Utilizing Sales, Your Pantry & Leftovers AND a Trip to Target

This past week, the regional chain grocery store in my teeny tiny town had Ground Beef for $1.69 lb. That is the rock bottom price here for GB. So like any self-respecting couponing stockpiler, I stocked up of course!

Now what to do with all that Meat....
I repacked about half of the 12 lbs. of it into 1.5lbs. portions in foil and froze it. That is enough to make most any recipe I have that calls for ground beef, or in some cases a double batch of a recipe. These packs will be used for Tacos, Sloppy Joes, Chilli, Meat Spaghetti Sauce, etc.

Some more of it was used to make last night's dinner, Beef Pie. Beef Pie is my version of Shepherd's Pie. You substitute Cornbread topping for Mashed Potatoes.

I made 4 packages of precooked Meatballs for the freezer with 2 portions of the meat, so hubby or the kids can just make up a quick Spaghetti & Meatballs fare when I can't be here to cook dinner.

I debated with myself what to do with the last portion of meat. I looked around the kitchen pantry/fridge to see what I had that needed to be used up soon. You have to keep an eye out for Food Waste, don't you?
There was some leftover spanish rice and tortillas from last friday's Chicken Enchildas.
Bingo!
Use these 3 ingredients plus a can of refried beans(purchased on sale for 99 cents)to make Burritos for the freezer.

We love us some burritos in this house, usually buying the El Monterey brand, as it's the only brand available in the store here.
They hardly go on sale anymore, so that's $4.49 per bag we have to pay. The burritos also seem to have gotten smaller AND they have shrunk the number of burritos in the bag from 10 to 8! Of course, they didn't shrink the price you pay accordingly. grrrrrr

I just cook the ground beef up with garlic, onions, cumin, taco spices and some tomato paste. Take your tortilla, put some rice, some beans, some cheese(jack &/or cheddar, queso) & some beef in the middle and fold it up. I wrap each one in a piece of foil so it stays together until it hardens in the freezer.

I got to use up leftovers & make something I KNOW will be eaten by the kids, from ingredients that I bought inexpensively.

The cost analysis on this dish...
$4.53 for the ingredients
Made 8 large Burritos
So that comes out to $.56 per serving.
Basically, it cost me about the same to make these 8 Large Burritos as to buy the bag of El Monterey's, so in essence, mine cost half the price of the store bought ones.
That works for me!

I hurt my foot on wednesday trying to reach for those boxes of Green Giant veggies I bought for 50 cents a box.
I haven't been able to drive since then, as driving aggravates the foot. I spent Friday at the dr. office, getting x-rays and getting medicine. Luckily DH was home and could drive me around. He drove me to Target for the meds and I was able to pick up a few things for real cheap while there. ;-)

At TARGET I got...
4 x Mott's Applesauce for $.09 a package (reg. $1.66 -Target Q $1+IP Q $.55=$.09)
4 x The Good Life Cat Food for $.99 package (sale price $3.99 - MQ $3=$.99)
2 x Huggies Wipe Refill for $.99 (reg. $5.99 - IP Q $5=$.99)
1 x Glucerna Cereal for -$.51 (reg. $4.49-IP Q $5= -$.51)
2 x Deerfield Shredded Mozz. Cheese for $1.25 ea. (sale price $1.75-Target Q $1.00/2=$1.25 ea.)

Total cost OOP=$6.43
Value of Items with tax=$43.72
Savings of $37.29 or OVER 84%!

Then we bought 2 new printer cartridges. All this coupon printing just sucks up the printer ink, doesn't it? There went all my great coupon savings.lolol

Sluggy