Monday, January 30, 2012

January Food Spending Week 4, Meal Plan February Week 1


*I am taking part in Precious' MONEY SAVING CHALLENGE again for 2012.  You can find her blog FRUGAL MAKES CENTS and a list of other participants and their blogs  HERE.
Check it out.  You might find some new ideas for incorporating frugality into your life there!*


I love searching around for old photos and advertisements featuring kitchens from years gone by.  These are mostly the kitchens from my youth in the 1960's or earlier.  
Today's kitchen......
This is from a 1953 KitchenAid magazine ad.  While it's before "my" time, my brothers were around during that year.  I seriously doubt this was anything like the kitchen in my parent's house at that time, seeing as my parents were very poor when my siblings were born and they didn't own a house until shortly before I made my appearance into the world.
 
But for 1953, this was cutting edge in kitchen technology--metal cabinets, a stove in the center of the room with a recessed range hood, a breakfast bar with stools, a stylish linoleum floor with a yellow accent stripe(which matched the formica countertops!).  The laundry room was right in the kitchen too, with built in ironing and drying racks.  And did you notice the little rolling dirty laundry hamper/bin with the yellow counter top on it, in front of the iron board?

Now the oven position & style is a little odd, the fridge is pretty ordinary for the era, but the television set sitting in the kitchen in 1953!?  This family was upper middle class for sure to even own a tv in 1953!lol


Enough of that, onward to the Meals and Food Spending. 8-)


Last week's meal plan is in the books.  Here is what actually happened....
SUNDAY--homemade Pizza, carrot & celery sticks w/dressing
MONDAY--Leftover Chili or Burritos or both
TUESDAY--Denny's for Birthday Grand Slam
WEDNESDAY--Soup and Sandwich or leftover Sloppy Joe
THURSDAY--Chicken & Dumplings with carrots
FRIDAY--Chinese take-out
SATURDAY---Red Robin for Birthday Burger

I used up the last of the frozen pizza dough.  I had some odd pieces of chicken getting old in the freezer so I made Chicken and Dumplings out of it.  I tried a different dumpling recipe(the one in the Joy of Cooking with calls for egg as an ingredient), which gave a lighter/airy dumpling.  I didn't care for it much, preferring my old recipe which makes a heavier/gummier dumpling.  
There wasn't much other cooking last week, just more using up leftovers, heating up canned soup, opening canned/jarred fruits and more Birthday eating out.

I also didn't step foot into a grocery store all week...AGAIN!.  Hubs picked up milk one evening and #2 and I went to the Ollie's closeout store and bought some foodstuffs on another night.   The weekly spending was $46.75.

4 Weeks in and I spent $207.68 of my $300 January food budget.  $92.32 leftover for the month. I'll roll this amount into February's food budget, giving me $392.32 for this month.
I don't plan on spending it all in February, the extra will cover if I go over my usual $300 in the coming month.  Any leftover amount at the end of February will get thrown into my Savings Challenge fund and I'll start at $300 going into March.

For February....
Going into February Week 1, we have a little bit of Chili leftover and a couple of helpings of Chicken & Dumplings from Week 4.

This week's menu.....

SUNDAY--Italian Sausage Sandwiches, Cauliflower
MONDAY--Taco Bell(I'm having leftover Chicken & Dumplings)
TUESDAY--Homemade Pizza, Fruit Salad
WEDNESDAY--Tacos, Corn
THURSDAY--Tilapia, Rice, Brussel Sprouts
FRIDAY--Lasagna, Tossed Salad
SATURDAY--Leftovers

This menu gives us I night of take-out(except for my dinner), 1 night of leftovers and 5 home cooked meals this week.

Items needed for this menu are...pizza dough(getting from Price Chopper tonight), fruit and salad greens. I've got all the proteins I'm serving and all the dairy and noodles for the Lasagna here already. 
I'll pick up extra salad greens this week, some fresh produce and fruit as well as any good deals I find this week.  I haven't checked the sales ads yet so I don't know what I'll be picking up, if anything in the way of good deals.

Before good deals, I'm figuring on $30 spending this week for immediate menu food 'needs'.
 
With my leftover cash, I'm starting February with $392.32 in the food budget.

So what is everyone else eating this week?  

Sluggy

5 comments:

  1. I'm digging the swing-up clothes rack to hold the ironing, although in this house, it wouldn't see much action.

    I have issues with TVs in the kitchen...or bedroom...or anywhere other than the family room.

    My menu:
    Sunday - Waffles, bacon and eggs
    Monday - BBQ pork spare ribs
    Tuesday - Chicken-fried venison strips
    Wednesday - Venison fajitas
    Thursday - Greek burgers
    Friday - Leftovers
    Saturday - Pasta with shrimp and oven-dried tomatoes

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am eating whatever agrees with my stomach this week. I had bacon for breakfast, cereal for lunch, and will have a scrambled egg for dinner. Crackers and tea have been snacks today. Later, I am going to have spaghetti if the pecans I just ate agree with me.

    Where is the oven? What is that to the right of the tv?

    I don't like a tv in the kitchen or in the bedroom, either. I have a single friend who has 6 TVs in his home.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have a television in our living room, and if we ever get our family/craft room in our basement finished, we might have a second one down there. That's it though. I'm pretty sure I'd be just fine not having a TV at all.

      Delete
  3. I'm not big on tvs all over one's house. #2 son has a tv in his room but he bought it himself. We only have 1 tv in the den and that's all the tv I need. Hubs keeps trying to get me to buy another tv for our bedroom but that's not happening.lol

    Growing up my friend's parents all had little tvs in their kitchens. I never got the point of having one in there. ?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Den usually stops after work on Fridays and does the grocery shopping. He can go to a scary neighborhood and get some good deals, he just can't go when its dark out. LOL and I'm not kidding. But he has been doing work at his parent's house on Fridays so I've been doing the shopping in a not scary and more expensive neighborhood. So we aren't saving as much but we are pretty well stocked for a while. I also had to redo our monthly budget. I just can't make it on $80 a week for groceries and $80 a week for gas. Everything seems to be going up again. Grrrr.

    ReplyDelete

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