Sunday, July 10, 2016

Menu planning & a few frugal things

Coming back from vacation to an empty fridge makes for some tricky meals, but we've been managing. I now need to get much more organized!

Here's the plan for the rest of the week & looking ahead to next week:

Sunday - Salmon & rice
Monday - leftover risotto
Tuesday - leftover pizza
Wednesday - leftover salmon & rice
Thursday - I'll be out of town. M on his own with the boys
Friday - I'll be out of town. M on his own with the boys
Saturday - Grilled burgers & corn with our overnight guests
Sunday - grilled fish, rice & some sort of vegetable

I've been putting the house back in order, and have accomplished a few frugal things:


  • Cleaned the house. Cleaning lady will come next Friday. I did train both boys how to clean bathrooms & dust (it's an ongoing process) & gave them a little spending money as a reward. Savings - $80
  • No meals out. Made all of our meals this week, despite coming back from vacation to chaos. Savings, unknown.
  • Reduced camp package for next week, as I was able to arrange a carpool. Savings ~$80
  • Picked & juiced lemons, vs letting them go to waste in the fridge. This is mostly just for my own mental sanity of not having them loose in the fridge & feeling like I'm wasting a resource. But, we will make things.
  • Came up with a plan to take a few drinks/snacks on my trip next weekend, to reduce costs.
  • Found a free happy hour at the hotel we're staying at next weekend (belated 40th birthday girls trip) for Thursday & Friday night. Estimated savings vs going out - $60
Not a perfect week by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm always on the look out for ways to save, while maintaining a well balanced life. I'm off to do yoga!

What's on your menu for the week?

2 comments:

  1. Food-wise, we're enjoying new potatoes, and frugal-wise, I've been trying to keep on top of just LOOKING in the fridge to see what we have in there instead of automatically thinking, "meal out".
    Thank you for answering the reading list question a few posts back! I'd definitely want to hear more about books you've enjoyed. I absolutely LOVE Kate White's books.
    And Janice Marturano's "Finding the space to lead" has been awesome for me for mindfulness in stressful situations, not just at work but in life in general.

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  2. Well done - any savings at all is ahead of the game in my books! We have some apples from the neighbors tree that keep falling over my fence into the yard, I have saved them and intend to make a crisp one night this week. Nothing worse than food waste and these are perfectly edible albeit bruised in a few spots. We are eating down our fridge/freezer as they are redoing the flooring in 2 weeks so have to have the fridge entirely cleaned out and ready to move into the garage for a couple days. We will be living out of a minifridge and a minifreezer and storing the rest at Mom's so not buying much produce/frozen food right now unless it is to be eaten right away. I read the last few posts - 50 books read so far! You definitely are a reader - on some of those long flights perhaps?

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