Grocery Haul: July 1st, 2016 and the grocery savings and rebate apps I love

I happen to LOVE grocery haul videos on YouTube! I don't know why, but they get me kind of excited. I really like seeing how other people eat and what groceries in different areas of the country and at different stores cost compared to my own.

I'm not quite at the taking video stage yet, but I plan to get there. In the meantime, here is my grocery haul (well, part of it) from July 1st, 2016. I made a few additional stops over the last few days for more produce and staples that were cheaper elsewhere, but this gives you a basic idea of some of what we eat.

Please note, we are a family of two--a mom and a teenage boy. We also buy most of our produce separately at different stores so not a lot of produce is pictured here.

The apps I mention below are (please note, some are affiliate links):

• Ibotta
• Saving Star
• Checkout 51

and the website I print my coupons from is:

• Swagbucks -- Go to the Shopping tab in the menu and then find the link for grocery coupons. With Saving Star, you get points for redeeming coupons. These points, along with points accrued from other activities via Swagbucks, can be redeemed for giftcards. Over the last several years, I have paid for my son's birthday and Christmas presents almost entirely with giftcards earned in this manner. Most months, I am able to earn an average of $20 in Amazon gift cards via Swagbucks. Sometimes I earn a bit more and sometimes I cash out for Starbucks gift cards instead. You can earn a lot more on Swagbucks, but it can be time intensive if you aren't picky. It can also generate a lot of unnecessary junk email if you aren't careful.  

Most of these apps and the website are only available to users in the USA, although I believe Checkout 51 is also available in Canada.

Since that haul, I did temporarily misplace my receipts so I am not totally sure of how much I spent or what my savings were overall, but I recall being pleased other than a hiccup with three coupons that I mention below. On average, I save 30 to 50% per grocery trip BEFORE applying rebate app savings. On occasion I get up to 75% savings. My dream, of course, is a 100% savings trip!

On to the haul...

We eat a lot of sandwiches so I picked up two packages of Oscar Mayer lunch meat--both on sale AND I had a coupon. I also picked up a package of dry salami (on sale) and two packages of pre-cooked sausages. And, for my son I picked up a package of pre-sliced Tillamook cheese. For cooking and baking, I picked up a package of Imperial margarine since I am allergic to dairy and thus can't use regular butter. The cheese was on sale AND a rebate was available via the savings app Ibotta. I printed the coupon for the lunchmeat via the website Swagbucks.

Sugary cereals aren't my ideal, but sometimes we need a super easy sweet treat. Cereal was on sale AND I had coupons printed from Swagbucks AND a rebate from Saving Star. We use rice milk in place of regular cow's milk and were running low so I picked up two containers. Our favorite bread was not in stock so I bought our second favorite as well as some bagels. The hamburger buns were on sale AND I had a rebate available from Ibotta resulting in the buns costing next to nothing. We just use them for regular sandwiches. 

We had run out of laundry detergent so I picked up a new bottle. My hair also has been unusually tangled and coarse lately, I think due to the water quality where we live now, so I also picked up some apple cider vinegar. Dilute it with water (I do about 20% vinegar to 80% water most of the time but increase the vinegar after swimming) and pour it over your hair after shampooing and rinsing. Then, rinse it out. The tangles come out so easily! It's like magic!

I also bought some bulk oatmeal, unbleached flour, and sugar to make blueberry muffins--I guessed on how much of each I would need and my guess was spot-on! I also bought my favorite jelly (with a coupon) and muffin tin liners for the blueberry muffins. The jelly jar also will eventually become a bulk spices container once the jelly is all gone and I've washed out the jar. 

Lighbulbs...I bought a reading lamp after our move due to not enough natural light in our space, and the only bulbs I had available were much to high in wattage.

PRODUCE! You can see the blueberries in the back, then two bell peppers, one bunch of radishes, a pound or so of green beans, zucchini, and tomatoes. I had rebates for the peppers and zucchini via Ibotta. I also had a rebate for tomatoes through the app Checkout 51.

Snackies... The Wheat Thin crackers were on sale and I had a rebate available through Checkout 51. I had coupons for the Justin's nutbutter packets that should have made them free, but they resulted in an error message each time the cashier tried to use them. I ended up paying full price for each nutbutter packet and plan to write to the company for a refund due to the coupon problem. I also received a rebate on the Luna bar from both Ibotta and SavingStar and a coupon and a sale price resulting in my $1 Lunabar costing me only 25-cents! The pretzel bites and soda...no comment! My son actually bought the chips himself but gave me the cash and tossed them into our cart.

My work schedule makes it hard for me to prepare three meals per day every day for both of us, so my son gets more frozen foods than I care to admit. The Morning Star patties are for me though.

These next three pictures show my shopping and savings method. I write out a list of what's on sale from each store I frequent with the sale prices, item names, item sizes, and any limitations. Then I also mark (SC) if I have a store coupon, (C) if I have any other coupon, and then abbreviations for any apps that have rebates or offers on the items on my list. 

So, I might write:

• $1 Luna Bar (C) (Ib) (S*) to indicate that Luna bars are on sale for $1 but I have a coupon plus rebates available from both Ibotta and Saving Star.

I also note the rebates I have selected from Ibotta, Saving Star, and Checkout 51. At the top of the page, I make a list of anything else on my shopping list. After I get home or get back to my car, depending on how many rebates I need to take care of or how many stops I've made, I process the rebates. For Ibotta, Saving Star, and Checkout 51 and my local stores, this involves scanning the barcodes on most items (the apps include the scanning mechanism) and taking pictures of the receipts. Ibotta pays out the fastests after scanning your items, but Ibotta and Checkout 51 both require that you accrue $20 before you can actually get the rebates sent to you. Saving Star has a threshold of $5 before you can request your rebates. 

I also recently started using Shopkick. I'm so new to it that I have yet to decide how useful it will be. It appears that you can get deals and savings through Shopkick, but I am far more interested in the fact that you can accumulate points (called "kicks") just by walking into certain stores or by scanning the bar codes on selected products. Right now I have 275 kicks. 

You can trade the points in for gift cards ranging from Starbucks to TJ Maxx/Homegoods/Marshalls to clothing stores to Wal-Mart. Some are available for as little as 500 kicks, but that is only for a $2 gift card. My current goal is 1250 kicks for a TJ Maxx/Homegoods/Marshalls gift card as we moved at the start of June and have lots of things to replace! Our move was far enough that we got rid of almost everything we owned before moving (sold, donated, or trashed everything!).

If you use Shopkick or Swagbucks and redeem your points or kicks for Starbuck's gift cards, be sure that you register one card and transfer all of your balances to it via Starbuck's! That way, every time you make a purchase using your Starbuck's gift card you can earn Star Rewards--points towards free drinks, food, and merchandise. Most of the time you earn 2 stars for every dollar spent, but there are monthly double reward days and other deals and specials that can greatly increase your stars and your potential for freebies. 

What other apps or saving programs do you utilize? I have downloaded a few others but either they don't have items available that I would use or they aren't as easy to navigate. 

January 2016: A peek inside my kitchen (how I organize to save money on groceries)

I see a lot of grocery savings posts and cooking posts that seem inspiring, but I often wonder, "What did they already have in their pantry and fridge??? How can they buy those particular things and no xyz and still eat well?" I also see perfect, beautiful, clean kitchens--I don't know about you, but my kitchen doesn't look like that on most days!

So, here is a peek inside my kitchen on January 6th, 2016. I'm showing you my messy counters, my before pictures of my cupboards, fridge, and freezer, and afters of those same areas.

After watching a video by The Former Mrs. Jones on YouTube about her grocery budget and a recent grocery trip followed by a clip of her cleaning her kitchen and some info on her meal plan for the next two weeks, I decided to tackle some similar stuff.

Ready?

Set.

Go...

Here's an overview of my kitchen--we cook fairly frequently and so we almost always have dishes to wash. We've gotten a lot better at washing dishes more often and all of these dishes on the counter and in the sink should be washed by end of day today. We also only wash by hand, turning the water OFF while we scrub. Hand washing, even though we have a dishwasher, saves us a ton on our electric bill--so much that the added time required to hand wash is well worth it! Often we wash dishes while watching Netflix to make the time pass a little faster.

And a few cupboards, the fridge, and pantry...

Hanging on the back of my pantry door, I have a shoe organizer. The top two rows of pockets hold medications, bandages, and health stuff. The third row from the top holds instant oatmeal packets and breakfast drink mix (all given to us for FREE) and some leftover Halloween candy. The fourth row holds my son's breakfast and snack bars. The fifth row holds a couple of my snacks (bulk purchased wasabi peas, Sesame Snaps), a pocket with paperclips and binder clips, and a pocket with napkins, plastic cutlery, and straws that we've picked up randomly. The bottom two rows hold dog supplies (heart worm medication, ear wash for one of our dogs, travel brochures from places we hope to visit in the next few years, a pouch of unopened mix-ins that I use in smoothies, and a roll of trash bags.

THIS over the door pocket shoe organizer is very similar to and several dollars LESS expensive than the one we bought.

In the cupboards and pantry shelf--it might not look like a did a whole ton of organizing on the pantry shelf or kitchen cupboard, but it feels like I did! I pulled a few canned items from random spots and put them on the pantry shelf and grouped items together. I also pulled two items out of the pantry that we won't eat (one was given to us and the other I bought on a whim and I will donate both).

In the cupboard, I pulled together boxed items, organized my herbs and spices a little better, pulled cereal out of its boxes (the boxes were too big and I couldn't close the door completely), grouped pasta together, grouped cereal together, and few other little things.

In the fridge and freezer, there wasn't a whole lot to do other than reorganize so I would know what I had. I couldn't clearly see what was in the freezer for the most part. While I don't have it organized in the most energy efficient manner, I do have it organized so I know what's there and where things are. For example, the door of the freezer is mostly filled with fruits and veggies--all fruits gathered together and veggies together. The ice cube tray actually doesn't have ice in it, but rather frozen pureed bananas that I use in smoothies. When bananas go on sale, I buy a bunch, puree them and freeze them.

In the fridge, I pulled together condiments and small jarred items, put food that needs to be eaten today on the top shelf, pulled together my son's Christmas candy leftovers, and then pulled together some other leftovers, veggies, and so on. I also have a container on the bottom shelf filled with leftover rice that we give to one of my dogs (she has digestive issues and plain rice seems to help her a lot--consult your vet before changing your dog's diet though!).

We have A LOT of condiments, sauces, and other small stuff in our fridge. I don't remember where I saw it, but someone posted a picture on social media showing how they used the bottom half of an egg carton to old condiments upside down so the dregs in the bottom of the jars would be pulled by gravity towards the lids and openings. BRILLIANT, right? I cut the bottom of an egg carton down a little bit so it would fit in our fridge door and popped our mustards, ketchup, and horseradish sauce into it. Works beautifully!

Now that I know what I have on hand, I can meal plan, make my grocery list for this coming weekend to fill in the gaps, and so on. Doing this kind of cleaning up and organizing at least every other month, if not monthly, allows me to save in the following ways:

• I don't double or triple buy unless it is strategic (like maybe there's a too good to be true sale price on something) because I know what we have on hand.
• I can group things in the fridge according to when they need to be eaten (TODAY items always go on the top shelf) so we waste a lot less food.
• I can STOP buying things we won't eat--if it's non-perishable that's been hanging around for months or a perishable that is going bad, I probably shouldn't buy them again.
• I can adjust quantities on my grocery list before going to the store so I don't over or under buy.
• I can create a meal plan (I do three days at a time) easily knowing what's on hand and not worry about needing to go to the store, thus I minimize impulse buying--you know how it is: you go in for one item and leave the store with four or five items.

My meal plan for the next three days:

Today:

• Breakfast: oatmeal with berries, coffee, tea
• Lunch: leftover pasta with cheese sauce and leftover taco bowl for JP; leftover pasta with marinara sauce and salad for me
• Dinner: mini meatballs with pasta and marinara sauce; salad; garlic bread

Tomorrow: 

• Breakfast: waffles, berries
• Lunch: dad and stepmom are taking us out to eat
• Dinner: tomato soup with hash browns (oven needs fixed before we do oven fries)

Two days from now:

• Breakfast: oatmeal, coffee, tea
• Lunch: whole fruit smoothies, hard boiled eggs for both of us; salad and tomatoes for me; Pasta Roni for JP
• Dinner: veggie soup; garlic bread

How do you keep your kitchen organized and how does it help you financially?

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Also, what are you watching on Netflix that you LOVE? I'm about to finish "Nurse Jackie" and need some suggestions. I've already watched "Jessica Jones" which I loved and also recently finished "Sons of Anarchy." Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

**Posts on this blog may contain affiliate links.**

Wrapping up 2015 : My WINS list

The end of 2015 is just around the corner. In the past, I have always treated the transition from one year to the next as just any other day and an arbitrary way to mark time. This year, however, I read THIS post by Denise Duffield-Thomas and I also decided to fully commit to following as much advice as possible from Leonie Dawson's Shining Biz and Life Academy as possible, including doing a year end reflection to close out 2015.

I still need to do some reflection work to complete Leonie's year end closing ritual, but Denise's ritual was basically to realize how many WINS you had over the past year and to list them out.

Honestly, my first thought was, "UGH! 2015 suuuuuuuuuucked! Like hardcore SUUUUCKED!"

But, guess what?

There were bunches of low points, but there were also a TON of high points too! Admittedly, most of those high points (or WINS) happened in the last two months, but they totally count, right?

Here's my list of 2015 WINS:

• Finally listed custom pet portrait coloring pages in my Etsy shop (find them HERE)
• Searched for, found, and began to implement SEO tools (my favorite HERE)
• Got many of my coloring pages to the FIRST pages of related searches on Etsy
• Had my two highest EVER grossing months on Etsy in November and December
• Made it a point to read more (my favorite hobby, so why wasn't I doing it more?)

• Learned to say NO to projects or requests that don't feel right
• Learned to let go of the guilt associated with saying NO
• Learned to say, "That sounds like an exciting project, but I don't think I'm the best fit for your needs. I think you should reach out to {{insert name}}."
• Cut several toxic relationships on social media
• Cut way back on my soda drinking (I'm totally addicted to Coca Cola!)

• Sought an opportunity at another company when my current employer said they couldn't offer me full time status, a raise, benefits, etc despite offering me a promotion
• Got full time status, a raise, benefits, etc when my current employer decided they couldn't afford to lose me
• Told my boss and her three bosses exactly what I thought my company needs for continued growth and to strengthen my two work sites and they agreed
• Started bicycling to my day job on most days 
• Lost 1.5 pants sizes and ALL of my asthma symptoms thanks to bicycling so much

• Started this blog in an effort to face up to and track my debt and thus motivate myself to pay it down faster
• Started coaching a coworker on a book he wants to write and helping with ghostwriting some of it
• Outlined a 4-volume ebook series on homeschooling
• Told two coworkers about a five novel arc I had outlined on my phone and committed to having a few chapters written before New Year's Eve
• Got an idea for another novel 

• Realized there is an entire industry that I don't enjoy working with in my editing and writing business and started saying NO to potential clients in that industry

What are YOUR 2015 wins??? I wanna know! Post a comment below...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Also, HOLY SHIZZLE YOU GUYS!!!! I mentioned the Thug Kitchen cookbook in THIS post and my son and I have made a few more soup recipes from it and OH. EM. GEE! So delicious! 

So far we've made several soups and oven fries. SOOOOOO good! Funny thing though is that the amounts that result from some recipes are interesting...the tortilla soup recipe could easily have been cut in half and the chickpea and dumplings recipe made so much I'd cut it down by even more than half next time! The potato leek soup, however, could easily be doubled.

Check out the potato leek soup -- it was delicious. Super creamy and yummy! I have a tiny serving left that will go in my lunch for work tomorrow.

 And, the insane amount of chickpea and dumpling soup (AFTER we both had a large serving!):

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I didn't pay off any debt officially today, but I did set aside $18 towards a small debt that I owe to my city for a traffic ticket (oops!). The original debt was $215 and I'm down to $65 remaining with a payment plan of $50 per month. My next payment is due January 12th with the final $15 due on February 12th. I want it paid off NOW so I can snowball the payments ASAP into the next debt I want to tackle.

I'm setting aside the money in an envelope and will keep adding to it until I have enough to pay it off or until January 12th, whichever comes first.

I have two expenses on Monday that I can't avoid -- emissions testing for my car and annual registration -- and set aside money for those already, but I haven't decided if I'll do registration for just one year or if I'll do it for two (my state gives the option of one or two years). Whatever money is leftover from those expenses will go in this envelope. On the one hand, it would be nice to go for the two year registration and not have to worry about it for an extra year. On the other hand, it would be nice to pay this debt off entirely! I'll probably decide on Monday...stay tuned!

~*~*~*~*~*~

DEBT TRACKING:
Original total: $110,000
Paid off yesterday: $0
New total: $109,940 

***SET ASIDE TOWARDS MY CITY DEBT: $13***

This post may include affiliate links.

8 Rules to Minimize Food Waste at Home

My original goal had been to post daily in my adventures towards debt freedom.

I haven’t done that, my reader.

That last post about depression and money sort of wiped me out emotionally! I’m glad I wrote it, but it really did a number on me and put me into a funk again.

I’m starting to pull out of it though and wanted to share with you a couple of links and some food-money rules that we practice. I’ve mentioned groceries and food before – click HERE to read related posts.

First, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I came across a link via Goop (yes, I follow Goop despite the exorbitant excesses they often push) about “make do” pies. I didn’t follow that link, but instead went to my good friend Google and asked, “Google, what are make do pies?” (Actually, I just typed “make do pies” into my search bar WITH the quotation marks so Google would search for my exact phrase…).

I turned up some interesting articles that I thought you might enjoy:

• In Lean Times, Creative Bakers Turn to Desperation Pies byJessica Stoller-Conrad on NPR
• Greeks Stomach Economic Crisis With Help of “StarvationRecipes” by Joanna Kakissis on NPR
• Why Desperation Pies are Making a Comeback by Margaret Eby at Bon Appétit (this one really is a bit about “desperation pies” as a luxury though….)
• Make-Do Cooking for Preppers (this one is a from a “prepper” perspective, and I am not at all a “prepper” but I do appreciate the rules laid out in this post)

Now, my own “make do” cooking and food rules:

#1. ~ If it’s in your fridge, freezer or cupboard, plan to eat it, trade it, or donate it. 

If you find yourself donating foods because you simply won’t eat them, STOP BUYING THOSE FOODS! Chances are if you won’t eat it, the person receiving it may not want to eat it either. If you want to donate food, donate things you actually like and think someone else would also enjoy. Also, donate food throughout the year, not just around Thanksgiving and the winter holidays. Plus, if you are buying foods you and no one else in your home will eat, you are wasting money.

#2. ~ Have a plan to prevent spoiling

If you think something will go bad before you can consume it, figure out if it is freezable, and if it is make sure you package it properly and make a plan to use it in the future. HERE are some tips on freezing food from the BBC's Good Food blog.

#3. ~  Have a weekly leftovers night

At least once per week have a fridge clean-out/leftovers dinner night. Pull out all of the leftovers, bits and pieces that are too small for a full serving, and things that need to be eaten soon to avoid spoiling. Can you make anything new out of any of it? If so, do that. If not, let everyone pick and choose what they want to eat. The only rule is this: if you select something from the options you then are obligated to eating it! No throwing it out!

Here's an example of a past "make do" fridge clean out meal:

The night we had this meal, we had enough leftovers for two servings of rice, a serving of sausage each, a serving of spinach each, one egg that I scrambled and gave to my son, leftover roasted red peppers that I ate, and baby carrots for both of us. We both like spinach, but I prefer it cooked while my son prefers his raw. Super easy to cook mine down in the same pan I used to scramble the egg. We used up leftovers, used up spinach before it went bad, and both had full tummies.

#4. ~ Put a lid on it

COVER everything before putting leftovers in the fridge. My son has a bad habit of putting uncovered leftovers in the fridge so that by the time I discover them the next day they are dried out or otherwise gross (dried out, stale rice anyone???). Also, handy tip for leftover rice: If you remove the lid and the rice seems a little dry, just add a teaspoon or two of water per serving and heat in the microwave for a minute or two while covered. The rice should soften up a little bit. Experiment with how much water you need.

#5. ~ Freeze your stale bread 

If you have bread that is going stale, toss it in a zip top baggie or a plastic container with a lid and put it in the freezer. Next time you need bread crumbs, pull it out and grind or tear it up. We also freeze the end pieces. Thaw them and use them to make stuffing, bread pudding, or croutons.

#6. ~ Freeze veggie ends and peels and make broth

Rinse well and then toss veggie peelings, onion skins, carrot and celery ends into a plastic container with a lid and put it in the freezer. When it’s full, use them as the base of a good home made broth. I don't follow a recipe when making broth, but my method is to put on a pot of boiling water, dump in my veggie scraps, add some salt, pepper, garlic powder, bay leaf, and whatever other seasonings sound good at the moment (I really like thyme) and bring it all to a rolling boil. Then, cover and turn the heat down to a simmer and let it bubble away for a few hours. Carefully taste it periodically and adjust seasonings or add more water as needed. When you think it's done, turn off the heat and let it cool. Then, strain out all the veggie scraps and put your broth in storage containers for the fridge or freezer. Yum!

#7. ~ Don't buy foods you don't like even on sale

As mentioned above, don’t buy stuff you don’t like – even if it’s at a steal of a price. If you don’t like it, you won’t eat. If you don’t eat it, you haven’t saved anything no matter how great the sale was.

#8. ~ Keep a running list of the food you throw away

This may seem odd, but writing down exactly what you are throwing away can be eye opening. You may think you are throwing away very little food when really you're throwing away several meals worth every month. Make a habit of writing down the food you throw away and then review your list periodically. If you are throwing away the same things over and over, consider no longer buying those items. If you are throwing away a lot regularly, perhaps reconsider your overall grocery and meal planning strategy and how you might cut back.

What are your family’s food and grocery rules for minimizing waste? Do you have a favorite “make do” recipe?

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DEBT TRACKING:
Original total: $110,000
Paid off yesterday: $10
New total: $109,940 

 

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One way that I'm working towards paying off my debt is by using the cash envelope method for budgeting. To stay on track, I created my own cash envelopes that double as coloring pages. Each one has space on the front for the name of the envelope's category, a money mantra, and three category priorities. Get yours in my Etsy shop HERE.

Zero food waste and my budget

I grew up in a home where a lot of food got wasted -- A LOT. As new food was bought, older food was simply pushed to the back of the fridge, freezer, and cupboards to rot. Leftovers were only occasionally eaten and no care was taken to look at prices when grocery shopping nor were efforts made before shopping to save money (no couponing, no looking over weekly sales ads, no price comparisons).

In some ways, I was very lucky to grow up that way -- I never went hungry and I never feared going hungry.

In other ways though, that type of environment taught me nothing about waste, keeping a budget, or money skills.

It has taken me a very long time to learn any money skills at all or how my food and grocery habits could impact my budget. In fact, although I made great strides after moving out and having a child of my own, it wasn't until my son and I moved back in with my mom several years later that I really started to notice how my family's bad food/grocery habits during my childhood affected my food-related money choices. I love my mom dearly and am so grateful that we were able to move in with her during a time of dire need, but we had very different habits and very different budgets. My mom was financially stable enough to continue to not worry about money, but my budget was extremely tight. I had to weigh my options at the grocery store and be careful that I made our money and food stretch in order to make ends meet and get ahead.

The final straw was when I realized how often food I bought with my own money was getting shoved to the back of the fridge, freezer, and cupboards when my mom bought food. Sometimes my groceries would get smashed so that when I found them they weren't really usable -- like a tomato with a heavy package placed on top of it. I tried talking to my mom about the problem which helped briefly. I tried using hard plastic containers with lids with minor success. I tried a number of other options.

Eventually, my son and I moved out so that I could go to graduate school and I was able to re-implement many of my frugal habits, including minimizing food waste. However, lately I've found both my son and I slip-sliding into bad habits again.

Today, I threw away a half bunch of celery, half bag of salad, and a serving of homemade chana masala. That's not a whole lot, but it still translates to throwing money in the trash. I also realized that I have asparagus that needs to be eaten in the next two days and two apples that will need to be eaten soon as well.

While I may not have cleared out a lot of food waste today, I wish I'd formulated a plan to eat those foods instead. Every time you throw away food, you have to spend more money to replace it. And, if you let THAT food go to waste? Well, more money wasted and more money having to be spent to replace the wasted food again. And, on and on and on...

This week, I'll be hyper focused on minimizing food waste to improve my budget. And, as a side benefit, because I've been buying mostly WHOLE, UNPROCESSED foods, I'm also benefiting our health in the long term which then translates to fewer medical costs over time.

{{I'll do a post in the future about how I save money at the grocery store -- last week, I saved 60% without being super extreme!}}

My zero food waste plans for this week:

• Take my own lunch/snacks to work daily
• Take advantage of free breakfast and lunch at work when my schedule and the meal schedule match up
• Oatmeal, pancakes, waffles for breakfast daily for both of us
• Apple fries for dessert tomorrow night to use up the two apples mentioned above
• Leftovers for dinner tomorrow night (minestrone soup from Thug Kitchen* cookbook -- insanely good!)
• Huge batch of homemade broth from veggie scraps I've been saving in a container in the freezer (it's basically FREE other than the electricity to run the stove and water and soap to wash the dishes! Just the scraps, water, and some seasoning!)
• Asparagus fries as a snack tomorrow night
• Homemade tortilla soup (also from Thug Kitchen) on Monday night
• Evaluate perishables daily and meal plan for the following two to three days based on what's about to go bad

How do you handle food waste, meal planning, and your grocery budget?  

Yesterday's post: Paying off debt one penny at a time
Tomorrow's post: How bicycle commuting is saving me money.
And two days from now: How I'm using coloring to motivate my debt reduction

DEBT TRACKING:
Original total: $110,000
Paid off yesterday: $50
New total: $109,950


*Thug Kitchen is a vegan cookbook and IT IS FREAKING AWESOME! Even my son, a teenager who loves meat, thinks the recipes are outstanding. If you eat meat, consider cutting back -- it can save you a ton of money with some practice. However, if you are sensitive to swearing, this cookbook isn't for you, no matter how great the recipes are! It is filled to the gills with F-bombs.

This post may include affiliate links.