January Pantry Challenge Update

Update: Just received an email from Wal-Mart's Savings Catcher that one of the items I bought was 52¢ cheaper somewhere else, so I got that back. But if I put it on my Bluebird Card, they will double the amount, so I really got $1.04 back, lowering my total spent to $70.06.

 I thought I would pop in and share the rest of my January deals with you. I did buy some groceries that were just too good a deal that it didn't seem frugal to not purchase them:

canned vegetables for 25¢ (I bought peas, one thing we didn't garden)
2 liter Coke 88¢ (probably didn't "need", but DH likes homemade Vanilla Coke, so got it for a special treat)
red pepper 86¢ plus 25¢ refund through Snap making it only 61¢
loaf bread 88¢
pasta 77¢

Dollar general had a one day special $2 coupon and you had to spend at least $2.01 so used it on chili pdr (we were out) $1 plus a pkg of salami that was $1.50, so only paid 50¢ for the 2 items

gallon milk 2.69 (2)
flour tortillas, I usually make mine, but with store special plus coupon off they were only 18¢
French Toast Crunch...did NOT need cereal, but ever since I learned that General Mills was bringing this back and it's my son's favorite cereal, I had 2 coupons and was finally able to get some! So $3.50 for 2 boxes. Can't wait to surprise him with these in his Valentine care pkg.

cabbage $1.40 (it was a very large head and I was able to get a large salad plus runzas made with it)
ketchup 88¢
chunk cheese 1.50
shredded cheese 7.35 for a large bag
2 jars Alfredo Prego Sauce for 2.25 (for both of them) I use this for chicken lasagne, chicken pasta of any kind, chicken/bacon/ranch pizza, etc
eggs 1.28/doz

4 boxes of 12 ct Pop Tarts for $4!! Was suppose to be $5 (in store special plus coupon I had off of 3), but gal rang it up wrong and would not believe me when I told her I owed her $5, not $4. There was a long line behind me, so I let it go and then went back in to talk to manager and he wouldn't let me pay the dollar I owed, so a GREAT deal on Pop Tarts!

so total spent for second 1/2 of Jan:$43.19plus first 1/2$27.91

total $71.10

We still have soooo much food in the freezer/pantry/canning cupboard, so I'm going to try this again in Feb, but only allowing myself to buy milk & eggs and then whatever spices/sugar/flour, etc I might need. I think milk and eggs will be all I need to buy, but we'll see. HOWEVER...if there are any great deals like tortillas for .18....it would be dumb of me not to get some. I only had the one coupon, so only bought the one pkg....guess I'll just see how it goes and keep you all posted. Ü

Pantry Challenge

One thing I had planned to do this month is a pantry challenge. I first learned of this through THIS blog that I enjoy reading. I've done it a couple of times (not necessarily in January) and decided to do it again.

One of the upsides to being sick is that it makes this challenge REALLY easy! Esp. since DH doesn't shop.

I wanted to eat from our pantry, freezer, etc as much as possible for this month. I decided I would only buy the necessities and then anything not a "necessity" ONLY if it was a huge bargain that wouldn't make sense to pass up. So, since the first, here is what we have bought so far.

Things we were out of and needed:
gallon milk 3.89
chili pdr 1.00
salami 1.50 (minus $2.00 coupon from Dollar General...with the coupon it was a one day deal and you had to spend at least $2.01...so my salami and chili pdr only cost 50¢)
buns .88 (these were on sale)
baking soda .65
cooking spray 2.18
cocoa 2.68
parmesan 3.00 (needed for recipes for alfredo sauce)
cottage cheese 2.73 (something I could eat and not make me sick the first part of the month)
eggs 1.45
canola oil 2.50
crackers 2.50
chips .99 (didn't really need these, but DH likes them and they go easy with a sandwich and on sale)

Great Deals
case (12 pk) of REAL cranberry juice 99¢/case! We bought 4 cases 1.96

Things we've eaten that I already had on hand (these don't include breakfasts which has been mostly toast, pop tarts, and cereal. We have LOTS of cereal that I got last year with great buys with store bargains plus coupons)

fried egg sandwiches
peaches/cottage cheese
French dip sandwiches
chili & grilled cheese sandwiches
chili baked potato
beef and noodles over mashed potatoes
chicken and noodles
deer steak, mashed potatoes & gravy
hamburgers & chips
salami, crackers, and cheese
oranges
French toast
bacon, egg, & cheese "tacos"
cream cheese chicken chili (what we are having tonight with cornbread)
breakfast pizza (sausage and bacon)
pumpkin bread
pancakes

So if I figured it all up, we've spent $27.91 for 15 days. Not too bad. I'll check in at the end of the month to let you know what the total has been.

Do you do a pantry challenge? If so, what have been some of your best bargains, or deals?

Week 2 Pantry Challenge

This is what we ate for June 6-12.

Sunday:
lunch: Cheeseburger Pizza & Snickerdoodles
Nebraska has a buffet style restaurant called Valentino's and they serve a cheeseburger pizza that we like. I had a little hamburger and bacon that needed used up so thought I'd give it a try. Since it was still just DH & me, I used two flour tortillas for our shells. To 1/2 cup pizza sauce I added 1 TBSP ketchup and 2 tsp mustard. I fried diced bacon, onion, chopped dill pickle and hamburger for the topping and then added cheese (I think American shredded would have been better, but just went with what I had in the fridge).

Snickerdoodles:
1 cup soft butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cup sifted flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix butter, sugar, and eggs thoroughly. Sift together the flour, tartar, soda, and salt. Add the two mixtures together and stir. roll into balls the size of small walnuts. Roll in mixture of 2 TBSP sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon. Place 2" apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake until lightly browned, but still soft @ 400* for 8-10 minutes.

supper: hamburgers on the grill, chips, veggies, cookies


Monday
dinner: we just had cereal. Aaron slept in til noon (very tired from being gone all week)
supper: grilled steak, veggies, tator tots, snickerdoodles

Tuesday:
dinner: pancake puff, fruit
supper: beef & noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans, angel food cake

Wednesday:
dinner: leftovers
supper: BBQ meatballs, scallop potatoes, veggies, strawberry/rhubarb crisp

Thursday:
dinner: homemade egg muffins with egg, cheese, ham and homemade English muffins
supper: grilled pork steak, scallop potatoes, green beans, leftover strbry/rhubarb crisp

Friday:
dinner: leftovers
supper: lasagna, salad, garlic bread made with homemade English muffins, brownies

Saturday:
dinner: leftovers
supper: homemade pizza, scotcheroos

Pantry Challenge 6-3 to 6-5

The third was our 21st anniversary. DH made me deer steak for dinner and we went out for supper.

Day 4:
lunch: grilled cheese and leftover baked beans, raw veggies
supper: hamburgers and homemade french fries

Day 5:
lunch: french dip, potato chips, raw veggies
supper: roast and corn, homemade bread and leftover pear cobbler

Note: unless I post otherwise, Breakfasts are cereal, pancakes, scrambled eggs, waffles, french toast or muffins (banana or blueberry). If I make anything different than that above I will post with a recipe. 

Pantry Challenge Day 2

Good Morning! For today's pantry challenge, we will be eating:
lunch: tortilla roll-ups (sundried tomato tortillas with sourcream, salsa, leftover grilled chicken and lettuce, roll up and cut in half), carrot sticks, potato chips and for dessert we will share a LARGE blueberry muffin from Perkins (couldn't eat it yesterday and it came with my meal)

supper: grilled hamburgers, baked beans, veggies, pear cobbler

June Pantry Challenge

In January, I followed some others in a pantry challenge. The challenge was to eat as much as possible just from what is in your pantry/freezer and buy as little as possible. I knew I wanted to try it again this summer, so I've decided that June is that month. My goal is to only buy items that are dairy, fresh fruit and veggies and staples, like flour, sugar etc.

I will keep you all updated with our meals and share recipes when I can and also how much I spend on groceries for the month of June. If you would like to join me, please let me know and keep me updated on how you are doing.

The boys are in TX this week working at a camp getting it ready for campers. Meals have been light since they left early Saturday morning.

Today I ate out with mom (she paid) for lunch and I'm not sure what Bruce ate, but probably leftovers or cereal.

For supper I made grilled chicken which had been marinated in lite Catalina dressing, lettuce salad with tomato and shredded cheese and garlic bread made with homemade bread.

I hope to get back to stamping this week. I had big plans and they've all changed for what my week looks like.

On the Move

This is a new set (or you can buy the images in singles) from Inky Antics that was introduced at CHA as well. I haven't heard from Jackie yet, but I am hoping that my samples were well received and that she got lots of orders.

I LOVE this house image!!! I made a notepad with 1/2 a junior legal pad for this project.

The papers are from Basic Grey's 2009 Christmas line called "Eskimo Kisses". As soon as I saw the house paper I knew I wanted to use it for this set. (I will be showing more later with the other images in the set and this line of paper)

I colored this image with Copic markers. I love how welcoming the house looks with "light" shining through the windows welcoming anyone to come and visit. Ü

Pantry Update:

Saturday we were gone all day to Benjamin's speech meet. We met up with my brother, SIL and nephew (also got to see nephew and friends of Aaron's perform) and then went out to eat supper with brother, SIL and nephew.

Sunday: waffles for breakfast, we were taken out for dinner and supper was waffles for Aaron and Bruce and finger foods at church for Benjamin and myself (we went to a music nite at the country church that moved to the village Ü)

Meet Millie

Yesterday I told you I wanted to call the teacup mousies Tillie. That's because this is Millie. Isn't she cute (esp for a mouse! LOL)

There are more in the set and I will be sharing those later.

Yesterday went well for my first day back to work after being gone a week. I was wiped out after the day, but it felt good to be back.

Pantry challenge:
last nite we had deer steak, rice, and oatmeal bars

Teacup Mousie

I have two more cards to show you with the Teacup Mousie set. These are designed by Tammy DeYoung for Inky Antics and I am sooo excited that I got to play with them! I'm thinking they should have a name like Tillie Mouse. I will tell you tomorrow why I think her name should be Tillie. Ü

These cute cards are at CHA. I hope they inspired many business owners to buy from Inky Antics!

Pantry Challenge Update:

Even though I've been sick, we are still doing this. Bruce is a great cook and has always said we have alot of food in the freezer and pantry, so he has just cooked away with what we've had. Ü

However, with the long weekend and me being home on Sunday (when I usually get groceries), we are out of veggies (except carrots and a little bit of lettuce and spinach) and milk. I will pick some of that up today. I still need to post what I've spent and will try to put that up tomorrow.

I didn't eat much as I slept so much and don't remember everything we've ate. But here are a few things we've had:

chicken and noodles (one egg to one cup of flour and a little salt is our recipe for noodles, then add flour as needed to roll out)

deer steak

beef and noodles

baked chicken

chicken sandwiches

beef and/or pepperoni pizza (the cheater kind with tortilla shells)

baked potatoes

salmon and green beans

chicken roll ups: Sundried Tomato tortilla shell with honey mustard, mushrooms and onion (fried in a nonstick pan til golden brown), thinly sliced chicken breast, fresh spinach

and provolone cheese. Roll up and eat, yummy!

treats:

pudding, tapioca pudding, pear cobbler, chocolate chip cookies

Okay, that's all I can think of for now. It's time for me to go to work after being home for a week. I hope I can last the day!

Speedy Recovery

This is my wish for myself and anyone else out there that isn't feeling so hot.

These two cards along with several others are now on their way to CHA in California! If you're going to CHA be sure to stop by the Inky booth and tell Jackie "hi" for me. Ü

Medical update:

I tried to get Bruce to let me see if I could do a 1/2 day of school and he said "no way", so I'm home again today (which is really the dr's orders, but I thought maybe it wouldn't hurt to try part of a day). Monday is a teacher's in-service again, so I should be ready to go by Tuesday. I just hope I'm not too weak and can do a whole day. The school nurse will monitor me, so all will be good.

I see the lung specialist Thursday and am hoping to get this figured out so I don't have to keep going thru this stuff and getting worse every time.

My IV's are over!!!! YAY!!! I am hoping to try some stamping during my sitting up periods today. I just have to stay off my feet as much as possible, so hope I have the energy to sit and stamp.

Pantry challenge update: still eating from the pantry/freezer/etc. Some of the things I remember eating have been: beef and noodles, salmon and canned veggies, potatoes, leftovers, and lots of yogurt (which I bought on sale and will post that total later). Oh and Benjamin made a cherry pie from cherries we picked this summer. I'm not a cherry fan, but Bruce and Benjamin have enjoyed the pie and I see it's gone.

I haven't felt like eating much, so it hasn't taken much from out pantry. The boys have stayed with g'ma some, so we are really getting off easy this month for this pantry challenge. I am thinking of doing it again in June. I may try again before then, but things are going to get really busy with graduation just around the corner, so not sure another month before then will work. I will keep you all updated.

Wednesday nite Mom brought over some frozen corn (dad plants the corn and we get together in the summer to work it), pumpkin bread (my favorite!), oreos and pizza sticks (not sure what they are, but she put them in our freezer), so may have that tonite. Aaron is my pizza lover so I know he will enjoy that.

Bruce is a good cook and I am blessed big time in that way! He is taking very good care of me.

updates

we are still doing the pantry challenge (dh and boys just don't know it Ü)

Bruce has been doing the cooking and is just using what we have on hand. We did get some milk yesterday. I will update the total I've spent so far later.

I am not getting better as quickly as I should and now have a set back...my blood pressure is dropping, to the point where the dr. is not letting me go back to work for a few days. She said she can't belive I haven't been passing out. My legs have been feeling weak, but I didn't think to say anything the other times I had been there due to my bronchitis and that was more on my mind.

I had a very bad day at the hospital today and am exhausted. My veins are very hard to find and it took over 2 hours and 4 people to finally find one before they were ready to have a port inserted (WHEW!) The new IV is in a very uncomfortable and slightly painful (slightly compared to what I went thru this afternoon) so it is hard to type.

I have some sneaks I can show of new Inky Antics and hopefully will be able to get up and post one a day while I am homebound.

Pantry Challenge for Sunday and Monday

I didn't get back on yesterday to post my Pantry Challenge/menu. I have bronchitis and spent as much as the day as possible resting (if one can rest going into bronchial spasms all day!)


Sunday:
breakfast: boys at at youth group (they take turns taking breakfast each Sunday; me: toast

dinner: bacon, egg sandwiches, raw veggies, cookies

supper: grilled marinated chicken breast (recipe for marinate will be below), baked potatoes, spinach salad, tapioca


Best Marinade:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup water
2 TBSP lemon juice
2 TBSP dried onion (I like to use green onion)
1 TBSP parsley
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Blend well and pour over 2.5 lbs chicken breast over nite or about 8 hours. Drain and grill chicken.


Today:
breakfast: pop tarts and apple cider (I know, not very healthy, but they are in the cupboard and I'm not feeling so hot)

dinner: oven fried chicken (I just brown chicken on the stove and then put in oven safe dish and bake until done), mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans

supper: 
hamburgers on the grill, potato salad, raw veggies, rice pudding


**I will try to pop back in today with a project. We have today off for teacher's in-service, so I'm hoping to get rested up so I can go to work tomorrow.

Altered box

This is a box that was natural wood that I painted and decoupaged paper on for my boss for Christmas. (you can get these at Hobby Lobby)

She has a sweet tooth and likes flavored cocoas, so I put cocoas and candy in the drawers. Sorry for the poor photos, I was finishing this up last minute and had to hurry with the pictures and didn't check them before I took it to work.

*******************

Pantry Challenge:

Breakfast: There is a country church a mile from us that has a men's breakfast once a month. Bruce and Aaron went there this morning (Benjamin is at a speech meet) and I ate a muffin.

Dinner: Quickie Pizza, lettuce/spinach salad, ice cream

Supper: Vegetable Beef soup, whole wheat bread, oranges

note: "Quickie Pizza"-is a thick 6" tortilla with pizza sauce and favorite toppings. Super easy and the boys can put whatever they want on top. Today will be hamburger as I don't have pepperoni or chicken leftover.

Another sneak

Jackie posted both of these cards on her blog, so I know I can show a sneak of them as well. I just LOVE these new Inky Antic "Teacup Mousies" that Tammy DeYoung designed. I used papers from Basic Grey's Nook & Pantry. *************

Pantry Challenge:

I spent $12.87 at the grocery store last night. That bought 1 gallon of milk, 2 dozen eggs, 2 pkgs shredded cheese, 2 lbs margarine and 1 package cheese slices. It was so hard to buy anything, but I stayed within the "fresh produce and dairy" limits.

Today's menu:

Breakfast: Banana muffins (I only made 1/2 of them yesterday, so they are fresh today)

Dinner: boys- at school, Bruce -left over chicken noodle soup from freezer and me- left over beef and noodles

Supper: "clean out the refrigerator" this is something we do from time to time when there is only a little of lots of things. I cook it up and set it out like a buffet and they get to pick and choose what they want to eat.