5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. I taught myself how to sew button holes by watching YouTube videos. I then turned an old table cloth I had into a new shower curtain :) ( not the best picture but you get the idea )

2. We are going to a wedding tomorrow. I made the wedding gift using most of the items I already had. I did buy some glitter and ribbon. I will post pics after the wedding :)

3. I bought 2 Christmas presents on Amazon and used $15 in Amazon gift codes I had earned from my Reciept Hog app and Swagbucks. Spent $8 and some change out of pocket. Not to bad for getting 2 gifts :)

4. I got my hair cut and had a full punch card so I got $5 off :)

5. We ate all our leftovers :)

Inexpensive Meal-Beef Orzo Skillet

The other night we had this Beef Orzo Skillet for dinner. The cost of this meal was about $4.57.

 

Here is the breakdown:

 

Ground beef: $1.99 lb ( bought on sale at Kroger)

1 cup Orzo Pasta - $ .64

1 can diced Tomatoes - $.59

About 2 cups chopped Spinach - $.85

Minced Garlic and Italian Seasoning - around $.50

Chicken Broth - Free saved from cooking chicken in the crock pot from a different meal

 

Yum yum!  Not only was this an inexpensive meal but it tasted great too!

 

 

 

 

The Grocery Budget

For the last several months I have tried to cut our $400 a month grocery budget.

Ideally I would love to shave $100 off of it a month. 

 For the most part we are now feeding only 3 people on a regularly.  

Occasionally there are 4 of us but not to often.

I am hoping to start posting about some of the cheaper meals we have been eating.  We will see :)  

Over July 4th I made a pasta salad which had about 10 serving to it.  We ate 5 serving on July 4.  I mentioned in my last post about finding pasta on sale at Kroger for 50 cents a box if you buy 6.  I bought 12 and might go back for more :)

Anyway, last night we ate the leftover pasta salad which we had approximately 5 servings of.  We added 1 pound of grilled chicken breast to it.  

Here it is:

Here is the cost break down of the original pasta salad 

Pasta : 75 cents ( I used a box in half)

Carrot : .07 cents ( I used 1 which I shredded)

Green Pepper: 56 cents ( I used 1 diced)

Black Olives: 50 cents ( I used half a can which come whole and I sliced)

Caesar Dressing 85 cents ( I used half a bottle)  = $2.73 or about 27 cents per serving.

5 servings of leftover pasta salad - $1.35 + chicken breast I bought for $1.35/ a LB = $2.70 for dinner :)

*Note: For the pasta salad I used things I had on hand and other then the pasta which I bought at Kroger every thing else was purchased at Aldi

Chicken Breast - I posted about this deal here and I got it at GFS.

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. My hubby found 2 pairs of nice dress shoes, which he needs for work, both on clearence and spent less then $52 on both. Plus we walked from our house to the shoe store also saving on gas :)

2. I earned a $5 Amazon gift code with my Reciept Hog app :)

3. I had $50 left I my 2 week grocery budget even though I bought extra stuff for camping 

4. We turned off our air conditioning for the last 2 days since we are having mild weather.

5. I stocked up on pasta and hamburger yesterday at Kroger since they had good sales. The pasta was 50 cents a box when you buy 6. I bought 12. The hamburger was $1.99 a pound. I bought 10 lbs and may go back for more

 

Happy 4th of July! I hope to make more of an effort to blog regularly starting on Monday!