Riding it out

This is where my determination meets a brick wall. We have one week left in the month, yet so much ground to cover. R asked me if we have enough money in the account to get a pizza this weekend. He's weary of cooking, in other words, my having to cook, every night. The truth is, right now I don't mind cooking. What I'd hate is to see a huge bill and know we're adding to our own credit card debt-because we just don't have the funds to pay for it in cash.

Instead, I've been using our cash to build up our food at home. I went by the grocery store for milk yesterday, and came out with another 2 carts full of frozen food. I found out the store is doing a "reset", where the store is getting new shipments from companies, based on repackaging or discontinuing merchandise. What helped me out considerably, was that I had coupons to match those items. I got bags of frozen Green Giant veggies, originally $3.00 for .50 or free, depending on the coupon (it was clearanced for $1). I bought 2 packs of Marie Callender deep dish pie crusts for $1, where it cost me $1.50 for the shallow store brand ones, and I usually have to buy 4 at one time to complete my recipes. I also bought organic frozen veggies, and Amys Organic meals (which are delicious) for me as a treat, since they too were marked down to $1, originally $4.

The biggest coup-Morningstar veggie products, for $1-I love using mealstarters (vegetable protein) instead of ground beef/turkey in my recipes. I got too many bags to mention, at least 12. Why so many-here's my rationale. Each bag was 12 oz, and I typically use 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef/turkey in any recipe. With Morningstar costing $1 per bag for 12 oz, and ground beef/turkey costing at least $3.49 (per costco's last price) per pound, I'm paying $2 towards a meal (Morningstar price), instead of $5.23 (1 1/2 lb of ground beef). My boys love it, honestly they don't know the difference unless I say something-same goes for R too. I'm just glad we're able to get it, since the normal price is more than the price of ground beef ($3.99 a bag).

I received a few more coupons as I was exiting the store, and got a $5 off when you spend $50. Well, I have yet to spend $50 in one shot, even when I tried, it still only came to $30~whereas the bills would have been $90 something if the items weren't being sold at these prices.

I'm reluctant to admit that this shopping trip made me giddy-then again, knowing that I don't have to pay full price for things is always a reason to celebrate. On a side note, I'm prepping bags of food to donate to the local food bank. Seeing as how we're fortunate, makes me want to spead the wealth too.