelf.

Lindsey said...

I def need to do this! Thanks for the inspiration!