Simply Skip. Or, How I Saved $100 This Week

I mentioned before that this is a really busy time for me right now – too busy, in fact, for me to go grocery shopping.

Yep.

Does that mean that we starved?

Hardly.

Instead, I fixed leftovers, raided the fridge, scoured my pantry, ventured into our freezer – and got really creative.

I usually spend about $100 every week on groceries for our family of four.

But not this week.

I made meals using what I had and to my utter astonishment…

no one even noticed.

For dinner, we ate:

• taco soup  (made mostly from canned goods), blue corn chips and fruit salad
• chicken pot pie from leftover chicken, frozen vegetables, homemade sauce (I’ll share the recipe later) and a prepared pie crust
• breakfast hash (eggs, bacon, peppers, onions, potatoes, cheese) and toast
• bowtie pasta with homemade cheese sauce (a variation of that same sauce recipe) and frozen peas
• rosemary pork roast (I stock up when it goes on sale), boiled potatoes and salad
• kielbasa (Tom’s fave) sauted with bell peppers, onions and thyme, fresh bread from the breadmaker and buttered broccoli
• quesadillas with all the fixins’
• homemade cheese pizza with onions and leftover bacon, more salad

For breakfast, we made oatmeal, boxed cereal, homemade granola and yogurt with fruit. Lunches were PB&J, quesadillas, turkey sandwiches and leftovers.

Are you hungry yet?

I am – and I just ate lunch!

Yes, I can’t put it off much longer. We’re down to our last gallon of milk. And the boys just ate the last can of mandarin oranges for their snack.

However, if you are tight on cash (or time), take my advice and

Simply Skip.

If you normally go to the grocery store every week like clockwork, try to put it off for a few days and get creative with what you already have.

Some other ideas:

• if you buy a coffee (or fountain Coke – guilty as charged) most days of the week, try to buy one every other day, or every third day
• if you go into a store for a printer cartridge and your husband’s favorite gourmet coffee, don’t buy your sons a movie – even if it is only $5 (guilty of that, too)
• if you don’t need anything, don’t even go into a store. Skip it completely. You already know there is an entire industry dedicated to getting people to spend as much of their hard-earned money as possible.
• if every time you fill up on gas, you grab a pack of gum, candy bar, magazine, soda, etc., skip it. Pay for your gas and leave. Or, even better – pay at the pump where there are no temptations.

You get the idea. If you thought longer and harder about it, I’m sure you could think of many more ways to plug up the cash leaks in your budget.

I’m absolutely convinced that it’s not the big things we buy so much as the little things that cause us to live beyond our means. 

(Thud)

That was the sound of me stepping down from my soapbox, sorry!

I just wanted to share with you how I was able to save $100 this week:  Simply Skip.