Budget Success

Owen grocery shopping! 

Budget Update ... SUCCESS!  
At the beginning of May I made a meal calendar for the entire month and grocery shopped accordingly. So far I've found 2 things I missed (and needed) as well as 5ish things I wanted but didn't include - not bad!  I also have started recalculating recipes to be 1/2 or 1/4 the size so we have MUCH less waste!  When I looked at our financial waste 2 things stood out: groceries and Target.  Target is more about self control whereas the grocery waste is about not eating leftovers, not using food fast enough and buying things that we don't need.    

Math is absolutely not my strong point so altering recipes has been a lot about second guessing and hoping for the best but so far everything has turned out just as wonderful as previously.  There are a few websites, see below, that help with scaling or altering a recipe to make it a little less stressful.  Another thing I've done is plan our recipes to maximize the use of meat - for instance one day we had spaghetti with meatballs and a few days later had meatball subs.  I made all of the meatballs one afternoon but waited to cook the second half until the day of - same fresh taste!  It's the little things that make a difference.  

Now, I said we were on a budget but that doesn't mean I've stopped spoiling my peanuts!!!  SO with the money we're saving on less waste I used to buy the kids a tent.  Now they can be outside with me and I don't have to worry about sunburn!  Ok, ok ... I also bought them chairs! ;)  

http://allrecipes.com/help/recipeinfo/scaling.aspx

http://food.unl.edu/web/fnh/reduce-recipe-size