Welcome To My Blog!

    “They want to eat again??? Where did the day go? I forgot to go get groceries! Ok, what can I make with leftover turkey and a box of cereal?”

      This is usually my thought process as I scramble through the pantry and fridge to find something edible at 5:30 in the evening because I have forgotten—yet again—to plan ahead for meals.

When I do make a meal plan for the week and actually buy the groceries, it usually works out well! Getting the motivation to do it is another thing. I’d much rather sew. Or spend time with my boys. Or sleep. Sweet sleep…..anyway. I digress.

So, after perusing Pinterest and other menu websites as well as reviewing what meals we eat on a regular basis, I’ve decided to start making lists for other desperate moms to refer to. I’ll include my grocery list, menu, snack ideas, links to recipes, tips and tricks as well as a list of what I usually have on hand. I’ll try to keep in simple and easy to navigate. 

First of all, you should know I don’t use coupons and I’m no health nut. I try to feed my family balanced meals but you will rarely find the words organic, quinuoa or chia in my vocabulary. I have nothing against Cheetos as an occasional snack or buying my bananas non-organic. 

Don’t get me wrong though! I would LOVE to eat healthier and buy organic and be all creative with our diet. We did this to some extent when Josh (my youngest) had his dairy allergy when he was an infant and when AJ (hubby) was dealing with his heartburn. It’s just so expensive!

Also, I deal with an incredibly picky eater with Toby (my oldest), so I have to be creative anyway with my meal ideas. Anyway, I’ll be talking more about all of this in my blog!

So, here is my first entry. I’ll start with a few tips.

• ·      Plan your menu out after you eat. Don’t plan on an empty stomach.
•      Plan your meals so that you will eat all fresh fruits/veges in the beginning of the week.
•         Always have at least one leftover meal so you don’t waste those leftovers
•      Making use of either Kroger or Walmart order online grocery service helps me cut down on impulse buys quite a bit! I highly recommend them.  We use Walmart. If you are a first timer, you get $10 off. Feel free to use my code and I will get $10 off too!
•      I usually only have one or two things in a meal. Pork chops and green beans or chili and cornbread. I don’t plan elaborate three or four options for a meal.
•      We hardly ever do dessert.

So here's my first meal example.  I’ll include our menu for tonight (Tuesday). We had tacos. I had leftover tortillas, salsa, sour cream and taco seasoning from earlier this month. So I purchased tomatoes, shredded lettuce, shredded cheese and ground beef. We drink milk and water usually for dinner (mommy and daddy may have a soda sometimes). 

**With the leftover lettuce, tomato and cheese, I mixed it together to be my lunch salad for tomorrow.**

So here is what the cost would be if you had to buy everything (Walmart):

Tortillas (Great Value)- $1.98

Ground Beef (1lb)-$3.38

Taco Seasoning (GV)--.34c

Shredded Cheese--$1.62

Shredded Lettuce--$1.68

Tomatos (Roma, 1lb)--.98c

Salsa (Pace)--$1.98

Sour Cream--$1.34

Total= $13.30

 I already had some of the ingredients so my total was $9 which comes out to $2.25/person for one meal. Not bad!

SO there we go. My beginning post. Next post I will show you my menu for this week as well as my grocery list and some links to some recipes.

Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll enjoy the help I hope to offer,

Mama Bear aka Bethany