Month-long Meal Plan: The grocery list

Heather asked that I post a grocery list for this month-long meal plan. Many of the meals are on my list because I already have ingredients on hand to make them, and I need to start cleaning out my pantry and freezer. I did do a grocery trip this weekend, and spent $40 at Aldi and $10 at Meijer, and (theoretically) won't have to go shopping until September, except for perishables like milk, and maybe some lunch supplies.

For those of you playing along at home, however, here's a master list of what would need to be in your pantry/freezer to accomplish this dinner meal list. Not all of these items will be used during the month, but, for some of them, the smallest amount that can be reasonably bought is "one package". Some of the amounts I'm totally estimating, and hope they're in the ballpark. Do keep in mind, I'm only meal-planning for 2, your amounts may be different. Enough with the disclaimers:

MEAT:

• 1 package Pepperoni (Day 4, 30)
• 1 lb Ground sausage (Day 9, 18)
• 3 lb Ground beef (Day 1, 6, 15, 19, 23, 28) **
• 2 whole chicken (Day 3, 5, 7, 14, 20, 26, 27) **
• 3 lb Boneless skinless chicken breast (Day 10, 22, 31)
• 1 pkg Hot dogs (Day 8)
• 1 lb steak (Day 12)
• 12 slices bacon (Day 13, 25)

PRODUCE:

• 4 lbs Potatoes (Day 1, 12, 13, 20, 25)
• 3 pints (or equivalent fresh) Green beans (Day 3, 10, 22)
• 1 C Peas (Day 7, 20)
• 1 C Carrots (Day 7, 20)
• 1 Tomato (Day 27)
• 1 head Broccoli (Day 12)

PANTRY*:

• 1 can Pizza sauce (Day 4, 18, 30)
• 1 can Spaghetti sauce (Day 6, 19, 31)
• 1 pkg Rice (Day 5, 7)
• 2 cans Cream of Mushroom soup (Day 5, 14)
• 3 cans Refried beans or pinto beans (Day 15, 23, 28)
• 1 can Black beans (Day 27)
• 1 can Salsa (Day 27)
• 2 cans Tomato soup (Day 16, 29)
• 1 can Tomato sauce (Day 28)
• 2 pkg Spaghetti (Day 6, 14, 19)
• 1 pkg Fettuccine (Day 26)
• 1 pkg Macaroni (Day 8, 11, 21)
• 1 pkg Bread crumbs (Day 6, 10, 31)
• 1 pkg Hot dog buns (Day 8)
• 1 loaf Bread (Day 16, 29)
• 1 pkg Taco shells (Day 15, 23)
• 1 pkg Tortillas (Day 27)
• 1 pkg Tortilla chips (Day 28)
• 1/2 C (or 3 pkg) Taco seasoning (Day 15, 23, 27, 28)

FRIDGE/FREEZER:

• 6 C Mozzarella cheese (Day 4, 18, 30, 31)
• 10 C Cheddar cheese (Day 8, 11, 14, 21, 27, 28)
• 1 doz Eggs (Day 6, 7, 13, 25)
• 1 gal Milk (Day 8, 9, 11, 20, 21)
• 1 lb Butter (Day 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 21, 29)
• 1 pkg Velveeta (Day 16, 29)
• 1 pkg Refrigerated biscuits or pie crust (Day 20)
• 1 pint Heavy cream (Day 26)
• 1 pkg Parmesan (Day 26, 31)

* I'm not including staples like flour, oil, salt, yeast, baking powder/soda, standard spices, etc. These are negligible, and will be replaced throughout the month if I run out, but I doubt I will...


** You'll notice a LOT of meals after these meat items. I' try to stretch my meats as far as possible- a whole chicken, for example, will be eaten one night as "roast chicken", and the remaining meat will be shredded and thrown into casseroles for another 2 or 3 meals. One pound of beef stretches to about 3 taco meals for the two of us.


My next step should be seeing how much this would cost if I was shopping for it all at once. Also, many of the things on the list are "convenience foods" that could probably be made at home, instead of buying pre-made pie crust or canned beans or breadcrumbs, for example. The cost of the menu could be lowered by cooking from scratch even more so, but I have the most likely (easiest) way I'll make the dishes listed.

Looking at this list, I realize how this looks like a really bad-for-us menu. I'll report on how I work more veggies into the meals, because I KNOW we eat more vegetables than what is listed. Also, we eat whatever is coming out of the garden, so I hope corn-on-the-cob and more tomatoes will appear on the menu, but I don't want to count my chickens, er, ears of corn, yet.

Always Being Ready

This holiday weekend, our plans never materialized. I mean, we'd probably try to do the traditional things we always do on the 4th of July- go to the hometown parade, visit family, eat grilled meat, watch fireworks. No concrete plans were in the works, though, and the burn pile out back had grown higher and higher over the last six months...

Let's have a bonfire with friends! I said to my husband yesterday.
When? he asked.
How about Thursday night? That shouldn't interfere with all the festivities already planned, I surmised.
Who should we invite? we wondered.

The list was made, friends were called, a lot of "Maybe" answers were received. If all the Maybe's turn to Yes's, we could end up with a party of 15 people. In less than two days. No forethought at all.

I love entertaining. I'm not a social person, but to welcome people into my home, with prepared food and kind words, is a joy to me. Which means a 2-liter and a bag of chips won't cut it. And I have very few hours until all these potential people start showing up at my door. What have I gotten myself into?!

I did an inventory while ticking off what we'd need for a proper bonfire & cookout: Hot dogs, hamburgers, condiments, a salty snack, a healthy snack, soda and non-soda drinks, and s'mores for dessert. We had 2 full packs of hot dogs in the freezer, as well as two full packs of hot dog buns. We have plenty of ground beef for hamburgers, and a pack & a half of hamburger buns. We have half a pack of graham crackers, no marshmallows, no chocolate. I just stocked up on drinks earlier this week, so both soda and non-soda is covered.

I love that I can whip up a good-sized party from what is in my freezer, and only need to go shopping for a few odds & ends (The list primarily consists of chips, marshmallows, and chocolate). A well stocked pantry (and freezer) is the biggest step toward drop-of-the-hat hospitality. And hospitality matters.

Instinct

What is it, during this season, where the days get shorter and the nights get cooler, that makes me want to be a squirrel?

I sat in a meeting yesterday, and instead of taking notes, my mind wandered.

Tacos for dinner tonight- and we're having friends over tomorrow! I'll make the filling for the chicken pot pie tonight. And there are so many apples on my counter! We must have apple pie! But when I make apple pie filling, I might as well process all the apples and can the leftovers. Or should I freeze them? Or should I just dump all the apples & pears in the crockpot & make applesauce? And all that ground beef in the freezer that I got on sale. I should brown some of it & make taco meat. And meatballs! That will save me time later! The tomatoes I harvested a while back really need to be used. I should make marinara sauce and freeze it. Or pizza sauce! And the pizza crust recipe my friend just posted! I've been wanting to try that, too. I wonder if the recipe would double & freeze well...

And the thoughts go on...

Where does this come from? It wasn't until I got out of college that I started having this instinctual urge to bake like crazy when the weather turned colder. Last year I went through SO much flour and sugar. I made quite a few pies. Can't have too many pies, right?

Last year I attributed the motivation to cook to having a New Kitchen- cooking is just more fun in a new space, right? The year before, it was my first time cooking holiday dishes and treats, and I attributed the motivation to the novelty. But this year? Nothing novel, but the urge to bake and squirrel away food for the coming winter is still there.

I'll blame it on our new-to-us and still mostly-empty chest freezer, as well as my new skill at canning, and figure out where the urge comes from next year. No time to think! I must get back to the kitchen!

More motivation!

I've been demonstrating here lately the cost of eating at home. For me, it's motivation to cook- I know that I'm saving ridiculous amounts of money over eating elsewhere. For more great made-from-scratch goodies- food and otherwise- check out today's carnival. For more on saving money on food, check out a post that I probably should have posted here, but I put it at Keeping Feet instead.

That's all for now.

Refried Bean Casserole

This is one of my husband's favorite meals from childhood. I got the recipe from his mom when we were dating, and first made it in his college apartment kitchen. Since then, it has made a regular appearance at our table. One caveat: it doesn't re-heat very well, so cutting it in half to minimize leftovers is what we try to do. A half-recipe yields 2-3 servings, a full recipe feed about 6.

The story: Last night I was going to make a half-recipe of this dish, and proceeded to brown a whole pound of meat, with the expectation I would freeze half of it, having a handy taco meal later on. We got a call just as I started this from 3 friends wanting to hang out. Because I had everything on hand, I decided to make the full recipe & feed everyone.
(Warning: I'm writing this from memory, rather than actually having the recipe in front of me)

Refried Bean Casserole

Tortilla chips
1 lb ground meat (beef is traditional. I used ground turkey)
taco seasoning(I used a packet, though next time I want to try this recipe.)
14 oz (or 2 8-oz cans) tomato sauce
1 can refried beans
1 C shredded cheddar cheese

- Preheat oven to 350
- Brown ground meat. Mix with taco seasoning & 3/4 the tomato sauce.
- Cover the bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish with chips.
- Layer the meat mixture on top of the chips.
- Spread the refried beans on top of the meat mixture.
- Spread the rest of the tomato sauce on top of the beans.
- Bake 20-25 minutes.
- Top with chips & more cheese, and put back in the oven to melt the cheese (just a few minutes)

Cost breakdown:

ground turkey: about 90 cents
taco seasoning: about 30 cents
tomato sauce: about 80 cents
tortilla chips: $1 per bag- I didn't use an entire bag.
refried beans: about 50 cents
cheese: about 70 cents

Total: about $4.20
Per serving (6 servings): 70 cents

Tips:
Cutting the recipe in half is easy, except for using half of a can of refried beans. I will save the other half of the can, and have bean-and-cheese rollups or quesadillas for lunches.

Big Recipe: Pizza casserole

Easy Pizza Pasta Casserole
20 servings 1 1/4 hrs 20 min prep

2 lbs ground beef or ground venison (about $4 - if I use ground turkey, it's healthier & would be <$2)
1 large onion, chopped (about 30 cents)
1 clove garlic, minced (about 30 cents)
1 teaspoon italian seasoning (negligible)
2 tablespoons olive oil (negligible)
2 (26 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce (about $4)
16 ounces rotini pasta, cooked and drained (about 60 cents)
5 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (20 oz) (about $4)
4 ounces sliced pepperoni (about 80 cents)

1. Brown ground beef, onion, garlic and seasoning in oil.
2. Drain.
3. Stir in pasta, spaghetti sauce and 3 cups cheese.
4. Place mixture in 2 greased 9x13x2 inch baking pans or 4 square pans.
5. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella.
6. Top with pepperoni. (I'm not crazy about pepperoni. Without the pepperoni, this would be just as good, as a "baked pasta dish")
7. Cover and freeze up to 3 months.

To cook now: Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until heated through.
To bake frozen casserole: Thaw in refrigerator overnight and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, till hot

The cost of the big casserole was $12 at Aldi. For 20 servings, that comes out to 60 cents a serving- and this is good! It was perfect for what we used the recipe for- cooking it in a big foil turkey-roaster pan and serving it to a large group, but I think it would be even better used as a once-a-month cooking recipe, divided into 4 square pans (the recipe's intended purpose). When I have a chest freezer, with room to store cooked-ahead meals, I definitely plan on including this one.

Makeshift meals

There are some days when I don't have the time or energy to make something from scratch, and I believe that's OK. This week was fairly exhausting, and from-scratch meals didn't happen every day. Here are some examples:

Early in the week, my husband was craving dessert, with nothing sweet in the house. He said cookies weren't gonna cut it, so I made a cake from a mix, and used some leftover Cool Whip in the freezer as "filling" and "icing". Due to the Cool Whip, the cake had to be stored in the refrigerator all week, but it was very well appreciated. It wasn't pretty, but it hit the spot and served its purpose!


Thursday night, my husband & I went on a date- dinner & a movie. It was wonderful. Friday, I ate out with coworkers and had a big lunch, so wasn't that hungry come dinnertime. My lack of appetite combined with being pressed for time resulted in a Nachos dinner- leftover dips from an appetizer the night before and tortilla chips we had on hand. I put the dips in bowls rather than their take-out containers to make the meal a little more beautiful.

From the Garden: Cilantro for Breakfast

Last night, after some negotiation, we had decided on some sort of breakfast food to have for dinner. I was perusing the internet for a breakfast casserole and came across one that looked delicious, but I had never seen before. It was basically eggs cooked over hashbrowns mixed with cilantro, and since I've been itching to use my cilantro before it goes to seed, I thought it would be perfect.

The blog with the recipe said this is actually an Indian dish, from the Parsi people. I tweaked it a bit because of our preferences and what we had on hand, and was very pleased with the results!

Pateta Par Eeda

3 eggs
2 large potatoes, shredded
small pinch ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
3 tbsp minced cilantro
2 tbsp vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a non-stick skillet and fry the garlic till lightly browned.
2. Season with salt and pepper
3. Press any excess water out of the shredded potatoes and add them to the pan. (I did this with a cotton towel, but not as well as with the crispy hashbrowns)
4. Add the cilantro and toss everything together and pat it down in the pan. (See my results) Cook on medium heat till the potato cake is browned at the bottom.
5. Flip it over (most easily done by flipping first onto a plate, then slide into pan. While I had the potatoes on the plate, I added about a tablespoon of oil to the pan, so the bottom would fry, too). Break the eggs over the potato cake and season them.
6. Cover and cook till the eggs are set the way you like them and the bottom gets browned and crispy.

The results were delicious, in my opinion. The outside of the potatoes were crispy, the inside soft but cooked, and the cilantro and garlic gave the whole thing a pleasing but unexpected taste. The eggs on the top just added to the whole interesting-textures aspect of the dish. We sliced the pan-shaped "casserole" into wedges to serve, and it fed both of us with generous servings.

A bonus: this is possibly the most 'local' meal I've cooked, with the eggs from the farmer's market and the cilantro from my 'garden'. I do have PLENTY of cilantro and parsley left, if anyone in the area wants some. This is also the first Indian cooking I've tried, not that I'd consider it typical Indian fare. An adventure all around.

My Milk Solution

Check out Make it from Scratch today for lots of great entries and ideas!

While in college, I learned way more than I ever would have otherwise about dairy farm operations and 'bovine lactation' thanks to a friend who grew up on a dairy farm and a school project aiming to optimize the milking process at a small dairy farm ("Milking Operations Optimizer: MOO"). TMI.

Anyway, in the news today, a report that indicates that milk prices will continue to rise, thanks to an increase in global demand and an inability for dairy farmers to keep up. Fun fact: the world's demand for milk has risen more than the world's demand for oil. The above-mentioned friend's dairy farm has transitioned to an Angus farm a couple years ago, and the world lost yet another supplier of milk. My husband consumes LOTS and LOTS of milk, while I prefer my dairy in the form of ice cream and cheese, though I have the occasional glass myself. That said, we go through over a gallon of milk a week, when you factor in his drinking and my cooking. To cut down on the number of gallons we have to buy, especially in light of the rising prices, I keep a container in the fridge with my "cooking milk"- milk reconstituted from dry milk. Buying the dry milk in a HUGE box and using it in cooking only cuts our grocery budget by allowing us to buy milk only to fulfill the 'drinking' requirement, and not the 'drinking and cooking' requirements of our household. I have not noticed a difference in the quality of the food cooked with dry milk, so this solution is really working for us. I don't think we'll get to the point where we'll drink the reconstituted dry milk, but that's OK. This works for us, for now.

My free herb garden

This is a cell-phone-camera shot of my mini-herb garden, all for free. Let me tell the story:

I had a few herb seeds started when I started my balcony garden- parsley, chives, basil- when a posting came on the local Freecycle for organic herb seeds. I responded quickly and was lucky enough to get to pick up the seeds AND a green (my favorite color!) pot to plant them in. The types I got were: sage, oregano, dill, and cilantro (coriander).

But where to plant these fine seeds? I decided the sage should go in the sage-colored pot... but, after that, my pots were all full with already-growing things. The solution? I found pseudo-planters that would do well for the herbs-- I used two very large mugs and an old butter container. My next dilemma was where to start the seeds. My apartment has no windows, just two big sliding-glass doors opening to covered balconies (one north- and one south-facing) that, as summer approaches, seem to get less direct light (because the sun is directly overhead, no longer at he same angle in the sky). At work, on the other hand, I have a 'grow light' of sorts- my desk has a shelf with a fluorescent light under it.

So, I had my plan. I brought them to work, then promptly had to leave for a long weekend for a funeral. I hoped the seeds would survive not being doted over in their early life. I returned to the above photo about a month ago. Everything had sprouted! For three weeks, the plants grew under the 'grow light', and just Friday I brought them home and put them outside to see real sunshine. They're growing well. Hopefully, we will have fresh herbs later in the season... now I just have to figure out what to cook with sage and dill...

Freecycle rocks!

Food Deals This Week

• ICE CREAM! - Baskin Robbins is celebrating 31 Cent Scoop Night tomorrow in honor of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. I never turn down ice cream. Especially practically-free ice cream.


• Barnes and Noble's has coupons this week for a couple food-related things. First, buy a drink at their cafe and get a free cupcake! Also, they have a discount on the cookbook Everyday Pasta, and another book that caught my eye yesterday- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by the popular author Barbra Kingsolver. She and her family uprooted, moved to the Appalachians, and did a life-experiment, eating only locally and out of their own garden. The book is a chronicle of their adventure, and has recipes throughout. I read all about in an NPR story yesterday. Also check out the book's website, which includes some recipes)

There are probably more deals out there, but these are the few that came to my attention in the last few days :)

Government-sponsored obesity?

The God's Politics blog today had a quick post highlighting the Food Bill coming up for consideration. The New York Times also is highlighting it.
What is the farm bill?

This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.

Obesity, which the US surgeon general has called an 'epidemic' is well-known to hit the poor the hardest. Historically, the poor have struggled to buy food, and worried if dinner would be on the table. In today's world, the most calories for the dollar (thanks to government subsidies) comes in the form of 'junk' food, full of corn- and soy-derived sugars and fats. A salad at a restaurant costs more than a burger and fries. Healthy food shouldn't be a luxury of the upper class.

People are starting to realize the impact of the government subsidies, though:

The public-health community has come to recognize it can’t hope to address obesity and diabetes without addressing the farm bill. The environmental community recognizes that as long as we have a farm bill that promotes chemical and feedlot agriculture, clean water will remain a pipe dream. The development community has woken up to the fact that global poverty can’t be fought without confronting the ways the farm bill depresses world crop prices. They got a boost from a 2004 ruling by the World Trade Organization that U.S. cotton subsidies are illegal; most observers think that challenges to similar subsidies for corn, soy, wheat or rice would also prevail.

Not to say farm subsidies are bad. Once upon a time, the farm bill's purpose was to support prices and limit production, rather than paying the farms based on how many bushels they can grow. I don't know enough about it to know if the current bill helps small farms at all, but it appears that food production is now an economy of scale- the bigger the better. Somehow this surely can be re-thought, to support crops that keep Americans healthy and farmers that treat the land responsibly.

Potato Gnocchi

Originally from a post at keeping feet on 1/10/2007

On weeknights, normally the goal is to think up a recipe that is easy, fast, and can be thrown together without much work or thinking after a long day at the office. Yesterday afternoon, however, we had nothing planned, so I schemed to try a meal that I hadn't tried to cook before, that was much more involved than the normal evening dinner: gnocchi.

Josh and I had each only eaten gnocchi once before, when Daniel's family came to Indy while he was here for the summer, and they made it from scratch for us. It looked like fun, and I had come across a couple recipes for it on the internet, and thought it would be a fun family activity which would conveniently result in dinner.

While researching recipes, I discovered cooks have very strong opinions regarding gnocchi ingredients. The first opinion is that eggs should not be used. ("Lots of recipes around advocate the use of eggs - that's because they are lazy.") Other food bloggers are equally adamant that salt does not belong in gnocchi ("What absolutely does not come in the gnocchi is salt.") That said, there are only 3 ingredients in gnocchi: potato, flour, and egg or salt (though some call for both). The final product is something like a small dumpling, but it's preparing it that is the fun!

First, I boiled 3 medium potatoes until they were soft all the way through. Many recipes insist on using a potato ricer on the hot potatoes at this point, others say to mash them. I decided to simulate a potato ricer by shredding the potatoes with a cheese grater. To the potatoes, I added 1/4 tsp of salt. The recipe said to add 'up to 2 cups of flour' until the mixture is a firm dough and not sticky. I added probably 1-1/4 cups.

Then comes the fun part. take pieces of dough, roll them out to 1-inch-diameter ropes, cut off 1-inch pieces, and roll the pieces with your thumb on fork tines, to get lines on one side of the gnocchi, an indent on the other. Fun part #2: to cook the gnocchi, we brought salted water to a boil and dropped the pieces into they water. They sink to the bottom. When they start to float, they're done! Josh did this part, and removed them with a slotted spoon. We ate the dish with spaghetti sauce, but there's lots of different sauces and toppings possible. I had the leftovers for lunch today and was pleased yet again. I would have taken pictures, but I was having too much fun making them, and then they were gobbled up to quickly.

Not only are these fun to make and eat, they're a very inexpensive meal: 3 potatoes, a cup or so of flour and some water was all it took. As Josh said, the sauce was the expensive part of the meal.

Musings on Budgets and Cooking

Originally posted at keeping feet on 10/14/2006

I definitely started this post Monday. It's been a busy week.

Ashley, on her Onward and Upward blog, wrote about learning to grocery shop and cook, now that there's two mouths to feed in her household. She got some tips from a series on the Biblical Womanhood blog about budgets and grocery shopping (see her blog above for links). I've blogged some about specific kitchen experiments, but recently we've made some higher-level changes that hopefully will help us save money and eat healthier-- or, rather, eat IN, which is, generally, healthier and less expensive (For more on that topic, check out a fabulous post at Get Rich Slowly, asking Is Eating Out Cheaper than Eating In?). I thought I'd add my two cents worth to the conversation.

Starting two weeks ago, Josh and I took Dave Ramsey's advice and decided to keep track of where all our money is going by spending (pretty much) only cash. We made a budget for different areas like gas, groceries, eating out, etc, got those amounts in cash when paycheck time came around, and put our budgeted amounts in separate envelopes. Now, if Josh is headed out to get gas for the cars, he'll grab money from the Gas envelope, or if I'm going to the grocery store, I'll make sure to have enough cash from the Grocery envelope to cover the things on my list. Speaking of the list...

Another thing we're doing is making a meal list for the week. From this list, we look at our current food supply and decide what we need to buy for the week to make those meals happen. Then we go to the store and get only the things on the list. This avoids impulse buys and the grocery store, which are very tempting for me, as I have gotten more creative with cooking and am looking to try to make new things left and right. More on that later. As we use up staples- stuff we want to have around the house regardless of the meal list- they go on the shopping list for the following weekend. We always have a few extra meals around the house to make in case nothing on the list we made sounds good, or unforseen time constraints require something simpler. Which brings me to our third strategy...

This is the newest and yet-unproven strategy. A while back, I mentioned I cooked an Italian Sausage Soup that went over well. It made 4 servings, and we ate two immediately and froze the other half of the meal. A couple weeks ago, I got the ice cube out of the freezer, heated it up, and it was as good as ever. Last Saturday morning, I cooked up another batch of the soup, froze both meals, and made a pizza crust recipe I had tried before as well, which made 6 crusts. These crusts freeze well, and are pretty easy to spead out, put sauce on, and pop in the oven. So, over the course of a couple hours in the morning, before my husband was even awake, I had made 8 meals to have on hand when we decide nothing else sounds good. This week, while waiting for dinner to cook, I made another recipe I wanted to see how it would taste (veggie burgers? what am I thinking?), but, because dinner was already cooking, it got frozen for later.

Now, I don't want you to think we have a huge freezer for a month's worth of food- we don't. These are small things I'm freezing, that still require preparation. This is a downside to living in an apartment and trying to save money on groceries. Many tips say to A) buy in bulk or B) buy alot of something you'll need when it's on sale. In our cozy little apartment, we don't have the space to do that.

Another note: doing all of this isn't hard, and it is having a big impact, especially the envelope system. It's letting us see where our money's going, and makign me not worry about it at all. I know we have X to spend on eating out, and so I know we aren't spending too much this week, and I know that what is in the bank will stay in the bank, and not get spent. I like it, and I appreciate hugely the effort and attention Josh has put into figuring all this out.

What other tips have worked for you guys?