BL when are you coming to visit me? I do good but I don't think I can hold a candle to you!

Bless, yes, I will share economy with them!!

Diane D, I just have an aversity to spending money right now....trying to save anywhere I can.

The watch I got SO for Christmas malfunctioned so I had to take it back yesterday. While there, I stopped next door at Marshall's and saw massive clearances on things, none of which I really needed, but stopped to look anyway. I ended up buying 2 -regularly priced $100 pairs of Skechers shape ups shoes for just $10 a pair. I love the extra cushioning for work.

Had I not been so frugal with the grocery bill, I would not have had the cash to do it.

On the way home I passed a grocery store I do not normally shop at as their prices are competitive with where I shop and they are a few more miles down the road. They had whole boneless new york loins for $2.99 a pound. New York strip steaks for $2.99.....I will be going there tomorrow after work then come hmoe and slice and freeze....these will take us through to warme weather til the next big sale in May.

The other fun thing was that on the way to dinner, SO and I stopped off to see a friend of his who owns a store and bought a $2 scratch off lottery ticket and won $10, so essentially our 2 dinners ended up costing us $2.15, and we got to see his family and some friends we hadn't seen in a while too!

Wow, I haven't seen strip steaks below $5.99 yet! Great find! Trust me, I can't stand spending money at all either.

It's rare that steaks go on sale so affordably. That's what I mean about my shopping though. I watch the loss leaders. They figure when you come in to get the meat, you will stay and buy lots of other things.....not me. I strictly shop by the sale prices. even though milk is 2.50 a gallon at Costco, I generally don't buy it there as I can get it at aldi's for 2.39 to as low as 2.19.....its all about the sales ads.

As far as the coupon effort, I tried a couple of sites that proclaim how easy they are to use, and I did follow all directions, regiestering and such, and had no luck getting anything to print. So I will just continue on mycurrent plan.

One thing I will be buying today is a new food saver. Costco only usually sells the $150 one. In Jan, they got a more basic one(no chrome accents) for $85. I just noticed it is on coupon this month for $20 off. I love how it vacuum seals meats for the freezer so will probably pick one up. I had one for years and loved it( I still have a box full of bag rolls too). It also comes with a vacuum tube so you can suck air out of things in their special containers too. I use them for salad mix in the fridge and doubles, sometimes triples shelf life in there too. It is also good for speed marinating things as well.

Knowing that I had the last one for about 6 years, this purchase comes out to less than a dollar a month over the life of the machine, so all in all, a pretty good deal.

I'm the same way. Chicken, NY strips, ground beef - made trips to stock up and that's ALL I bought LOL.

Going to check out Aldi's today. They have grapes on sale again. Thanks for the reminder, I'll check out milk too. It's rare it's under $3.99/gal here. I even checked a local dairy that used to be less and they are the same. I do see it less sometimes at 7-11 when I get gas but I am always on the way out then (and I'm not the one that drinks it).

Someone was telling me yesterday about their food saver thing. I've never used one, but I only have one small freezer worth of food. Wrap well and freezer bags have been working great, and I have to remember to date them.

Diane: My Aldi's milk was $1.99. Love that! Our Aldi's gets deliveries three times a week. I find there milk last longer than my Krogers. I got some of their grapes last week and they were very good.

WHEW.

My update involves food, not for our household, but for a friend's household. She was in an accident, and it destroyed her back pretty badly; she has good days, but even on good days, kitchen work is problematic, so she and I planned meals, her husband did a Big Shopping, and I spent Thursday and part of Friday at her place, mixing and making and freezing. We actually brought part of the finished stuff back to my place, as she ran entirely out of freezer room! In ten hours of work (with help from my older kids and her oldest son), we finished and froze:

* 56 breakfast burritos
* 20 breakfast English muffin sandwiches
* 36 beef soft tacos
* 3 turkey-veg pot pies
* 3 turkey-veg casseroles topped with homemade stuffing
* 3 pans "funeral potatoes" (soooo yum!)
* 4 pans funeral potatoes with ham and peas added
* 20 ham, broccoli, and cheese sandwich pockets
* 36 cheeseburger sandwich pockets
* 32 cheeseburger sliders (on homemade rolls!)
* 2 fruit pies
* 3 pounds sliced turkey for lunch sandwiches

Her husband was a little shocked about the Big Shopping, as they don't tend to buy six pounds of cheese at a go, or five dozen eggs, etc. Even though we used ham and turkey and vegetables from their freezer, and pie filling from their canning, he's not used to seeing it all out at once. When he saw the results, though, and his oldest son proudly told him that SON was going to be handling breakfast and dinner from now on, until Mom's back was healed (because Son can use the oven and microwave, and knows how to tear up a fresh salad to go with anything), and then tasted the ham/broc/cheese sandwich pockets for dinner last night, he's sold on making this sort of thing a regular habit.

It felt FANTASTIC to help out a dear friend.

In my own household, my son has requested ham-broc-cheese pockets as an addition to our regular rotations. Last night I found chicken thighs and legs at 88c a pound, bought a $5 pack of each, and broke that into two meal bags. We baked one last night (with a great herb blend sprinkled on before baking... yum, garlic and dill and pepper!), and the other is frozen for future use.

I need to make sure to reserve my produce basket first thing Monday this week; we didn't get one, because I missed out by waiting until 10am. We're still finishing up last Saturday's basket, so I suppose that's fine. Need to do up some potatoes for the freezer.

BL - I made it to Aldi's. OK they have 4 isles, not two as I remembered. They do typically only have one cashier though which is sad.

I spent $14.66 and got:
1 gal milk $2.69
ribs
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 yogurt
1 seasoning
bag of frozen strawberries that were less than fresh and it says there are only strawberries in it (here's hoping)

They only had red grapes, they were mismarked at $1.99/lb and didn't look good at all so I didn't get any.

Their lean ground beef is less than half the price of the 80/20 I've been getting. Now that I think of it though, I don't remember seeing any other beef, just chicken (not a great deal) and pork.

So I guess I will go back and get more stuff. I figured we'd try what I got and see how it goes for now.

Liz: You are such a good friend! What a blessing to your friend!

I went grocery shopping, again, today. Spent $27.01 and bought milk, grapes, boxed pasta mixes, ramen noodles, frozen peas and frozen corn, bottled flavored water (for DD), and Luna bars (again, for DD).

I had left in Feb. grocery budget: $72.61
Balance remaining in Feb. grocery budget: $72.61 - $27.01 = $45.60

Need to make a menu plan for next week.

Today, we had:
Breakfast: Blueberry pancakes, sausages, syrup, banana
Lunch: Tuna salad, hummus, French bread
Dinner: Chicken veggie soup, crackers, papaya

Put mung beans to soak overnight to boil for b'fast, tomorrow. Also, put a package of roast chicken (4 pieces) to thaw - will be sufficient for 2 meals during the week. Should also do some baking tomorrow - blueberry muffins, perhaps.

I made some chicken wings in my crock pot last night. Can anything be done with the broth that's left over?