Saturday, November 7, 2009

Loves me some grocery bargains (house full of flu edition)

Besides going to the store to get sprite and cold/flu meds, I didn't get out much this week. Potty training, the flu (2 members of the fam) and my own cold have just about done my enthusiasm for shopping in! But I managed a couple deals while picking up the necessities at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart


Usually I plan a little better than this but yesterday I just brought my coupon box with me to the store. I found a couple good deals you can do too!

Welch's sparkling juice was only $2.97! Pair with this $2/1 coupon for $0.97 sparkling juice!

Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup is only $0.58 and use a $1/2 printable to get it for $0.08 each!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Eat da food!

Liv is eating "real" food now(in addition to full time nursing). Bananas, avacado, pumpkin. She's enthusiastic about it all!


With both girls we've started with veggies/fruits before rice cereal- against dr.'s orders! I guess I don't see much reason not to in the reading I've done.

Yum nanners!

She looks so little in that highchair! Big sis uses it most of the time so she seems tiny comparatively.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Instead of Baking all day like the rest of the world...

We heated up leftovers and canned soup. And did some laundry.

I really wanted to participate in the cooking/baking day that Money Saving Mom was hosting.

But silly life gets in the way sometimes. Between the flu and potty training an almost 25 month old, I've got my hands full. Three days in a row I've talked about getting to the store to buy M some big girl undies, but it hasn't happened. But all in all, potty training is going well! We've had plenty of accidents (but there are blessings to no carpet in our house!;) but today we've had none so far.

Anyway, I am thinking of doing so freezer cooking next week so hopefully I can still join in the fun albeit a little late!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A reason to shop Safeway again...


Check out the details at the Frugal Find for this week's ad.

Weeks like this one tempt me to start blogging about their weekly ads again!

I am excited about the Kohl's promo, spend $50, get $10 to spend at Kohl's and on up the more you spend the more you earn (you get the idea). I have heard your pre-coupon total counts, so combine this with the Home for the Holiday's promo and you could get some great deals!

We are still eating from our pantry through the end of this week, but come up with some good scenarios for these deals and next week I will be visiting Safeway again!

This would be a great time to stock up on chocolate chips, flour, etc. that have coupons and that you'd be using for holiday baking anyway!

I'd love to hear of any good scenarios any of you locals have cooked up.

Blogging interrupted by: the FLU

Not only are we eating from the pantry, but now we are cleaning out that medicine stockpile! 3 out of 4 of us are sick, and the other one is potty training:) Life is messy around here!

Luckily I have a mild version of the badness. Daniel and baby Liv have the much nastier version.

I'm off to cough and clear a path through the bathroom and sort out the medicine cabinet!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Soup & Cereal Diet (patent pending)

I'm only half joking-mostly about the patent part:) I kept thinking that I needed motivation and a jump start like signing up for Weight Watchers or Nutrisystem, but the money wasn't really in our budget.

So I decided to try and tackle two problems at once and I created my own "diet" consisting of things I needed to use up. I looked up the Special K diet (several other cereals have the same thing) online and got an idea what that looked like. Realistically I knew I wouldn't be able to stick with replacing two meals a day with cereal, but I needed something low-cal and easy that we had lots of. Progresso soup fit the bill.

Another thing I've read says that some people eat less when they have a repetitious diet. To some degree, that's me. Variety makes me want more because the taste is novel. Having the same bowl of cereal each morning makes it less fun to go back for seconds;)

So here's what I came up with using inpsiration from the cereal diets online, Slim-fast and others like it.

Breakfast: big bowl of fiber rice cereals with skim milk
coffee and milk

Snack: something under 150 calories (high protein is best, but sometimes I have just crackers or a bar of some sort)

Lunch: can of progresso soup, any leftover veggies from dinner and sometimes a couple bites of leftovers- I always have a few bites of dark chocolate and/or homemade iced coffee for dessert. This has to be something I can stick with for more than a week!

Snack: fruit, carrots/fat free dip, yogurt. 100-150 cals

Dinner: Normal. I eat what I feel like until full. I have a small dessert (about 150 cals) as well.

I usually stay right under 2000 calories for the day. I know this is a lot, but since I am nursing and tall its a good amount for weight loss right now.

And I am happy to report that I am within 15 pounds of my goal range. That puts me in the high end of a healthy weight for my height. Last time I checked in I think I was at 27 or so to go (several months ago!) so I am happy with progress.

Menu Plan for the week of Nov. 2, 2009

Its November already?!? And its Monday and I haven't even THOUGHT about a menu for this week. That is weird for me since I really enjoy doing it- but its an indicator of our busy weekend.

I'm extending my eating from the pantry because I cheated too much last month! ;) Our pantries are still too full, although much less so. I will be breaking my eating from the pantry month next weekend, when Albertson's doubles come back out. I'll be out of plenty of stuff by then too.

Breakfasts: pancakes (today), cold cereal, pumpkin muffins (still need to get a recipe)

Lunches: leftovers, fresh pineapple

Mon: Quesadillas, beans & onions in the crockpot

Tues: Scalloped Chicken Casserole, squash

Wed: Hot Dogs on whole wheat buns, rice chips, cauliflower

Thurs: Tuna casserole from scratch

Fri: Ziti Bake using ground turkey and Italian Cheese Bread

Sat: Pork ribs in the crockpot, scalloped potatoes, green beans

Sun: Fried Rice (using up leftover bits) or just clean out the fridge/freezer of leftovers

More menu plans at Orgjunkie!