Sunday Shopping 9/25

So this week, I did pretty well. 39% Savings.

My list from what was on sale was pretty slim

Country Style Bone In Pork Ribs $1.99/lb (3lbs or more) - $6.00

I use these for an amazing recipe for Italian Meat Gravy and the recipe calls for 1.5lbs, so these guys were going to be packaged in 1.5 lb portions and headed straight to the freezer.

From my meal plan list also fairly slim as I had so many of my ingredients on hand

Pomegranate Juice - on sale 2/$3.00 (POM)
Frozen Mango - on sale 2/$4.00 (Stop & Shop)
Mixed Green Salad - on sale $2/$5.00 (Stop & Shop)
Tortillas - on sale $2.57 (Mission)
Basmati Rice - on sale 3/$5.00 (Uncle Ben's) - Pair up with coupon buy 3 Ready Rices, get 1 Whole Grain Rice free (ended up being 4/$5.00)
Sweet Potato Fries - not on sale, but we love them (Alexia)
Onion - no sale on onions
Broccoli Crowns - on sale .99/lb

Not a big list at all and pretty much most of it was on sale!

Just while I was in the neighborhood items:

Kettle Chips 2/$5.00 - Matched up with 2 coupons for $1.00 off each.
Bertolli Sauce 2/$4.00 - Picked up two.
Pantene Shampoo 2/$7.00 - Matched up with a coupon for $3.00 off 2

Chips will be great for snacking & entertaining... it's football season and hockey is only about 11 days away (not that I'm counting!)
Bertolli Sauce - keeping sauces on hand for either make ahead meals or quick meals afterwork, it's a great stock up items. I got 2 Vodka Sauces (great with chicken sausage)
Pantene Shampoo - normally don't pick up health & beauty at the grocery store, but these were in the bargain aisle and the coupon match up was fabulous.

Meal Plan Week Ending 10.01.2011

The plan for the week was to keep it fairly simple. My sister was coming for a visit from NYC for the weekend and this work week with end of month and end of quarter is always a challenge for the two of us.

I will work to get a printable version up and running on this thing

Sunday:

Breakfast: Out

Lunch: Balsamic Soy Hamburgers

Dinner: Beef Tacos with Mexican Rice

Monday:

Breakfast: Antioxidant Smoothie

Lunch: Penne with Chicken Sausage & Vodka Sauce (leftovers)

Dinner: Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Mixed Green Salad

Tuesday:

Breakfast: Cereal & Coffee

Lunch: Pulled Pork & Mixed Green Salad

Dinner: Baked Ziti in Marinara Sauce with Chicken Sausage

Wednesday

Breakfast: Vitamin C Smoothie

Lunch: Baked Ziti in Marinara Sauce with Chicken Sausage

Dinner: Chicken in Masala Simmer Sauce over Basmati Rice

Thursday

Breakfast: Cereal & Coffee

Lunch: Chicken in Masala Simmer Sauce over Basmati Rice

Dinner: Pulled Pork Pizza

Friday

Breakfast: Chocolate Protein Smoothie

Lunch: Baked Ziti in Marinara Sauce with Chicken Sausage

Dinner: Turkey Burgers & Sweet Potato Fries

Saturday

Breakfast: Pumpkin Pancakes

Lunch: Out

Dinner: Spicy Honey Pork Tenderloin, Baked Brown Rice & Roasted Broccoli

So some very simple pull together meals here.

Sunday, I pulled out some ground beef to make burgers and since I freeze typically by the pound, we had burgers for lunch and tacos for dinner, so there would be no waste.

Monday, I had bought 7.5 lb Boneless Pork Loin roast at my buy price of $1.99/lb a few weeks back. I had cut it down into a few crockpot sized roasts (about 2.5lbs) so I put some homemade BBQ rub on the roast and let it sit in the fridge on Sunday night, Monday morning threw it in the crockpot with some BBQ sauce and we had BBQ Pulled Pork, which would be dinner, one lunch and it would reappear later in the week in pizza form

Tuesday, I found that I had large mostly full bottle of marinara sauce we had bought at BJS and weren't in love with, I always have pasta on hand and I had amassed several flavors/brands of chicken sausage in the freezer. My buy price for chicken sausage is typically $3.99/pkg, but recently I matched up a couple of $1.00 off each coupons with a 2/$7.00 sale on the new Johnsonville chicken sausage. So we gave the Italian three cheese a shot and topped this little make ahead meal with some remaining shredded parmesan cheese. I actually put this together on Sunday and put it right in the fridge in a covered pyrex baking dish. Threw it in the oven at 350 while I did the lunch dishes and we changed into loungewear for the evening.

Wednesday, despite the fact that the Trader Joe's simmer sauces haven't ever been on sale that I've ever notices (that's pretty much the only item I get at Trader Joes) I like to keep them on hand. I always buy boneless skinless chicken when it's at my buy price of $1.99/lb. I typically trim the breasts down and freeze in 1lb portions, but I always dice 1-1.5 lbs and freeze for use later. This works great. Brown up some chicken, dump in some sauce and let it simmer. I typically pair it up with microwavable rice. This meal is something my husband can put together easy and works great for end of month when I'm usually not sure what time I'll be home, I call him from the road and he whips this up and we are in business.

Thursday, hey pulled pork...just so we don't get too sick of you, let's have you in pizza form. I picked up some frozen pizza dough for use of leftover (taco meat, sausage) to put in a pizza or calzone. I have some jarred pizza sauce in the cabinet, but since canned tomatoes are always on hand, pizza sauce is never far away.

Friday, we typically do something quick on Fridays especially on payday so we can eat and go over the bills and budgeting for the next couple weeks as well as put together the following week's meal plan...burgers, homemade pizzas are perfect for these nights. I typically pick up ground turkey at BJ's during our monthly trip, and I freeze it in 1lb portions. Since, that will leave some leftovers, it sure you'll see the other 1/2 lb in use on sunday in some form.

Saturday, we'll be out doing errands (likely BJs, Target & general deal seeking for the current home project) so we'll plan to go out to lunch together, when we get home we'll take the time to cook together. My husband is trying to sharpen his cooking skills and putting together a nicer meal for us to eat will be nice after what will be a busy busy week. I typically pick up pork tenderloin at BJ's because their everyday price (around $2.99/lb) can't typically be beat. That's not something that goes on sale often and when it does, it's around $2.99/lb. I pick it up at BJ's during our monthly trip and then it's in the freezer.

Not a bad plan for what is typically a pretty hectic week in our house, but we're set up for success. The best part is, I had most of the items needed on hand, so I only had to pick up 8 items at the grocery store, of which 6 were on sale and one I matched up with a coupon and stocked up.

Have a great week!

End of week update: We got a last minute invite to go out with our friends that I sit with at the Bruins to  head over to Weymouth to have dinner at Fore River Grille, which recently was opened by one of the guys that worked at our pre-game hang out (The Fours)  Since they have Shipyard Pumpkin on tap and my favorite Red Sox manager had been fired/let go...we figured, let's head out and have lunch at home prior to running errands on Saturday.  Good food, good beer, great company, seriously how can you go wrong?  You can't.  Easy decision.

Meal Planning & Grocery Strategy

So I can be a bit of a nerd when it comes to this stuff, but honestly when I think of how much money & aggravation it saves me, it's worth it. It's how I pay to do things I enjoy doing like paying for my Boston Bruins tickets or going to visit my nephew in Maryland. So it's worth it and once I'm in the routine of doing it and keeping up with it, it doesn't take very long at all. There are fewer nights that the local pizza guy has to come out to our place because we don't feel like we have anything to eat (we always do) or we don't feel like putting anything together (there's a decent mix of easy to prep ingredients in my pantry most times) The grocery thing, well that's mostly just practice. It depends a lot on where you live to determine what a good price is for items, but I've got it down to the point where I routinely save 35-40% weekly at the store. I stock up when items are on sale, I won't buy meat unless it's at my "buy" price. I don't stack coupons, I don't clear shelves and I don't buy a lot of processed food. I match up sales and coupons and keep myself organized enough that it's not a part time job by any means. First and foremost - my circulars come on Wednesday or Thursday night. I have two local grocery stores that I get the flyers in the mail (Stop & Shop and Shaw's) and I get Roche Bros through my email. Since Stop & Shop is typically the store I have the most consistent pricing in for the items that I buy, I typically do my primary grocery shopping there. I check out deals at Shaw's & Roche Bros for good sales & match ups. I start my planning for the week when I receive my flyers. I typically just take a few minutes to run through them and see if anything pops out at me. For example, this week I noticed that Stop & Shop was having a sale on bone in country style pork ribs for $1.99/lb (3lbs or more) I put them on my list because I use them to make an amazing Italian Meat Gravy recipe. On Fridays I start a loose meal plan by looking at what I have in my freezer for meat and keeping in mind what's on sale for the week. What I have or will buy drives the meal plan always. If we are having people over and I just have to have something, I will just buy it for that occasion, but since I always stock up, my freezer is often full of portioned meat to start from. I usually take a peek Friday night or Saturday mornings to see what the coupon fairy will be bringing me on Sunday in the paper by checking out Sunday Coupon Preview and also I browse mygrocerydeals.com for any unadvertised sales or to compare grocery store pricing along with some local drug store chains (CVS, Walgreens & Rite-Aid) You would be surprised how many items I'm able to just match up coupons and sales with in a drug store. For example, I was able to get Special K for $1.67 a box a couple weeks ago, between matching sales & coupons and rewards programs. Meal plan is finalized over the weekend. When I make a meal plan, I also make an ingredient list. I check my pantry & my refrigerator and I check off what I have to get the weekly meal plan completed. The ingredient list goes in the front of my coupon binder and then I know what I'll need and that's paired up with my "sale" list from the flyer. In a typical week, I have 75% of my ingredients on hand, and the rest is typically on sale or produce.

If I need to wait for my coupons to come in, which I prefer to do, we go grocery shopping on Sunday. Guess what, so does everyone else....guess what else, everyone else is also trying to go before Pats kick off.

We bring the coupon binder & the lists into the grocery store along with our reusable bags (with .05 coupon for each used!) and head to Stop & Shop. We always get a coffee and just take our time. We also scan and bag at Stop & Shop as we go, which helps us keep an eye on the running total and gives us the opportunity to take advantage of additional savings. For example, Stop & Shop Butter is typically .35 off when we use a scanner. If the butter is 2/$5.00, I'll typically pick up a pound, because these days you can't get a pound of butter for less that $2.15/lb. So we take our time, check out all the sales & since my coupons are organized by category pretty close in the order the aisles are at the grocery store, it makes for an easy chance to see if there's any great match ups. If fresh produce is needed for later in the week - typically one of us will stop off after work to get it so that we don't waste any produce. Also, depending on what the day/week looks like we might head out to any secondary stores which we typically stick to what is on the list, while keeping an eye out for unadvertised sales and good match ups. I also keep an eye out for stuff we use all the time that we might have to pick up from time to time when it's not on sale. For example, the store brand of dijon mustard is at three different prices at each of my local stores. It's something I use a lot in my recipes, so it's good to know that if I'm running low and haven't been able to stock up on a sale or coupon I can pick up the store brand at Shaw's - because that's where I will get the best price (.20-.30 less than the other stores) We bring the groceries home and immediately start breaking down the meat for freezing and put away the rest of the groceries. Then I try to pull together some meal prep for the week. I try to plan one crockpot meal and one make ahead meal (think casserole) for the week, so I do any prep I can for that. Eventually I make Sunday's dinner and portion out lunch for the following week and we're good to start our week of working and commuting. Hopefully some of the tips and recipes will help someone else out there, it seems an awful shame to spend time on this to only keep it for myself.

Welcome to My Blog (maybe welcome back)

I haven't done a great job in the past with keeping up with this blog, I was working a million hours a week and commuting.  I'm still working, but things seems to have evened out into a more predictable workload, so I thought...let's pick this back up.  I enjoy cooking and baking immensely.  So I'm looking forward to sharing some recipes.  I'm also pretty good at saving money at the grocery store and couponing (though I wouldn't consider myself an "extreme couponer!" So I'll be looking to share some tips there.

I live just south of Boston, MA.  I just celebrated my three year anniversary with my husband Pete.  We don't have kids at this time.  We both work and commute.  We are both big sports fans, so a lot of our meal planning is around having people over for the Pats or making sure if one or the other is at a game (Sox & Bruins) then we have a meal plan.  

Looking forward to keeping on track with this blog again as it always made me a little more accountable to stick with the meal planning, couponing & cooking.