Grocery Shopping and Meals

I should have been blogging about such things all along, but we can pick up here.  Today I went out for the first grocery shopping trip off the week.  Last week, I went over my $100 limit by $6.  This could have been avoided with slightly better planning, but all in all not a bad money week.  Of course, very little was organic, but most everything was whole, natural food.

I feel great that I've been able to change the way we eat and keep costs reasonable.  HOWEVER, several things are starting to concern me.  If you noticed, I haven't mentioned a whole lot about meat.  We haven't had to buy any because we had stocked up on chicken breasts last month when they went on sale for $1.75 a pound.  I don't know how buying meat is going to factor in once we run out of what we have.  Another concern is that we will no longer have WIC after this month.  I'm happy about that for the most part, but it did provide $12 worth of produce for us as well as it would have taken care of the cost of the soy milk, which is running us $40 a month.  I have got to wean that child off of soy milk!

Today I spent $50 on groceries.  More than I would have liked for the first grocery trip of the week, but it may work out.  That $50 covered breakfast for everyone for the week, as well as a week's worth of fresh fruit, and several lunches.  I didn't get any fresh vegetables, so I will have to either check the Farmer's Market tomorrow or just use the frozen veggies and cans that we have in the house.

One of my favorite "organic" changes has been changing my cleaning supplies.  This is a great way to not only cut toxins in your home, but also costs.  All you need to clean and sanitize your house is a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a spray bottle of vinegar.  That's it.  It has proven to kill bacteria as well as bleach-based cleaners without all the harmful side effects.  That was an easy enough change to make.  The hydrogen/vinegar solution also effectively cleans your fresh produce!  So....even when you can't buy organic, you will be able to have cleaner food than by rinsing with water alone.

So tonight's menu consists of RACHEL RAY'S MEATLOAF MUFFINS WITH BARBEQUE SAUCE, fresh green beans, homemade organic mashed potatoes, and fresh strawberries and pineapple.  I substituted ground turkey for the beef.  No, this isn't part of going organic.  We made the switch from red meat before this process in order to eat healthier.  I prefer the lightness of the ground turkey to beef anyways.  I used STUBB'S BBQ SAUCE.  It was on sale and is all-natural.  I could read (and identify) all the ingredients - and no HFCS!  I was going to take pictures of dinner, but I'm feeling to lazy to do that (and dinner is not ready yet anyway).

Losing It With Jillian is on tonight.  Check it out!