I also didn't take into account Valentine's Day when I was thinking about the budget this month. Hopefully my Valentine's Day spending won't break the budget. My biggest dilemma was where to buy chocolates for my kids. I think the kids still want a box of assorted chocolates on Valentine's Day. I have thousands of Balance Rewards (BR) points at Walgreens so I could've just bought both of them chocolates there with points and not spent any money, however, the chocolates overall were a better deal at Kroger so I saved my BR points and spent money at Kroger.
Speaking of Valentine's Day, I averted my eyes and successfully avoided any Valentine's Day ideas on Pinterest. I was however enticed to go check out a blog post for "How I Feed My Family of 7 on a $85 a Week Budget from Walmart." It's a rather interesting read. Point of the post was that she uses no coupons, freezer meals, or other things but solely meal plans on a budget. I really do believe meal planning is a money saver. It's one of those things I'm working on.
Here's the last couple days...
Saturday Feb. 11th
1 can of beef stock 0.89
2 zucchinis @ 1.18
1 package of 8 Healthy Life whole wheat hamburger buns 2.49
4.82 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts 8.63
2 75-oz bottles of Arm & Hammer laundry detergent @ 2.99 each
4 8-oz packages of sliced cheese @ 2.00 each
1 roll Jeannie-O turkey sausage 2.50
3 lb package Jeannie-O ground turkey 5.99
1 red bell pepper 1.00
3 lb bag of onions 1.00
16 oz box of Spring Greens salad mix 2.99 (this was a mark down)
subtotal 40.65
- 2 ($1.00 Arm & Hammer printable from coupons.com)
- 1.00 Jeannie-O turkey sausage (printable from coupons.com)
37.65
+ 0.42 tax (on Arm & Hammer)
$38.07, paid 11.95 with my gift card balance, then $26.12 out of pocket
Meijer shopping
For dinner I had thawed out some sirloin I had purchased last month for $3.99/lb and made Balsamic Glazed Steak Rolls...
photo from "Picture the Recipe"
recipe HERE
Sunday Feb. 12th
Decided Kroger had the best deal on Valentine's chocolates and bought both kids a 12 oz box of Russell Stover chocolates. They were $9.99, Buy One Get One Free. They were also $9.99 at both CVS and Walgreens too and I had fake money to spend at both of these stores but, come on, it was HALF the price at Kroger! I used my $2 off your next grocery purchase coupon I had gotten a couple days earlier for buying oatmeal so ended up paying $8.55 for both boxes after it was all said and done.
$8.55 for both boxes
Made the Carmelized Onion Balsamic Turkey Burgers again for dinner. Soooo good! And yes, I love balsamic anything.
Monday Feb. 13th
I'm also making chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine's Day and Aldi seemed to have the best prices on strawberries this week. I waited until Monday so they would be fresh for Valentine's Day. While I was there, I also saw that they had now marked down their milk to $1.15 a gallon (and it was still $1.19 at Meijer on Saturday), so I went ahead and picked up another gallon as I always like to have one unopened gallon at home. Aldi shopping...
2 lbs strawberries @ 1.49/lb
1 gallon milk 1.15
16 oz sour cream 0.99 (probably the best everyday price on sour cream)
$5.12
Made chocolate covered strawberries before the kids got home and hid them in the basement refrigerator.
Made two plates of these
Had leftovers for dinner as we had exactly one serving left of the Nuevo Beef, Steak Rolls, a turkey burger, and Roasted Vegetable Chicken Chili.
Also spent $1.00 at Kroger for an Odwalla protein drink after my evening run.
Tuesday Feb. 14th
I wasn't planning on doing any more shopping. I spent the morning making heart shaped shortbread cookies to cover with icing. I went to make the icing and discovered there was no confectioners' sugar in the entire house. I couldn't believe it! How the heck did I run out of confectioners' sugar and not know it? Probably cause I've been on a diet and have hardly baked since before Christmas. I had over 20 lbs of flour, sugar, and brown sugar - plus I found 2 more cans of enchilada sauce - but NO confectioners' sugar! Since I was trying to get everything done before the kids got home again I had to run out to the closest grocery store which is Marsh and pay full rip retail for a bag of confectioners' sugar. Got applesauce that I needed for another recipe while I was there. Ugh. Marsh probably has the highest prices of all the grocery stores. Paid $2.49 for the 32 oz bag of confectioners' sugar that I'd normally pay $0.99 for, plus $2.39 for the applesauce.
Cookies got done though....
Made 3 dozen of these
Lastly, I had a senior moment and couldn't remember where I'd hid the chocolate boxes I got on Sunday but found them 30 minutes before the kids got home. This was their Valentine's Day treat...
The beautiful roses were my gift from my husband
Also cooked up 2.5lbs of chicken and served it with a green bean casserole for dinner. We ate half the chicken. I'll use the rest of it in meals this week.
Wednesday Feb. 15th
No spending.
Made apple oatmeal muffins for the kids to have for breakfast the next couple days and pasta with marinara sauce for dinner.
Looked at the grocery ads for the new sales cycle starting tomorrow. Quite frankly, I feel like I've WAY overspent the last couple of days and (thankfully!) there was nothing super enticing in the new ads. Kroger is having another "Buy 6, Get $3 Off" Mega Sale. The Marsh by my house is actually offering DOUBLE COUPONS. I haven't seen double coupons in years. Normally I'd be super excited but there's nothing I absolutely have to have right now. I may need to pick up more dog food and paper towels before the end of the month. I'll probably go to Meijer if I need something as I still have some earned mPerks coupons I can use there.
So that's it. I'm going to sit on my hands and try to stay out of the store the next couple days and work on my meal planning!
February Grocery Spending: $124.76
February Donation Spending: $18.94
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