JUNE Food Stamp Challenge....Day Ten & Eleven

This post is part of the June Food Stamp Challenge located over HERE.

On Day Ten of the June Food Stamp Challenge I was finally able to cook the Turkey.  I had planned on serving Sweet Potatoes with this meal so while #1 son & I were over in the neighboring town I stopped in for some inexpensive taters and to use a coupon on a special on bagged salad at a small market there.

5 x Sweet Potatoes--1.98lbs. @.69lb.=$1.37
3 x FE bagged Salad on sale B1G2=$2.97
3 x Friendly's Ice Cream on sale B1G2=$5.99 **Not Pictured**
SubTotal....$10.33

Coupons Used
1 x FREE Fresh Express Salad(won in giveaway)=$2.97
Coupon Total....$2.97

$10.33-$2.97=$7.36 Out of Pocket
 Regular Retail of Items purchased...$28.31


While the ice cream was not a need(I'm still stocking up on some items) everything else was bought to be used this month during the Challenge.

I served turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and home-grown beans on Day Ten.
Cost breakdown on the items I already had on hand....turkey(free last fall for buying $x amount during a promotional period), stuffing($2.00), cranberry sauce(.80), beans(free from our garden last summer-the last of them)=$2.80.

Since I had ground beef thawed in the fridge I still needed to make and serve Sloppy Joes this week and I was still out of rolls and bread.  Another bad day for baking on Day Ten so I planned on going to the Entenmman's Outlet in the big city for inexpensive bakery products as usual.

But you know what?.....They don't take EBT at the Bakery Outlet.  So someone on Food Stamps is out of luck procuring day old bread there and I don't feel right while on this Challenge shopping there.
So the Entenmman's Outlet was out.

Luckily, I remembered a Stroehman's affiliated Outlet near the little grocery we shopped at in the neighboring town.  So we checked them out and they DO take EBT....yay!

I found a loaf w/out HFCS for .99 but all the rolls had HFCS in them so I picked the least expensive ones.

1 x Bread=$.99
2 x Rolls(2/$1)=$1.00
Total....$1.99

I am working on tonight's dinner(Day Eleven)now.  We will have the Sloppy Joes and I have made no trip to the grocery store today.  Items used from the stockpile for today's meal amount to $1.00(Sloppy Sauce).

Spending for Day Ten & Eleven...$13.15


Spent to Date....$116.02
June Food Budget Left....$294.70
Days of Challenge Left....19 

Sluggy

JUNE Food Stamp Challenge....Days Eight & Nine

 This post is part of the June Food Stamp Challenge located over HERE.


Again I am having to show ya'll a photo of leftovers.....sigh.....get it together Sluggy for pete's sake!lol

This was dinner on Tuesday...Day Eight.  The only reason we had leftovers is because #2 son had an Orthodontist appointment that afternoon and his teeth didn't feel like eating that evening so he had soup and applesauce instead.

If you guessed that this is Spaghetti and Meatballs you are only partially correct.  It's actually faux meatballs or meatless balls.  They sure look like meatballs and with the sauce on them they sure taste like meatballs(albeit less dense than my homemade meatballs).....but they have no meat.
They do have dairy in them however.....alot of dairy!
(cheese, egg and a dash of milk)
The recipe is posted on my bloggy friend Annie Jones's blog HERE.
I can attest that these are VERY GOOD.  The teens didn't know they were meatless until I told them.  I did double the batch and making my usual sized meatballs, the mixture made 20 meatballs total.  Everyone got a serving of 4 meatless balls with their pasta and sauce.
I think next time I'll tweak this recipe by chopping or grinding up some rolled oats and adding that to the mix as well as coating them with the rolled oats.

Making the traditional Spaghetti and Meatballs sans meat is one way to bring the cost down when you serve this meal.  Meat products are by far as a group the most expensive items in a food budget.  If you are living on Food Stamps you need to be frugal with your purchases if your EBT is going to last the entire month.
The cost of this meal for the ingredients I haven't bought during my June food shopping came to $4.00(counting #2 son's food).
(I served a salad along with the Pasta just so you know we did have veggies too.)

Wednesday's dinner plan was a disaster.
I had planned on serving the Turkey that night....but the Turkey had other plans of it's own.
I still wasn't thawed. ugh
So I went to the next night's plan which was Sloppy Joes and pulled a package of Ground Beef out of the freezer.
And that refused to thaw in time.
Plus I had planned on making rolls today for tomorrow's Sloppy Joes but the rainy humid day was NOT conducive for baking today.

So 2 hours before dinner I pulled out a tupperware container of leftover BBQ Pulled Pork, popped it into a glass bowl and set it on defrost in the microwave since I didn't have much time left.
After 2 rounds of nuking, I discovered that my BBQ Pork was NOT BBQ Pork.....it was leftover homemade Chili!!
Hey, frozen into a solid block they looked the same, ok?lol

So we changed the plan again.  Now we were having chili and burritos with a side of corn.
But I had no burritos.
This meant a quickly thrown together plan for a trip to the grocery store.
There were some things I wanted to pick up at Weis this week on sale that I had coupons for, so that's where I went....

1 x 1/2 Gallon Skim Milk=$1.59--we were almost out of milk
4 x Sargento Shredded Cheese on sale $2=$8.00
2 x Hanover frozen Broccoli on sale $1.69=$3.38
1 x frozen Burritos=$3.99
SubTotal....$16.96

Coupons Used
4 x $.75/1 Sargento Reduced Sodium Cheese ManuQ(doubled to $1)=$4.00
1 x BOGO Hanover Vegetables=$2.19**
1 x $7 OYNO Catalina from last week's shopping=$7.00
Coupon Total....$13.19

**The Veggie coupon when scanned took off the maximum value allowed on the item($2.19) even though the item was only $1.69.  The cashier asked the front end manager if that was ok and he said yes, so I received an extra .50¢ discount on my order I wasn't expecting.

$16.96-$13.19=$3.77 Spent Out of Pocket
A savings of 84% over regular retail.

Other items on hand not bought in June we used on the Burrito Meal came to $.80.
Total of additional spending on food in June for the last 2 days....$8.57

Spent to Date....$102.87
June Food Budget Left....$307.85

Sluggy

Rite-Aid Trip on 6/9/10......Survey Says....

Made a quick trip to Rite-Aid Wednesday looking for a ProGlide Razor with a survey inside.....

2 x Old Spice Red Zone Deodorant on sale $3.50=$7.00
1 x Old Spice Red Zone Spray on sale=$3.50
1 x Lubriderm Lotion $4.29 w/Wellness 20% discount=$3.43
1 x ProGlide Razor on sale=$9.99
SubTotal...$23.92

Coupons Used
1 x $5/$20 Purchase AdPerks/VV IPQ=$5.00
1 x B2 Red Zone Deo./G1 Red Zone Body Spray ManuQ=$3.50
1 x $1/2 Red Zone Old Spice Items ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $2/1 Lubriderm IPQ=$2.00
1 x $3/1 Lubriderm In-Ad Store Q=$3.00
1 x $4/1 ProGlide Razor ManuQ=$4.00
Coupon Total.....$18.50

$23.92-$18.50=$5.42+$.33 tax=$5.75 OOP put on free Rite-Aid Gift Card--ZERO OOP
Value of Items....$31.65
Qualified for SCR#102=$5(Gillette Razor)
Received $4.00 +Up Reward

Since I bought a razor I obviously found one with the Survey inside.  It's a folded up piece of white paper behind the razor.  You can see it from the side of the package.

And here it is unfolded.  The survey takes about 5 minutes and the $5 Gift Card is suppose to arrive in 3-4 weeks.


My Rite-Aid Totals so far this month......
Number of Transactions.....4
Total Spent....$17.35--all put on free Gift Cards so ZERO  OOP
Total Value of Items Purchased....$127.66
SCR qualified for....$22.99 (working on #555 & #101 also for gift cards, not cash)
+Up Rewards Earned....$8.00(it spends like a CVS ECB)
Additional Rewards....$5.00 Gift Card from Gillette
 
Even without the gift cards to put my OOP on, I'd have $5.64 in cash overage, plus $13.00 in merchandise rewards to spend.

I have $18.50 toward the $25 needed for SCR#101 Gift Card and still at $19.51 toward the $50 needed for SCR#555 Gift Card.

Sluggy

Garden June 6th Update.....10 Days

Because of our location, we are not able to have a longer growing season or even garden year round like other parts of the country.  Man, if I lived someplace that was warm year round I'd be a growing fool...instead of just a plain fool!lol

The best way to live frugally foodwise, if you have the climate and a little land is to keep a garden.  I don't care if you think you have a black thumb, anyone can grow something!  I truly believe that.
You may not be P. Allen Smith or the world's most knowledgeable horticulturist but everyone can find something they can grow and eat.

Some seeds are pretty forgiving and fool-proof....just throw em down and even if you ignore them(and the skies provide rain when you forget to water them) and the bugs don't chew their way through everything, you'll end up with something to eat.  Imagine if you make any kind of effort to fend off the bugs, water and nurture these little seeds, what you could accomplish! ;-)

I am a lackluster gardener.  I like to garden but my old decrepit body does not, so I like my gardening simple and I don't put a big effort into it.
We don't have acreage here, we have about 1/3 of an acre lot.  We've got a deck over part of the land, drainage ditches & underground buried power lines in other parts of the land and an above ground pool taking up more valuable real estate.  Take away the areas with large shade trees and there isn't much ground for gardening but we use what we have.

Seriously, if you don't garden but you have a little plot of land or even a pot of soil, get a packet of seeds and try growing something this summer. ;-)


Here are some piccies I snapped last weekend(June 6th) of the garden.  10 days out so it's still early here and not much to see....lol
The butternut, peppers and marigolds in the front....still no sign from the sunflower seeds.

Here's the side bed on June 6th....

Peppers doing ok.  The tomato plants have blooms already!   Here's what the tomoatoes looked like on May 26th....

You can tell by comparison the pepper plants have done squat.....lol

More tomatoes and marigolds.  This end of the bed has worse soil and less sun.  I've manured and I'll give them 'fish tea' so we'll see how they do...
DH sewed zuke, squash and bush bean seeds in the middle 3rd of this bed Sunday so nothing to see there yet.

Now to the back bed.....

Tomatoes grew some....

And the Cauliflower on the right has started growing.  DH planted the eggplant on the right in the photo and they are holding their own.  Here's what the cauliflower looked like on May 26th...

Marked improvement with the cauliflower.

And I'm glad to see that the salad greens #1 son and I sewed are starting to pop up!  It was only a matter of 4 days or so for them to germinate and break the surface.....we'll have salad in a few weeks...yay!!

Here's what our salad greens part of the bed looked like last summer at it's peak in mid-July....the greens sort of took over due to the wet and cool summer we had last year and just wouldn't die!lol

Last but not least, here is a planter with some leftovers that didn't fit into the beds(peppers, a butternut and a yellow squash?).  Not much growth yet but they aren't dead so I am happy with that.lol

Looks like it's time to get the fencing up though.  Our resident rabbit(who lives under the shed)has been eye-ing the plants..... 8-(

Sluggy

Sunday & Tuesday at Rite-Aid.....Building my Rebate Totals

Well I screwed this trip up!lol

I went Sunday because I knew the Pampers wipes would be GONE very quickly due to the $2/1 Q in the inserts that day plus I wanted to pick up a couple of extra papers so why not buy enough to use a $5/$20 Q on my order and that papers would help me get to $20.  I was hopefully that I'd get there early enough to find some Blink Drops still on the shelf(to get the full price SCRebate).
I also wanted to use a BOGO Old Spice Q from the last P&G insert, since the Old Spice and Gillette Qs in that one don't expire until 6/30 and Old Spice products are on sale this week at Rite-Aid.
What I wanted to do was get some Old Spice Body Wash that was on sale along with the Deodorants for 2 for $7.00.  These qualify for the $4 UP+ reward(it prints on your receipt and is like a CVS Extra Care Buck) and I "thought" both the Wash and Deodorant would qualify for SCR #101(Spend $25 on P&G/Get $5 Gift Card).
Let's see the trip first and then I'll finish the story, shall we?

3x Pampers Wipes on sale $2.49=$7.47
2 x Newspapers $1.50 w/Wellness 20% discount $1.20=$2.40     *Not Pictured*
2 x Old Spice Body Wash on sale $3.50=$7.00
1 x Aveeno Lotion $3.69--w/Wellness 20% discount=$2.95
SubTotal....$19.82***

Coupons Used
1 x $5/$20 Rite-Aid AdPerks/VV IPQ=$5.00
3 x $2/1 Pampers Wipes ManuQ=$6.00
1 x BOGO Old Spice Red Zone Body Wash or Deo ManuQ=$3.50
1 x $3/1 Aveeno Lotion RA In-Ad Q=$3.00
Coupon Total.....$17.50

$19.82-$17.50=$2.32 OOP put on Free Rite-Aid Gift Card so ZERO Out of Pocket in the end
And I received a $4 +Up Reward(for the Old Spice)
The $2.95 Aveeno purchase counts toward my $50 needed for SCR#555(total so far is $19.51/$50.00).

First off they were out of Blink, so I DID need those newspapers to get to a $20 purchase.  YET....I didn't think I'd get the 20% discount off the papers, nor did I plan for that.....thus I was short at the register.  Neither the cashier or myself noticed the shortfall and he took the $5/$20 Q anyway.  You KNOW I would have grabbed something small to get over the $20 mark if I had been aware that was happening at that time. ;-)
My other goof-up I didn't notice until Tuesday when I was working up my next trip and going through the coupons here.  That's also when I noticed that the Body Wash doesn't qualify for the SCR#101(P&G products), just the Old Spice Deodorants do!
Ugh!!
The Old Spice BOGO Q I had used on Sunday was NOT BOGO Red Zone Body Wash or Deodorant.  Nope....if you actually READ IT, it says Buy any TWO Body Wash or RED ZONE Deodorant Get ONE BODY SPRAY FREE.
So....you have to buy THREE items and you get the 3rd Free.  I only bought TWO and neither of them were a Body Spray.
Ugh!!
The thing is.....the coupon went through(otherwise the cashier and I would have noticed the problem then)....it didn't come up "item not found" or whatever the register displays when you try to use a coupon and don't buy the right item.  They were the right type/brand of product(Red Zone)and the register took the coupon when I bought 2 items & not 3.
Oh well.....

So after realizing what I actually have to buy to use the Old Spice Qs, I went back to Rite-Aid on Tuesday....

2 x Old Spice FRESH COLLECTION Deodorant on sale $4=$8.00
1 x Blink Tears on sale=$7.99  Yay!...they restocked!!
1 x Reach 2 pack of Toothbrushes on sale=$3.99
1 x Rembrandt Toothpaste $8.29! w/Wellness 20% discount=$6.63
SubTotal....$26.61

Coupons Used
1 x $5/$20 Rite-Aid AdPerks/VV IPQ=$5.00
1 x BOGO Old Spice Fresh Coll. Deodorant ManuQ=$4.00  Yes, I READ this one!lol
1 x $1/2 any Old Spice Product ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $2/1 Blink Tears IPQ=$2.00
1 x $1/1 2pack Reach Toothbrush ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $3/1 Rembrandt Product ManuQ=$3.00
1 x $3/1 Rembrandt Product AdPerk/VV IPQ=$3.00
1 x $1/$10 Oral Care Purchase Wellness IPQ=$1.00
Coupon Total....$20.00

$26.61-$20.00=$6.61 OOP put on free Rite-Aid Gift Card so ZERO Out of Pocket
Qualified for SCR #81(2 Old Spice Fresh Collection Deos)$2 & #89(1 Reach 2pack Toothbrushes)$3 & #1(Blink Tears )$7.99=$12.99

While the Old Spice Fresh Collection Deodorants qualify for SCR #81 AND they should qualify for #101(spend $25 on P&G includes Old Spice Deos.), they do NOT give you the $4 +Up Reward....just the Red Zone in the Deos. give you that.(The Red Zones DO qualify for SCR#101, but do NOT qualify for SCR#81.)
Are you confused yet?lol

I want to finish off my SCR#555(Skin Care-Buy $50/Get $25 Gift Card) by buying a pricey Neutrogena Clinical item.  It's $39.99(IF I can find a store that has it!lol)and with the 20% Wellness Disc. my price will be $31.99, which is enough to get me over $50 in purchases.  I have $16 in Qs to use toward that $31.99($5 in-Ad Q, $5 off on $20 purchase AdPerks/VV Q, $5/1 Neutrogena Clinical IPQ & $1/$10 Skin Care Wellness IPQ=$16). 
So my $31.99 purchase will be $15.99.  To bring it down further I have the $4 +Up Reward to use as well, making the total spent $11.99.
And there is a Mail-In Rebate on the Neutrogena Clinical for $15.00 making this purchase FREE(with $3.01 in overage) after rebate plus I get the $25 Gift Card from Rite-Aid.
Nice!

The Rembrandt is a good deal as well all this month IF you qualify for a Wellness discount.  There is a AdPerks/VV Q for $3/1 Rembrandt you can pair with either the old ManuQ still valid out there(use by 6/30/10) for $3/1 OR the $3/1 Rembrandt IPQ from the Rembrandt website.  With no Wellness discount, on the toothpaste you'll pay $2.29(at my store's price anyway), with a 10% discount you'll pay $1.46 but with the 20% discount you'll only pay $.63!  If you buy 2 in the same transaction be sure to use the $1/$10 Oral Care Wellness IPQ for another dollar off.  Buy 2 with the 5 Qs you can use(2 x AdPerks/2 x Manu or IPQ/1 x Wellness IPQ=$13 off)and with the 20% discount level you'll pay .26¢ for TWO TUBES! (2 x $6.63=$13.26-$13 in Qs=$.26)


My Rite-Aid Totals so far this month......
Number of Transactions.....3
Total Spent....$11.60--all put on free Gift Cards so ZERO  OOP
Total Value of Items Purchased....$96.01
SCR qualified for....$17.99 (working on #555 & #101 also for gift cards, not cash)

Even without my gift cards to pay, I have $6.39 in overage so far this month.


Sluggy