I am waaay too proud of my grocery shopping this week.

Because of our very limited budget I have had to force myself to totally redo how I do my grocery shopping.  It's been about a year now, and I get perhaps a little too much enjoyment out of stretching what we have on hand, making things from scratch, and seeing how low I can manage to keep our grocery budget.  I made a post awhile ago about how we try to reduce our grocery bill.

The ads last week weren't very good at all, so for these next two weeks (well one week left now) I planned on trying to use what we have on hand as best as possible, while still providing good meals for my family.  Because my work schedule is kind of all over the place we will have a few "leftover" nights.  I'll make a big meal with plenty of leftovers so that we can all have lunch or an easy dinner on the nights I work late.  Anyways, I am extremely happy with how the shopping has gone for the next couple of weeks.

Prep time: approx. 1 hour
Shop time: 2-ish hours
Stores: 3
Total: at budget and under $100
Yay me!

Our biggest dinner staple is chicken breast.  It's inexpensive and I have found many different recipes for chicken.  One of the many reason's why I love Sam's club is because they always have fresh, boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.88/lb.  This shopping trip I made a stop at Sam's club for a few things, WalMart where I bought the bulk of my groceries (while not my favorite store, you just can't beat their prices), and one of our local grocery stores.  I hadn't planned on hitting the local grocery store, but my in-laws stopped by just before I was headed out and gave me a flier for a weekend Celebrate Nebraska sale.  They were having a big sale on items made right here in Nebraska.  While right now I am really focused on saving as much as possible, I do prefer to buy local when I can.  Our favorite BBQ place was at one of the locations, but not the one I went to unfortunately.  I was able to get milk, bread, and ham from the deli, all for a fantastic price, all produced right here in Nebraska.                

So ya, I am way too overly proud of myself for efficiently using what we already had on hand, and staying right on budget for our grocery shopping, and still making yummy meals.  Yay me!