Well, day 10 ended up being chicken enchiladas. That's when I realized we only had 4 tortillas left and no canned enchilada sauce with no time to make my own. :-) Oh well! Heavily stuffed tortillas and tomatoes for a sauce.
Thanksgiving leftovers served us for nearly a solid week after Turkey day so that took up most of the end of the month! And they were soooo yummy. It's one of the few times a year I have gravy. And I do enjoy me some gravy.
The frozen pizza dough turned into 2 pizzas and a calzone (since I ran out of sauce). Those were yummy, but, I did mention I love pizza, right? And there was a McDonald's evening but I wanted to meet a friend and when you have kids they need somewhere to run around so McD's it was.
If I'm going to be honest (oh, I don't like this)... I WENT TO THE STORE!!!! But I did limit myself! I'M SORRY! I HAD TO!!! But was only a few times!!!! Okay, maybe "had" is a strong word, but, but, but.... Well there we ingredients to our Thanksgiving contributions and okay, while I was there it is impossible for me to not to pick up great deals I KNOW we'll use when I can get them for tremendous discounts. I know, I know! But there is a balance, right? I'll borrow from December! (Which is why I may borrow from January in December, it's a vicious cycle.)
Still, our freezer is less full, the food lasted longer than I anticipated it would and I might have spent $ at the grocery store but it was much less than it would have been without this little task at hand.
During one of these said trips I had an interesting experience. I forgot my wallet and by a stroke of luck (or Divine intervention) I happened to have Katie's preschool $ in cash because I forgot to drop it off first. After realizing what I'd done and that I would have to pay for everything with cash I found myself being very conscious not just of "this is a great deal on something we use!" but also, "do I have enough cash on me right now to pay for it?" So, I've toyed with the idea and [gulp] I think I will pay for our groceries this month in cash. Only cash and only groceries. Let's see how much we really DO eat. There, I typed it and now I can't go back.
I'm always torn. If you stock your pantry with sale items you'll use later, then use those items you are basically always eating at a discount. I like to think of it as shopping your pantry. Now, this is smart. BUT if you don't have the money then you don't have it! No matter how great the deal is. So. I'll try an experiment and see if maybe I can find that balance somewhere in the month of December.
I'm terrified.
Let me know how it goes. I totally relate with you on this post. It's such a juggling act. I mean, even if you are out of "food" money, your family still needs to eat nutritiously, right? And it's hard to say, "I"m not going to get more groceries" when you feel like you ALREADY scrimp and save and try to shop the deals and only get the staples. Sometimes I think that I would worry less about all this if I had more money. But I know me and I know that I'll still try to squeeze every penny I can to get the most bang for my buck. Such is my life...
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