MoneySavingMom.com
FREEBIE LIBRARY!
Join my email list and get FREE ACCESS to the MSM Freebie Library, including my top printables & eBooks.

Category: From My Kitchen

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
October 5, 2018 | Crystal Paine

This Week’s $31 Grocery Shopping Trips + What We Ate This Past 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.

I left on Thursday morning for a much-anticipated beach trip with two of my closest friends. So I didn’t do as much grocery shopping this week, as a result. We were pretty stocked up on food from the extras I had bought the past month and stuck in the pantry and freezer, so I didn’t need to buy much.

And I’ll just roll over the money I didn’t spend this week to next week’s grocery budget.

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:

5 boxes of Quaker Oatmeal Packets — $0.99 each when you purchase 5 boxes

Total with tax: $5.31 

Kroger Shopping Trip #2:

What We Ate This Week

Breakfasts:

Lunches:

  • Hard Boiled Eggs, Avocados, Salad, Cottage Cheese, Lasagna Casserole, Turkey Burgers, Apples, Pancakes (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, Yogurt, Cottage Cheese, Fruit/Veggies, Cookies, Hard Boiled Eggs

Dinners:

  • Sunday: Leftovers/Fend For Yourself
  • Monday: Lasagna Casserole, Peas, Grapes
  • Tuesday: Turkey Burgers & Spaghetti (Fend For Yourself Night again since everyone had different things going on)
  • Wednesday: Lasagna Casserole, Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins
  • Thursday: French Toast
  • Friday: Dinner Out

What I Spent This Week

Total spent: $30.77

Cashback Earned This Week: 75 points from Fetch Rewards for scanning my receipts

5 Comments
October 4, 2018 | Crystal Paine

Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins

Pumpkin and doughnuts mixed together?? Yes, please! If you love muffins and you’re looking for a new recipe to try, put this one at the top of your list!

This recipe is the perfect marrying of two of my favorite things for fall! The muffins were a little drier than I expected and the batter was thick, but when rolled in butter and cinnamon sugar, they were pretty much perfect! And my family agreed!

Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins

  • 10 Tablespoons butter, softened
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk (or make your own buttermilk)
  • 1 15-oz. can pumpkin puree
  • ¾ cup light brown sugar (or raw sugar)
  • 2 eggs

Cinnamon-Sugar Coating:

  • ¼ cup butter, melted
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • 2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
  1. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger in a medium bowl; set aside.
  2. Stir together the buttermilk and pumpkin in a small bowl; set aside.
  3. Beat the butter and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time and beat. Add half of the flour mixture and mix on low speed. Then add half of the pumpkin mixture and mix on low speed. Repeat with the rest of the flour mixture and pumpkin mixture.
  4. Put about 1/3 cup of batter into greased muffin tins and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes (until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean).
  5. Let the muffins cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. While they are cooling, melt the butter and mix together the cinnamon and sugar for the topping.
  6. Roll or dip the muffins completely in butter and then roll or dip them in the cinnamon/sugar mixture until they are fully coated.
  7. Let the muffins cool completely on a wire rack.

Makes 15-18 muffins. Recipe adapted slightly from Brown Eyed Baker.

 

More Pumpkin Recipes:

What is YOUR favorite pumpkin recipe to make? I’d love to hear!

7 Comments
September 28, 2018 | Crystal Paine

Our $70 Grocery Shopping Budget + Menu Plan

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’m trying something new this week! Instead of posting a menu plan at the beginning of the week and then sharing my shopping trips throughout the week, I’m sharing what we actually ate and what groceries I bought this week.

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:

  • 3 Family-Sized Boxes of Nabisco Ritz Crackers — $1.99 with the Kroger Friday-Saturday Digital Coupon
  • 2 boxes of Raisinets — marked down to $0.19 each
  • Naked Juice — on closeout for $1.79, used $2/1 coupon — they deducted it down to $1.79 = FREE after coupon
  • 4 jars of Yoplait Oui Yogurt — marked down to $2.39 total
  • Bananas — marked down to $0.39/lb. = $1.88 total
  • Total with tax: $12.46, Got a $3 catalina back

Kroger Shopping Trip #2:

  • 1 Kroger Cottage Cheese — $1.89
  • 1 Johnsonville Sausage — marked down to $2.29
  • 5 packages of Kroger Ground Turkey — marked down to $2.29 each
  • 1 package Johnsonville Italian Sausage — marked down to $1.99
  • Used $3/$15 meat coupon Kroger mailed to me
  • Used $3 catalina earned in shopping trip above
  • Total with tax: $12.72

Kroger Shopping Trip #3:

  • 1 Salad Kit — marked down to $1.89
  • 1 bag of oranges — marked down to $0.99
  • 1 bag of peppers — marked down to $0.99
  • Oui Yogurt (2-pack) — marked down to $1.19
  • 1 dozen eggs — marked down to $1.19
  • 1/2 gallon chocolate milk — marked down to $1.39
  • Grapes — on sale for $0.88/lb. = $2.15
  • 3 cans of Kroger pumpkin — $0.99 each
  • 1 gallon milk — $2.69
  • King Arthur Flour — $3.89, used $1/1 Kroger Digital Coupon = $2.89
  • Oats — $2.49
  • Butter — $2.99 when you buy 5 participating items
  • 2 bottles Palmolive dish soap — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used 1 $0.50/1 Kroger Digital Coupon
  • Colgate toothpaste — $1.99 when you buy 5 participating items, used $2/1 Kroger Digital coupon = FREE after coupon
  • 1 bottle Head & Shoulders — $1.99 when you buy 5 participating items, used $1/1 Kroger Digital coupon = $0.99 after coupon
  • Total with tax: $29.75

Note: I forgot to buy the second bottle of Palmolive the first time around, so I had to go to customer service and add it to my order to get the $5 off!

Kroger Shopping Trips #4 & #5:

  • 1 Kroger cottage cheese — $1.89
  • 1 bottle Naked Protein Smoothie — marked down to $1.79 (not pictured; I picked this up for Kathrynne to have for lunch since she can hardly eat anything right now because she just got her expander put in in preparation for getting braces)
  • 2 packages of Pitas — marked down to $0.79 each
  • 4 dozen Simple Truth eggs — $1.77 with Kroger Friday-Saturday Only Digital coupon
  • 1 dozen medium eggs — marked down to $0.49
  • 1 Yoplait yogurt — Free with Free Friday coupon
  • 2 yogurts — marked down to $0.29 each
  • 2 packages of butter — $2.49 each when you buy 5 participating items
  • Yo Crunch Yogurt — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items
  • 2 bottles Simply Lemonade — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items
  • 1 bag of apples — marked down to $0.99
  • Total with tax: $23.71

What We Ate This Week

Breakfasts:

  • Cereal, Oatmeal, Baked Oatmeal (from the freezer), Toast/Eggs, Banana Bread with Peanut Butter (Everyone is on their own for breakfast!)

Lunches:

  • Hard Boiled Eggs, Avocados, Salad, Banana Bread, Turkey Burgers, Turkey Meatballs with Spaghetti Noodles & Sauce, Leftovers, Apples, Peppers (Jesse & Me)
  • Sandwiches, Fruit, Veggies, Granola Bars, Yogurt, Cookies, Capri Sun (For the kids — They are in charge of their own lunches.)

Snacks:

  • Banana Bread, Yogurt, Cottage Cheese, Fruit/Veggies, Hard Boiled Eggs

Dinners:

  • Sunday: Leftovers/Fend For Yourself
  • Monday: Turkey Burgers, Pickles, Peas, Grapes
  • Tuesday: Chipotle (School Spirit Night Fundraiser)
  • Wednesday: Pumpkin Waffles, Grapes
  • Thursday: Spaghetti Casserole, Steamed Peas
  • Friday: Spaghetti Casserole, Banana Bread, Steamed Broccoli (yes, we made enough to have it two nights in a row!)

What I Spent This Week

My grocery week runs from Saturday to Friday. However, I had $11.85 leftover from this past week, so I’m subtracting it from this week’s total.

Total for all these groceries minus the extra grocery money from last week: $66.79

Cashback Earned This Week: 125 points from Fetch Rewards for scanning my receipts

Help me out! Do you like this new format of me sharing my grocery shopping and menu plan? I’d love to hear your honest thoughts!

47 Comments
September 27, 2018 | Crystal Paine

Whole-Wheat Pumpkin Waffles

These Whole-Wheat Pumpkin Waffles are SO delicious and perfect for fall!

It’s that time of year when I just want to bake anything and everything pumpkin! It makes me feel like fall is in the air — even if it’s still mostly shorts and t-shirt weather here in Tennessee!

These waffles are so easy to make, they are good for you, and they are just the right blend of hearty but not too dense. I made them yesterday and they were a hit at our house! If you want to add a little fall flavor to your menu this week, try these!

Whole-Wheat Pumpkin Waffles

  • 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar or raw sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1-1/4 cups buttermilk (or make your own buttermilk with vinegar or lemon juice)
  • 1/2 cup fresh or canned pumpkin
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl. Beat together the eggs, buttermilk, pumpkin, and melted butter in another bowl.

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just blended. Preheat waffle iron and grease with cooking spray or butter. Bake waffles according to manufacturer’s directions until golden brown.

Serve with butter and syrup, if desired. Makes 5 Belgian-sized waffles.

Recipe adapted from Taste at Home.

More Pumpkin Recipes:

What is YOUR favorite pumpkin recipe to make? I’d love to hear!

11 Comments
September 22, 2018 | Crystal Paine

Hurry and get this HOT deal at Kroger on Ritz Crackers — it ends tonight!

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 wasn’t planning to do the Friday-Saturday deals at Kroger because they didn’t seem like they were really all that stellar. However, then I saw this hot tip on KrogerKrazy.com about a catalina that was printing when you bought 3 boxes of Family Size Nabisco Ritz Crackers.

So I popped into Kroger today to see if it would work — and it DID! This deal is only good through tonight, but I wanted to share it in case you have a chance to run to Kroger before the day is over with!

Here’s how to get this deal:

  • Buy 3 boxes of Nabisco Ritz Crackers at $1.99 each (be sure to download the coupon to your card from the Kroger app or Kroger site)
  • Spend $5.97 + tax out of pocket
  • Get a $3 catalina back — good for $3 off your next shopping trip!
  • That’s like paying $0.99 + tax per family-sized box of Ritz crackers!

I also picked up a few other deals at Kroger…

Saturday Kroger Shopping Trip

  • 3 Family-Sized Boxes of Nabisco Ritz Crackers — $1.99 with the Kroger Digital Coupon
  • 2 boxes of Raisinets — marked down to $0.19 each
  • Naked Juice — on closeout for $1.79, used $2/1 coupon — they deducted it down to $1.79 = FREE after coupon
  • 4 jars of Yoplait Oui Yogurt — marked down to $2.39 total
  • Bananas — marked down to $0.39/lb. = $1.88 total
  • Total with tax: $12.46, Got a $3 catalina back

What I’ve Spent So Far This Week

My grocery week runs from Saturday to Friday. However, I had $11.85 leftover from this past week, so I’m subtracting it from this week’s total.

Total I’ve Spent So Far This Week: $1.09

Total Left to Spend: $68.91

Cashback Earned This Week: 25 points from Fetch Rewards for scanning a receipt

A Few Recipes We Love Using Ritz Crackers:

  • It’s not a healthful recipe at all, but this Ritzy Chicken casserole is one our family has loved for years. I’m guessing it’s going to be on our menu a few times in the next few weeks!
  • Also, these would be great to use in one of our family’s favorite recipes to make for Christmas: Ritz Cracker Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies (we just melt chocolate chips or white chocolate chips to dip them in instead of blending the different chocolates that the recipe calls for).

What are some of YOUR favorite ways to use Ritz crackers?

Leave a Comment