Saving Money on Groceries week 1

Last week I did some menu planning in hopes of saving money on groceries this week.  Although I did go $10 over my budget I am happy with the way things went considering the fact that  I did end up buying extra food for company twice and we didn’t resort to eating out at all.  Total spent on groceries this week:  $84.57.

The first thing I did was look through my freezer for what I had on hand to create cheap meals.  Some frozen chicken gave me a simple chicken and rice dish both last week and the week before and some frozen ground turkey made a nice turkey meatloaf as well as last night’s dinner; which was baked ziti.  I also served Haluski with a pork roast that I had. Haluski is cheap to make and delicious, but also very fattening so I don’t make it much.  If you like fried cabbage you will love Haluski.

I made the baked ziti yesterday for company and served with coleslaw and garlic bread.   I would normally serve a green salad but since I had the ingredients for coleslaw it made more sense to serve that instead.  I served brownies with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

I didn’t have many coupons for groceries  but did my best to shop around the store sales.  I am going to start getting the Sunday paper again on a regular basis and look for other sources of coupons such as online coupon sites that allow you to choose your own free printable coupons such as this one:



Other meals we had last week included breakfast for dinner one night, homemade pizza and leftovers.  Tonight will also be leftovers because although the baked ziti cost approximately $9.00 to make I have plenty leftover for tonight’s dinner as well.

All in all I do consider this week a success but hope to save even more money in future weeks as I get my pantry and freezer restocked.