Fun in the Kitchen

rye bread

ham and pineapple hot pocket

Our favorite pizza - ham and pineapple.

This past weekend I used the rest of my Christmas gift cards and bought myself a breadmaker. I've wanted one and have researched different brands for quite a while, but never could really justify spending so much to get a top quality one. My mind was made up when I opened my email and found a Kohls coupon! I ended up paying very little out of pocket and am thrilled with my purchase:) So far I've made pizza crust, cinnamon raisen bread, and rye bread. All have been super yummy and easy to make. I've already got a list of ideas to try for next weekend and hope to research some recipes using rye this week.

Menu Plan Monday 1-11

Monday: country ham, mashed potatoes, mac n cheese

Tuesday: penne pasta and sauce, homemade bread

Wednesday: China Buffet

Thursday: vegetable soup and sandwich

Friday: Papa Johns

Saturday: shake and bake chicken, oven roasted potatoes and onions, pumpkin pie

Sunday: snacky supper, or out to eat for a late lunch

Best Deal in a While

I'm loving Walgreens today! With my new coupon system, it was so easy to find the coupons and match them up with sales in the Walgreens ad. Here's how it went:

Transaction 1: Electrasol Power Ball 20 ct. 3.49 sale price
-2.50 coupon from Sunday's paper
_________
.99 had to pay out of pocket
- 1.00 back in Register Rewards
___________
.01 money MADE on this transaction


Transaction 2: Special K Cereal sale for 2.50
Special K Cereal sale for 2.50
________
5.00
- 2.50 ( B1G1 free coupon)
__________
2.50
- 1.00 Register Reward from transaction 1 - these are used like cash
__________

1.50 paid out of pocket and received 2.00
back in register rewards

I made .50 on this deal!

Transaction 3: gallon of milk 2.19
string cheese for Hannah + .59
__________
2.78
- 2.00 in register rewards earned from
transaction 2
_________
.78 paid out of pocket

Not too bad for a quick 10 minute stop at the store!

Menu Plan Monday

Week of January 4th- 10th, 2010 ***updated*****

M: white beans, country ham, and cornbread

T: lasagna, salad

W: on your own, leftovers (faculty meeting)

R: chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, cheesy broccoli and cauliflower

F: pizza

S: fried country ham, biscuits, soup

S: leftovers, snacky supper, or out to eat for a late lunch

Eating From the Pantry Challenge

I've decided to take the Eating From the Pantry Challenge from the Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom bloggers. I tried a couple of different ways to get their button for this challenge, but my technology skills are lacking in so many ways:(

Anyway, here's how the challenge will work for me:

I will spend no more than 120.00 this month on groceries and household supplies ( soap, toilet paper, etc.). I'm aiming to spend no more than 30.00 a week, but some weeks may be higher and some lower. As long as it comes to under 120.00, I'll be thrilled.

I will plan my meals based around food that I already have and will then match coupons and sales to create a very minimal grocery list.

I'll post meal plans each week, my grocery totals, and what we actually ate (which sometimes may be very different than the plan!).

Since I'm headed to BG tomorrow, I'll actually shop tomorrow for what I'll need the first week of January. I'm really looking forward to this challenge and am hoping that I save some big bucks! I guess we'll see!

Cooking - what's that?

There hasn't been much cooking going on around the Vincent household. Seriously, for the past couple of months cooking around here has looked like warming up previously cooked chicken strips in the oven, hamburger helper, steaming vegetables in the microwave, and grilling burgers. Nothing blog worthy. My crystal ball doesn't show any blog worthy cooking in the future either!

I'm sure I'll be cooking more as the weather changes. There's just something about hot weather and turning on a stove or oven that doesn't appeal much to me.

CVS - how it's works for me

A little over a year ago, I had never stepped foot in a CVS drugstore. After I started reading blogs, I realized what I had been missing! CVS has a program using ECB ( Extra Care Bucks). The store runs weekly and months ads and certain items give you ECB's when you purchase them. The best times to score ECB deals are at the beginning of the month. For example, paper towels might be on sale for 4.99 and you will receive back 4.99 in ECB's. So, you've gotten them for free! ECB's print out on the bottom of your receipt. You just tear them off and use them like cash on your next purchase! The way to get cheap or even free product is by combining the store sales, previously acquired ECB's, and coupons. I did a couple of transactions today. Here's what I did:

Transaction 1: 2 Prilosec 42 ct. on sale for 24.77 will give back 5.00 in ECB ( for each one
purchased limit 2 per house)
used a 7.00 coupon and a 3.00 coupon ( from last Sunday's paper)
spent 39.54 out of pocket
got back 10.00 in ECB

Ok, I know that I started out by spending almost 40.00, but most people start by buying the free after ECB items. I'm always on the lookout for products that we have to have anyway. Jeremy takes Prilosec daily and luckily it is covered on my flex spending account that comes with my health insurance. So, I wasn't out any cash. I simply scanned my flex Visa card!

Transaction 2: Charmin 16 roll on sale for 9.99 (gives back 2 ECB)
2 Dawn dishwashing liquids 2/2.00 (gives back 1 ECB)

used .25 coupon for Charmin
used .25 coupon for Dawn

my total was 11.49 after coupons
I paid with 10.00 in ECB.

Total spent out of pocket 1.61 ( you still have to pay some tax)
ECB's earned this transaction 3.00

So, I actually made 1.39 on this transaction.

Transaction 3: Hefty 45 count garbage bags on sale for 6.99
used 1.00 off coupon
total was 5.99 plus tax
I paid with 3.00 in ECB, leaving 3.23 to pay out of pocket


Total spent out of pocket: 4.84
I could have stopped after transaction 2 and waited to use my ECB's on a product that would yielded more ECB's, but we really needed the garbage bags. ECB's are good for a month. I usually use all of my ECB's on one trip, rather than "rolling" them. However, more money can be saved by "rolling" them. For example, I could have taken my 3.00 ECB and saved them to spend on a item costing 4.99 and giving back 4.99 in ECB's. In that instance, only 1.99 would have been spent out of pocket.

I hope this doesn't sound confusing. It's really simple to do once you get the hang of it. My shopping trip today took about 10 minutes to plan out and maybe 10 minutes total in the store (and Hannah was with me which means I probably could have been out in 5 minutes if I had been alone:)

If I didn't want to worry about pairing up ECB's, sales, and coupons, I could have visited moneysavingmom.com, the centsible sawyer, or lifeasmom because they do this weekly and post it on their site.