Shopping Day

Shopping day is like Christmas for me. I don't get to go shop for clothes and fun stuff for the house whenever I get the shopping urge because we are trying to spend less money. I shop for groceries once a month on the 15th. I enjoy the challenge of seeing how much stuff I can get without breaking the budget we have set. Today my sister went with me to help push the second cart (Yes, the second cart!) My groceries took up one cart and all the household things like toilet paper, paper towels, pet food, wipes, shampoo, brita filters, diapers etc were all in the second cart. Whew! 
You may ask "How can you shop only once a month!? What about produce!?" Well, I make a monthly menu and the things like Fajitas that have fresh peppers in them get cooked at the beginning of the month and other things that can be frozen get cooked at the end of the month. Make sense? Now, I've been buying once a month and freezing stuff for a while now but this is the first month I've tried a menu and specifically shopped to feed us for the month. Things like onions, bread, milk, butter, frozen veggies, flour tortillas, meat, cheese, all gets frozen until we want to eat it. 

When I got home I had to split the ground beef into smaller bags (it was 5 lbs but I put it into 6 bags...we usually don't need a whole pound of meat). I also put tortillas into separate bags, 8 tortillas to a bag and then froze them. THEN I cut up all the onions until I was in tears and put those in a bag to freeze as well. My friend Liz gave me this idea -and it's genius! I have many meals that require one onion but I rarely have them on hand because they go bad. This does not work well for if you're sauteing onions though - that is better left to fresh ones so those meals are made early in the month. Other things like pot roast can use the frozen ones! 

Now, this is the first time I've done a monthly menu and it may seem a little daunting but I'm actually pretty excited to do it. I have a few meals on it that are freezable (i.e. lasagna, enchiladas, chili, pizza [we buy pre made pizza crusts with sauce and freeze that and then just add the cheese. Cheaper than frozen pizzas and WAY better], etc) so while Damon is working tomorrow I'm going to be cooking. I'm going to make these meals ahead of time and freeze them so if there is a night when I'm sick or have no energy to cook, I can just pull them out and bake them! Then I'll just trade the meal I had originally planned for the night when I'd had the frozen meal. Easy Peasy :) I'll have one day of a lot of work and then I'll just be prepared. 
check back with me in a few weeks, I hope I'm still as happy!

OK on another not budgeting note, Liam is 3 1/2 months old! He's getting so big and he is so smart! Being a wife and mom is so fulfilling! I've never been so happy. 

I am so blessed!