At the end of every single month (and he does a mid-way check, too), my husband goes through our finances. He opens up our online bank statement, goes through every purchase that was made with our debit card, and places it into pre-designated categories on a spreadsheet. This spreadsheet has what I call the dreaded budget. It drives me insane sometimes, but it really saves us. Each month we can spend a certain amount of money in each category, and then the rest goes directly into savings for building our new home, health savings account for the new baby, and then law school student loans, of course.
I don't have a lot of control over some of the heavier bills like our rent, loan payments, etc, but I do have a huge influence over the groceries category. It's been a long process with that dreaded category. With a food blog, sometimes I feel like I want to try my recipes with the finest ingredients, instead of the generic brand version. Or maybe I'd like to buy much nicer cuts of meat for my recipes. Or better yet, I'd wish on my life to shop somewhere other than Walmart (and a once-a-month-trip to Costco). But alas, we are paying off loans and saving for a home, so making my grocery list for my own little family has to be completely strategic, low-maintenance, and save us as much money as possible at the check stand.
Each week has a certain allotment of what I can spend at the grocery store. If I go over, I have to spend less the next week. Well, we have a birthday party for our son coming up this week, so I knew a couple weeks ago, I needed to keep things painfully simple in the grocery category of our budget. I decided I'd make 100% of our meals based on what we already had in the pantry. Three different boxes of pasta with only 1/4 noodles left, and a half a pound of ground beef in the freezer? Yup, tri-noodle spaghetti was headed our way. Tons of bread and eggs lying around? Throw in some dill, a little mayo, paprika, salt, and pepper, and we've got ourselves some simple egg-salad sandwiches for dinner with some veggies and fruit. Three cans of different kinds of beans, a package of taco seasoning, and a couple leftover cans of diced tomatoes?
Oh baby, I new we had a chili comin' on...
Little did I know I would create an instant favorite with the "few" ingredients I thought I had lying around.
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