Menu Plan Monday 3/22/10

I am going to try to get back into the habit of menu planning. I have been so busy shopping for all the deals, but end up not having everything to make complete meals. I have about $70 left in the grocery budget, so I have plenty to fill in any gaps. I am going to try to use up what I have on hand as much as possible over the next couple of weeks.

Here is my plan for this week:

Breakfasts: cereal with milk, oatmeal, bagels with cream cheese, granola bars

Lunches: Smart Ones, sandwiches, soup, leftovers

Dinners:

Popcorn chicken over salad
Pancakes, bacon/sausage, fruit
Pizza and salad
Chili and cornbread
Hot dogs, corn on the cob, fruit
Spaghetti , Italian bread, salad
Leftovers

Menu Plan Monday is hosted by I'm An Organizing Junkie. Head over and check out other great menu ideas.

My Next Project

Here is a picture of the beautiful hand-painted yarn I recently got at a great price from Tuesday Morning. I am going to be learning to knit socks. Can't wait!

These will definitely be some Christmas gifts this year. I love to give handmade items for Christmas.

Free Cheese! And other great deals.

So I went back to Kroger today. I had more of the $2/2 coupons for Kraft cheese and I also realized I had a booklet mailed to me from Kroger with some March Madness coupons.

I was able to get $1 off the cokes and $0.55 off the Powerade. I also won the Maxwell House by playing the March to Savings game at Kroger.com.

After the March Madness sale, coupons and a $4 catalina, I was able to get everything pictured for $7.43!

That's 33 items:

24 bags of cheese (free)
3 2-liter cokes
3 Powerades
1 Maxwell House coffee (free)
1 8-pack of Brawny
1 Rotisserie chicken

Check out these great blogs for all the deals:

Southern Savers--Friday Finals

Money Saving Mom-Super Savings Saturday

Fiddledeedee-Super Savers

The Frugal Freeloader

Kroger Deals $1.65 Out of Pocket!

On the way home from work, I stopped by a Publix store. I had been to this store last week and picked up a couple of the $2/2 Blinkie coupons that they had for Kraft cheese. I decided that if there were still coupons there I would get a few more. They had two Blinkie machines with Kraft coupons! I got a few more and combined them with some printables I had and headed over to Kroger.

I got 8 2-liter cokes ($0.79 ea on March Madness sale) and 16 Kraft shredded cheese ($0.99 on March Madness sale) and spent a total of $1.65 out of pocket! I was able to get such a great deal by using my coupons, plus I won a free Kraft cheese earlier this week at Kroger.com by playing the March To Savings game. Then I had a $4 Catalina left from last week.

You can learn more about Kroger deals this week by visiting HERE or HERE.

To see how other folks did this week on their grocery shopping, be sure to visit:

Money Saving Mom--Super Savings Saturday

Southern Savers--Friday Finals

Fiddledeedee--Super Savers

The Frugal Freeloader

Financial Peace University-Free Lesson

If you have been curious about Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University, you can sign up HERE to take a free lesson of Financial Peace University. The free lessons will be held the week of April 5th - 12th.

I highly recommend Financial Peace University and Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover.
We have been following Dave's teachings since 2007 and have paid off almost all of our debt and have substantial savings. Go HERE to read more about our story.

Cheap Eight O'clock Coffee at Publix

Publix has Eight O'Clock coffee B1G1 Free this week. There is a great coupon for $2/2 bags. Just go to the Eight O'Clock Coffee website and click on the coupon link. You just have to enter your name and e-mail address and you can print your coupon! Be sure to hit the back button to get a second coupon. You can print two coupons for each computer in your house.

The coupon gets you 2 bags of coffee for $1.5o each. So stock up enough until the next sale. I usually by enough for 3-4 months and put the bags in the freezer to keep them fresh.

Super Savings Saturday-I went a little nuts with the cereal...

I went to Publix to take advantage of the 50% off Kellogg's cereal deal. I printed a bunch of high dollar coupons a few weeks back so this was the perfect time to use those coupons.

I bought 19 boxes of cereal! I paid either $1 or $1.25 per box of cereal. I got a total of 46 items and paid $51.45 OOP. I saved $106.66.

Needless to say, we are set for breakfast items for quite a while. Our pantry is actually bursting at the seams, so we are going to only buy fresh produce, milk, and free items for the rest of the month.

To see how other folks did, be sure to visit these great blogs:

Fiddledeedee- Super Savers

Southern Savers- Friday Finals

Money Saving Mom- Super Savings Saturday