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Category: From My Kitchen

December 15, 2018 | Crystal Paine

Oops! I accidentally went over the grocery budget this week!

I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

For live updates, be sure to follow my Instagram Stories. See all posts on my $70 Grocery Budget here.

Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and we will be compensated if you click through and sign up. Read our disclosure policy here.

Well, y’all, I had thought I was about $6 under budget this week… and then I went to add up my receipts and discovered I was actually $1.72 over budget.

Whoops! I realized that I read one receipt as saying I had spent $36 when it actually said I saved $36 and spent $42. Oh well!

I have a little wiggle room in the budget since I’ve been under budget a number of weeks, so it will be okay. But lesson learned: Don’t just glance at your receipt before heading to the store!

(I keep my receipts and then use those to tally how much I’ve spent for the week. I know; that’s ridiculously old fashioned, but it’s usually what works for me. Maybe I should move up to something more sophisticated and techie!! Jesse does track it all in YNAB, but he’s usually a few days behind in tracking and inputting everything, so I usually just go off of my receipts!)

I try to stick as close to the $70 mark as possible — it’s a fun challenge for me PLUS I love getting to show you how it works for our family and the deals that I find!

At any rate, here’s what I bought this week:

Kroger Shopping Trip #1:

  • Back to Nature Cookies — on sale for $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items, plus used a $1.50/2 coupon that printed while I was checking out = $3.45 for 5 boxes (my kids were SO excited about these!!)
  • Lemon Juice — $2.49
  • Alo Juice — Free with free Friday e-coupon
  • 2 dozen Happy Eggs — marked down to $2.49 per dozen
  • Hillshire Ham — on closeout for $2.09
  • Planter’s Peanuts — $2.49 when you buy 5 participating items, plus used $1.50/1 Kroger digital coupon = $0.99
  • 1 loaf of bread — marked down to $1.39
  • Clementines — $3.99 for a 3-lb bag
  • 3 bags of Sweet Potatoes — marked down to $0.99
  • 1 bag of grapefruit — marked down to $0.99
  • 2 packages of Cheddar Bratwurst — marked down to $1.79 each
  • 4 packages of Eckrich sausage — $1.50 each when you buy 5 participating items
  • 5 boxes of Simple Popped Popcorn — $1 per box when you buy 5 participating items (plus each box has a free Redbox movie rental code in it!)
  • 1 container organic Spring Mix (no romaine!) — marked down to $1.79
  • Total with tax: $42.38

Psst! Need some help with cutting your grocery budget? Check out my series: 5 Days to a Better Grocery Budget.

Kroger Shopping Trip #2:

Kroger Shopping Trip #3:

Cashback earned this week: $0.10 from Ibotta for submitting my receipt and 284 points for submitting my receipt to Fetch rewards (that’s basically the equivalent of $0.28).

Total spent this week: $71.72

Also, I just had to show you this 52-week Meal Planner that my friend, Erin, from Simple Purposeful Living sent me. 

There’s space to write out your menu and then your shopping list — and then it’s perforated so you can tear it out and take your shopping list with you to the store!

Aldi shoppers, I thought this would make you smile. (And excuse the fact that the meme says “Aldi’s” not Aldi and “grill’s” not grills.)

What We Ate This Past Week

Note: When you see the meals below, please remember this: I buy ahead often. Which means that when I find a great deal on something I know we’ll use, I buy as much as I can afford in our budget to have on hand.

This means that you aren’t going to see all of the groceries my shopping trip that I used to make all of the meals we ate.

Please also remember that I’m putting this out there and it’s not a perfectly balanced menu. This is just really what we ate — and I hope that it encourages you to see the real-ness and lack of perfection here. 🙂

Breakfasts:

  • Cereal, Oatmeal, Scrambled Eggs, Bacon (from the freezer) Yogurt, Hard Boiled Eggs, Banana Bread

Lunches:

  • Hard Boiled Eggs, Banana Bread, Cheese/Crackers, Avocados, Salad, Leftovers (for Jesse & Me)
  • Ham Sandwiches, Clementines, Cheese/Crackers, Yogurt, Cookies, Hard Boiled Eggs (for the kids — They are in charge of their own lunches.)

Snacks:

  • Yogurt, Cheese/Crackers, Popcorn, Hard Boiled Eggs, Cookies

Dinners:

  • Saturday: Dinner out
  • Sunday: Fend For Yourself — snack-y food and leftovers
  • Monday: Peppers & Sausage over Brown Rice
  • Tuesday:  Pork Sandwiches, Mashed Sweet Potatoes
  • Wednesday: Whole Wheat Pancakes, Bacon, Grapefruit
  • Thursday: Turkey Meatballs, Sweet Potato Fries
  • Friday: Leftover Turkey Meatballs & Sweet Potato Fries
14 Comments
December 10, 2018 | Crystal Paine

When you want to make Hashbrown Casserole, but you don’t have sour cream…

This Hashbrown Casserole is SO simple -- even when you feel like you're missing ingredients!

What do you do when you want to make hashbrown casserole, but you don’t have any sour cream? Well, if you’re me, you decide to get creative and make do with what you have!

This was me two weeks ago.

I woke up Sunday morning and realized that I needed to bring something to our church brunch that morning. We had just bought the Ore-Ida Potatoes at Kroger that were on sale for $0.99 per bag as part of the weekend deal and I had a can of cream of chicken soup + a block of cheddar cheese, so I was itching to make Hashbrown Casserole in the Crockpot.

The only problem? We didn’t have sour cream or Greek yogurt or anything that could stand in for sour cream. And every online search for Crockpot Hashbrown Casserole brought up recipes that had sour cream in them.

However, not to be deterred, I remembered this Hashbrown Potatoes recipe from my sister that doesn’t have sour cream or cream soup in it, so I decided to just try and see if I could make something up with what I had on hand.

Here’s what I did:

I browned the onions in half a stick of butter.

Then, I added the can of cream of chicken soup plus some milk and heated it through.

 

While this was simmering, I grated some cheese.

I then put one bag of hashbrowns onto the bottom of the crockpot and poured the soup mixture on top. (Note: I should have sprayed the pan, but I forgot to do so — it ended up not sticking to the bottom like I thought it would, but I would still recommend not forgetting like I did. :))

I mixed the soup mixture in with the potatoes.

And then dumped the shredded cheese on top.

And mixed the cheese in.

I cooked it on high for 3 hours. (We cooked it at home for an hour and a half and then brought it to church and plugged it in to cook during the service for an hour and a half.)

The end result was amazing — it smelled so good, tasted amazing, and the crockpot was completely empty in just a few minutes! I would say they were a big hit! 🙂

Not all of my kitchen creations have turned out so successfully, but it’s always a victory when they do — and I get creative and make do with what I have on hand!

By the way, I got 678 points from Fetch for buying the Hashbrown Potatoes! Yay for free points and free gifts cards for something I was already planning on buying!

Looking for another yummy Hashbrown Potato recipe that doesn’t require any sour cream or cream soup? Check out my sister’s Cheesy Hashbrown Potatoes recipe.

19 Comments
November 3, 2018 | Crystal Paine

My biggest grocery shopping trip in a long time!

I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

For live updates, be sure to follow my Instagram Stories. See all posts on my $70 Grocery Budget here.

Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and we will be compensated if you click through and sign up. Read our disclosure policy here.

We went shopping twice this week. Jesse ran by Aldi to pick up a few staple items and then I went and did a BIG shopping trip at Kroger today.

ALDI Shopping Trip:

  • Olive Oil Spray — $1.49
  • 24-oz bag of Chocolate Chips — $2.79
  • Oil — $1.85
  • Salt — $0.39
  • Brown Sugar — $0.95
  • Cheddar Cheese — $1.69
  • Shredded Wheat Cereal — $1.39
  • Hamburger Buns — $0.85
  • Ramen (my kids love Ramen and have been begging me to buy it!) — $1.94
  • Total with tax: $14.32

Jesse and I leave on Monday for Rome and India. We’re so excited that all of the details of this trip worked out and I’ll be sure to share lots of pictures and videos on Instagram.

We’re going with another couple we are really close friends with and will be gone for 10 days. My mom is coming to watch our kids and I didn’t want her to have to worry about doing much grocery shopping while we’re gone, so I went ahead and did a big stock up trip at Kroger today.

Check your Kroger account or app to see if this $10 off $50 digital coupon is available for you. It was for me, but some people told me they didn’t have it offered in their account.

I am LOVING the Friday-Saturday deals available at Kroger this week + the buy 10, Get $5 off deals. There were SO many great deals that I had a hard time choosing which ones I was going to stick with!

My LOADED up cart! I ended up saving $100 after coupons and deals!! Here’s what I bought…

Kroger Shopping Trip

  • 5 Solero — $1.99 each on Friday and Saturday with the Kroger Digital Coupon
  • 3 Handi-Foil Pans — $1 each on Friday and Saturday with the Kroger Digital Coupon
  • 7 BirdsEye Steamfresh — $0.75 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • 5 BirdsEye Frozen veggies — $0.75 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • 2 boxes of Cousin Willie’s popcorn — $1 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • 2 cans of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup — $0.49 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • 3 cans of RedGold Tomatoes — $0.39 each when you buy 10 participating items, submit for $0.90 Ibotta rebate = $0.09 each
  • 1 Lays Stax — $0.69 when you buy 10 participating items
  • 1 Pringles — $0.99 when you buy 10 participating items
  • 1 Palmolive — $1.49 when you buy 10 participating items, used $0.50 Kroger Digital Coupon = $0.99
  • Jef-Puffed Marshmallows — $1.25 (I thought my $1/1 Digital Coupon was going to come off since it was still showing in my account even though I used it last week, but looking on my receipt, it looks like it didn’t come off.), submit for $0.25 Ibotta rebate
  • 3 boxes Creamette Pasta — $0.49 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • 1 ALL Laundry detergent — $2.49 each when you buy 10 participating items, used $1/1 Kroger digital coupon, $1.49 after coupon
  • 2 boxes of Betty Crocker Brownie Mix — $0.75 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • 1 box Betty Crocker Cake Mix — $0.75 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • 1 Capri Sun — $1.79 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • 5 Halo Top — $1.99 each when you buy 10 participating items
  • Milk — $1.99
  • 5 Kroger Yogurts — marked down to $0.39 each
  • Private Selection Hot Cocoa — $0.67, used $0.50/1 Kroger Digital coupon = $0.17 after coupon
  • Chobani — free with Free Friday coupon
  • 2 pounds of ground beef — marked down to $3.79 and $3.29
  • 2 pounds of Ground Turkey — marked down to $3.19 each
  • Bagged Salads — marked down to $1.29 and $1.99
  • Kroger Eggs — marked down $1.29, submit for $0.25 Ibotta rebate
  • 5 packages of Smithfield Bacon — $2.99 each on Friday and Saturday with the Kroger Digital Coupon
  • 5 Post Honey Bunches of Oats — $0.99 each on Friday and Saturday with the Kroger Digital Coupon
  • Used $10 off $50 Digital coupon
  • Used $3 On Your Next Order coupon
  • Total with tax: $82.82 (saved $100.54!)

What I Spent This Week

Total spent: $97.14 (and yes, it’s technically “over” our $70 budget, but since I was buying ahead for the next two weeks (see above), I’m okay with that!)

Cashback Earned This Week: 75 points from Fetch Rewards for scanning my receipts + $1.50 for scanning my receipt on iBotta

Note: When you see the meals below, please remember this: I buy ahead often. Which means that when I find a great deal on something I know we’ll use, I buy as much as I can afford in our budget to have on hand.

This means that you aren’t going to see all of the groceries my shopping trip that I used to make all of the meals we ate.

Please also remember that I’m putting this out there and it’s not a perfectly balanced menu. This is just really what we ate — and I hope that it encourages you to see the real-ness and lack of perfection here. 🙂

What We Ate This Week

Breakfasts:

  • Cereal, Oatmeal, Pumpkin Pancakes, Scrambled Eggs, Yogurt, English Muffins (from the freezer), Bagels (from the freezer)

Lunches:

Snacks:

Dinners:

  • Saturday: Dinner out
  • Sunday: Fend For Yourself — snack-y food and leftovers
  • Monday: Pumpkin Pancakes, Eggs, Fruit
  • Tuesday:  Jesse and I went out with friends to celebrate my birthday (finally! We’d been planning to do it earlier in the month but it didn’t work out. We went to a Virtual Reality place in Murfreesboro and then had planned to eat dinner at The Green Dragon, but when we got there, they weren’t serving food anymore so we got pretzels — the only food they had! — and drinks and then ordered from McDonald’s on the way home because we were so hungry and basically everywhere was closed because it was late!) and the kids had turkey sandwiches
  • Wednesday: Turkey, Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, Fruit
  • Thursday: Frozen Pizza, Fruit
  • Friday: Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole, Muffins, Salad

Whoa! This grocery shopping trip and weekly menu plan for a family of 5 is SO inspiring!

19 Comments
October 25, 2018 | Crystal Paine

Pumpkin Pancakes

This Pumpkin Pancakes recipe is SO delicious and simple! You'll LOVE this Fall breakfast idea!

Looking for a delicious and easy pumpkin recipe that you can whip up in no time at all? Try these pumpkin pancakes!

They are perfect for fall — just the right hint of pumpkin and spices without it being too much!

We made these as Breakfast for Dinner… and then we also have eaten them for snack and for breakfast! You can slather them with butter and syrup or just eat them warmed with a little butter. Oh and I tried freezing them and they freeze really well!

Pumpkin Pancakes

  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tablespoons oil
  • 2 Tablespoons vinegar
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 Tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix the milk, pumpkin, egg, oil, and vinegar together in a medium-sized bowl. Combine the rest of the dry ingredients into a separate bowl. Stir dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture just until combined.

Bake on a lightly oiled or buttered griddle.

Serves 6. Recipe slightly adapted from All Recipes.

More Pumpkin Recipes:

9 Comments
October 18, 2018 | Crystal Paine

10 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Freeze

Make some room in your freezer because after you read this list of 10 things you didn’t know you could freeze, your life—or at least your refrigerator and your grocery budget—is about to change for the better!

I’ve been freezer cooking for years and I’ve experimented with freezing just about anything I can. Some were major fails, but I’ve discovered that you can actually freeze a wider variety of items than you probably realize!

I decided to put together this list of 10 out-of-the-ordinary things you can freeze. I’ve tried all of these and they have all worked for me! Just follow the links below to find the freezer tutorial for each item.

Here’s my list of 10 things you probably didn’t know you could freeze…

1. Cottage Cheese

Frozen cottage cheese doesn’t taste great plain once it is thawed, due to it being a little watery. But I love freezing cottage cheese to use later in my smoothies. It works perfectly!

I usually like to divide the containers into smaller bags so I can just thaw out a little bit at a time as needed. This also allows me to freeze them flat in plastic bags to save space in my freezer!

2. Taco Meat

Taco meat is one of my favorite things to make during a freezer cooking session. You can whip up a huge batch of taco meat at one time, and it’s SO versatile!

Taco meat can be used in all kinds of different recipes and it thaws really quickly, so it makes for a great last-minute dinner idea if you forgot to pull something out from the freezer earlier in the day.

Go here to see how I like to freeze taco meat, some of the frugal ways I stretch it to feed more people, and some of our family’s favorite recipes!

3. Milk

I’m often able to find organic milk on clearance that’s close to the expiration date. We use what we can until the expiration date and then I freeze the rest. By buying it on clearance, we’re able to buy higher quality milk without spending a fortune to do so.

While I don’t recommended using frozen and then thawed milk for drinking (due to the changes in consistency and flavor), I do freeze milk frequently for all kinds of other uses! For example, it works beautifully in pancakes, waffles, french toast, or other baked goods.

I’ve never had a problem freezing it in a cardboard container. It will expand some when it freezes, so you might want to drink or use a half cup or so before freezing. But otherwise, just stick the milk in the freezer in the paper carton!

When you’re ready to use it, you can thaw it in the refrigerator overnight. Or, you can stick the carton in a sink full of cold water for 15 or 20 minutes.

4. Waffles

While I know that some people like pancakes and waffles fresh, I’ve found it’s so much more convenient to make a big batch of waffles and then freeze them for breakfasts later in the month!

This is one way we make sure we have filling, healthy breakfasts on busy mornings. We love trying different varieties and mix-ins, such as Carrot Cake Waffles, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Waffles, Gluten-Free Waffles, or even Red, White, & Blue Waffles!

5. Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches

I first happened upon the idea of freezing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when Jesse was in law school and we were eating a LOT of PB&J.

While it doesn’t really take that long to make PB&J, it can still help speed things up a bit when your time is really crunched in the morning. Plus, it’s nice to have sandwiches at the ready if you end up needing to go somewhere unexpectedly and no one has eaten any lunch yet.

6. Pizza, Cookie, and Biscuit Dough

Our family loves homemade breads, and one of the easiest ways to speed up the process of bread-making is to make the dough when you have time and freeze it to bake later!

There are all kinds of different doughs I’ve experimented with freezing, but these 3 recipes are my favorite: Pizza Dough, Cookie Dough, and Biscuit Dough.

This pizza dough recipe has been my go-to recipe for years. Keep it on hand and pizza night will be a breeze.

Even if you’re not a fan of most freezer meals, I encourage you to try making cookie dough and freeze it! I can almost guarantee you won’t be able to tell a difference between frozen cookie dough and fresh cookie dough.

It makes it so easy to make a batch of fresh-baked cookies when you have drop-in guests or need to bring a dessert or snack to some event at the last minute. It’s also very handy for those times when you get a late-night craving for chocolate! 😉

These chocolate chip cookies are SO good and the dough freezes beautifully!

This biscuit recipe is quick, easy, inexpensive, and so practical! Say goodbye forever to canned biscuits with this winner recipe — especially when you freeze the dough ahead of time to make it even easier.

Freeze fresh herbs with this quick and easy method!! They'll never go to waste again!

7. Fresh Herbs

This a super simple way to preserve fresh herbs so that they don’t go to waste before you have a chance to use them! Frozen herbs work especially well in sauces, stews, and soups.

8. Avocados

I decided to try freezing avocados when I found clearance bags of avocados for just $0.99 at Kroger. I couldn’t pass up that price, so I bought 6 bags and was determined to not let them go to waste once I got them home!

It was a little hesitant to try freezing avocados… and I honestly didn’t love how they turned out when I thawed them. However, I have heard from many readers who have had great success with freezing avocados. I froze mine with salsa and lime juice since that’s the way I love to eat my avocado. You could experiment with all kinds of different seasonings and flavoring, though. (And if you’ve found a great trick for freezing avocados, let us know!)

9. Onions

I really do not enjoy chopping up onions (does anyone?), but I do love how they taste in recipes, so I often chop them in bulk and freeze them for later use. It’s such a time-saver!

10. Cooked Beans

Dried beans are much more economical than canned beans. Unfortunately, since they need to be soaked and softened, they can be inconvenient to prepare them on the same night you want to use them in a recipe.

Freezing them ahead of time is a huge time-saver — especially if you freeze a bunch of different types in bulk at one time!

Looking for more ideas?

Be sure to check out this post for a list of 15 more surprising things you can freeze!

Enjoy experimenting with some of these freezer-friendly foods on this list, and you’re sure to see a reduction in food waste and an increase in the amount of money you save!

What crazy food items do you like to freeze? I’d love to hear your tips in the comments below!

16 Comments
October 12, 2018 | Crystal Paine

We Spent $56.49 on Groceries This Week (+ here’s what we ate)

I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

For live updates, be sure to follow my Instagram Stories. See all posts on my $70 Grocery Budget here.

Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and we will be compensated if you click through and sign up. Read our disclosure policy here.

I got back from my girls’ beach trip on Sunday night and we left last night (Thursday night) for a family road trip to AL, MS, and LA. We are staying at hotels that offer free breakfast and then we brought much of our food and snacks, so we don’t plan to spend that much extra on food on this trip.

However, we’re under-budget again this week, so I’m using the extra $39 we had in grocery money last week to cover an extra dinner out for our road trip.

Note: When you see the groceries and meals below, please remember this: I buy ahead often. Which means that when I find a great deal on something I know we’ll use, I buy as much as I can afford in our budget to have on hand.

This means that you aren’t going to see all of the groceries in these shopping trips that I used to make all of the meals we ate. And  it also means we didn’t use all of these groceries up this week — because some of them will be saved for later weeks!

Please also remember that I’m putting this out there and it’s not a perfectly balanced menu. This is just really what we ate — and I hope that it encourages you to see the real-ness and lack of perfection here. 🙂

Kroger Shopping Trip #1

Kroger Shopping Trip #2

  • 5 dozen Simple Truth Eggs — marked down to $0.49 per dozen
  • 2 bags of cinnamon/raisin bagels — marked down to $1.49 each
  • 3 Simple Truth yogurts — marked down to $0.49 each
  • Oui Yogurts — marked down to $1.19 each, used $0.30/1 Kroger digital coupon
  • Artisan Lettuce — marked down to $1.49
  • 2 bags of grapefruit/oranges — marked down to $0.99 each
  • 1 bag of apples — marked down to $0.99
  • Stayfree pads — $1.79 when you buy 5 participating products, used $1/1 Kroger digital coupon, got $0.50 back from iBotta rebate = $0.39
  • 4 Suave Shampoo/Conditioner — $1.99 each when you buy 5 participating products, used $3/2 Kroger digital coupon + $1/1 coupon that Kroger had sent to me (I should have just bought 3 bottles — for some reason, I got mixed up and thought it was a $1/2 coupon… oh well!) = $0.99 each
  • 2 Speedstick deodorant — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating products
  • 2 Gillette Shave Gel — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating products
  • Colgate toothpaste — $1.99 when you buy 5 participating products
  • 2 Suave Kids’ Body Wash — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items
  • 2 Huggies Baby Wipes — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $0.50/2 Kroger digital coupon = $0.74 each after coupon
  • 2 Honey Nut Cheerios — $1.79 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $1/2 Kroger digital coupon = $1.29 each after coupon
  • 4 packages of Goldfish — $0.99 each when you 5 participating items
  • 8 boxes of Quaker Granola bars — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items
  • 2 packages of Oscar Mayer lunch meat — $2.79 each when you buy 5 participating items
  • Used $10/$40 coupon that Kroger mailed to me recently (make sure you always have your address correct on the Kroger site — they often mail out great coupons!
  • Total with tax: $39.84

The best deal of the week by far (at least to me!) was the Simple Truth Cage-Free Eggs for $0.49!!!!! I have never seen cage free eggs this inexpensive and was so excited for this deal!

Since we already had 4 dozen eggs from recent deals, I shared two dozen with a friend and we plan to have lots of scrambled eggs, fried eggs, and hard boiled eggs over the next 2-3 weeks.

I don’t usually freeze eggs, because we can easily eat through 3 dozen in a week, but I will be making French Toast or Egg Casserole if we really need to use them up and aren’t seeming to eat through them quickly enough. I never have had any issue keeping eggs in the fridge for 2-3 weeks past their sell by date, so I’m not too worried about us being able to use them before they go bad.

I was also excited because I earned 436 points on Fetch Rewards for my second shopping trip! If you haven’t signed up for Fetch Rewards yet, I highly recommend signing up and scanning your receipts. It’s such an easy-peasy way to earn free gift cards!

(Want more details on Fetch Rewards and how it works? Read this post on How I Earned $5 in Free Gift Cards in 3 Weeks — just for scanning my grocery receipts.)

What I Spent This Week

Total spent: $56.49

Cashback Earned This Week: 461 points from Fetch Rewards for scanning my receipts + I earned $0.60 back from iBotta for scanning my receipt and purchasing Stayfree.

What We Ate This Week

Breakfasts:

  • Cereal, Oatmeal, Scrambled Eggs, Banana Bread with Peanut Butter (Everyone is on their own for breakfast!)

Lunches:

  • Hard Boiled Eggs, Avocados, Salad, Grapefruit, Cottage Cheese, Lunch out with a friend (she insisted that she pay for my lunch!), Apples, Pumpkin Waffles (Jesse & Me)
  • Turkey Sandwiches, Fruit, Veggies, Banana Bread, Granola Bars, Yogurt, Cookies, Capri Sun (For the kids — They are in charge of their own lunches.)

Snacks:

  • Banana Bread, Oreo Cheesecake (that Kaitlynn made), Yogurt, Cottage Cheese, Fruit/Veggies, Cookies, Hard Boiled Eggs, Turmeric Milk

Dinners:

  • Saturday: Jesse and the kids went over to our friends’ house for dinner since I was gone
  • Sunday: Leftovers/Fend For Yourself
  • Monday: Sausage/Peppers/Onions in the Crockpot
  • Tuesday: Fend For Yourself (Silas had a baseball game) — The kids had cereal, I had a muffin, egg, and apple, Jesse can’t remember what he ate!
  • Wednesday: Pumpkin Pancakes (recipe coming this next week on the blog — these were a hit!)
  • Thursday: Lasagna Casserole (from the freezer) Salad
  • Friday: Dinner Out
18 Comments