For various reasons we have only a couple hundred dollars to last us the month, so this week’s meal involves freezer and pantry raiding like it’s my job. The habits of Poverty continue to serve me well. In other less povertous news, I did get some birthday gift cards and was able to use those to purchase two new fluffy towels (we haven’t bought towels since we were married in 2006!!), and two matching hand towels, plus a couple of bath mats for the boys’ bathroom upstairs. I also used my gift card money to buy a new point and shoot camera, as our old one bit the dust and I’ve been using only my iPhone for about a year. This new camera takes video, too. My parents bought me video editing software for my birthday. I am way excited to finally have decent pictures and video, and be able to cut and edit home videos like I used to do. I’ve always tried to stay on top of this throughout the years of endless child-video-taking, because we are much more likely to watch old home videos if they’ve been edited and aren’t just, like, twenty minutes of boring peppered with thirty second bursts of cuteness. I had to abandon it over the last year – more because of technology failure than busyness at work, though the busyness doesn’t help. . . But now I’m hoping that I can get back into it, because it (along with cooking) is a creative endeavor I truly do enjoy.
Anyway, here are our meals. It’s good to do this once in a while – take the freezer and pantry down to nothing, push the re-set button.
Sunday: Chili – this is the only meal I have to make from scratch, but I already have all the spices, frozen cooked ground beef, carrots, celery, garlic, and onions, so all I have to buy is some canned kidney beans and tomatoes.
Monday: Leftover cooked chicken breast, baked potatoes, frozen veg (we have all of this already – the chicken is big enough that the boys and I can share)
Tuesday: Tuna Casserole (this was already made up in the freezer, and the Professor hates it, so we’ll have it on a night he’s not here.)
Wednesday: Leftover Swedish meatballs with marinara and pasta – have all of this except the marinara
Thursday: Leftover pulled pork and black bean enchiladas (using up the last of some Father’s Day pulled pork – BBQ meat makes me vomitous these days, but I can just have the black beans) – this also requires no purchase!
Friday: Burgers (already in freezer), macaroni and cheese, frozen veg – again – no purchase necessary!
Saturday: Leftover minestrone and some nice bread – I’ll buy Pillsbury french bread, but otherwise also “free”!
I have to buy a metric ton of Nutri Grain bars and yogurts for my bottomless pit boys, plus laundry detergent, but even so I’m thinking we can get outta there for seventy five bucks or less. It’s amazing how much money you can save at the checkout line when one of you is no longer drinking beer. 😉