Frugal May Days – Week 2

May 10 – Grocery Day!

This day’s format was very much like the previous week. I headed out to Walmart first thing in the morning. I didn’t need much this week from here in terms of food, but I did need some non-food stuff (sunscreen and hooks to hang the clothesline I bought last week, haha) and there was kind of a deal on Kotex products, so I stocked up even though I didn’t need them. (Buy 3 different Kimberly-Clark products and get $3 back via iBotta, plus I had a $1 coupon off one from a free sample pack I’d ordered and a $1 on 2 coupon I found online. Net cost was $4 for all three packs, which is basically 1/3 the regular price!) I got the coconut milk deal again, thanks to iBotta and a coupon, and I picked up a box of Quaker Steel Cut 3-Minute Oats that sounded tasty because there was a $1.50 iBotta rebate on that, bringing it down to only $1.38. Normally I buy Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats and just make big batches that I portion out and throw in the freezer, but this was inexpensive and it’s much faster for last minute breakfasts. The rest of the stuff I grabbed was regular price.

After Walmart I stopped at home to drop the stuff off before going to my Sunday morning walk with my awesome walking group! (*waves to all of you lovely people*) Then after the walk, I stopped at Produce Junction (I spent a “whopping” $19.75 here, but got a ton of delicious fruits and veggies) and Shoprite. I had a lot of rebates at Shoprite: 25 cents on bananas and 50 cents on yogurt from Checkout51, 50 cents on a Luna Bar, 20 cents on potato chips, and 20 cents on jalapenos from iBotta. I had a couple of issues here. One, my 4G doesn’t work inside our Shoprite, so I didn’t realize that the Luna Protein bar didn’t count for the rebate. Since the bars were already on sale for $1, the 50 cent rebate was a really good deal. The other problem was they didn’t have JALAPENOS. I grabbed serranos, and sort of crossed my fingers that the cashier wouldn’t know the difference between jalapenos and serranos. (I was a grocery store cashier for a few years in college and it always amazed me what produce items people were confused about.) Well, I got lucky – he didn’t know the difference and charged me for jalapenos, a whopping 18 cents worth! So I got paid 2 cents for those, haha!

I got home and put everything away before taking “haul” photos, sorry everyone, but I did take pics of the stuff I got really good deals on.

When The Hubs got home we went back to Shoprite to exchange the Luna bar for the correct one (it’s no far, so no, I didn’t spend more money on gas than I saved) and then went to Acme to get water and grapes. No rebates.

Dinner tonight was Sorghum Risotta Primavera. It was really good, but it was a dumb idea. Why was it dumb, Andrea? Well, it was dumb because Frugal May Days means not turning on the air despite 85 degree temps, then slaving over a hot stove for 90 minutes because sorghum takes twice as long to cook as rice. DUMB. It was delicious, but by the time we ate I was so hot and crabby I think it lost some of its appeal.

May 11 

This day started off with me making English Muffin bread before the sun even came up. I made 24 servings of the stuff, and the only part of it I paid for this week was the yeast. There wasn’t any pricey ingredients in it either: flour, salt, sugar, yeast, milk, baking soda, cornmeal and water. I froze 3/4 of it and kept 1/4 of it out for breakfasts this week. Way cheaper than the $1.37 I paid for 6 English muffins the week before of which half molded before they could be eaten, despite only having purchased them 4 days earlier. This NEVER happens with Thomas’. (Some things are not worth the money you save!)

Then I worked out on my balcony and worked up a serious sweat before treating myself to a piece of that tasty English muffin bread topped with melty peanut butter and a banana, followed by the second most delicious cool shower I’d had this year, the first being the night before after a particularly vigorous and sweat-inducing yoga video. After that? I felt like I needed a NAP! The breeze coming in the windows was awesome, so I lay down on the bed and enjoyed the sounds of the birds and the breeze through the leaves of the trees, one leg sticking out from under the sheet to regulate my temperature. I didn’t sleep but dozed, and truly enjoyed just having the time and quiet to just relax a while.

After lunch I went to pick up a huge load of food donations from a PetValu to drop off at the shelter where I volunteer, then hauled it all inside before walking 3 dogs. On the way home I stopped at Aldi to grab 99 cent half-pints of blackberries and blueberries (2 of each), and a $2 bag of trail mix for The Hubs.

Dinner tonight was fish tacos, utilizing some of the leftover tortillas plus beer-battered fish from the freezer, mango salsa (had everything for that already except for the mangoes and the FREE serranos I got) and a cold rice salad I tossed together with stuff I had in the fridge plus tomatoes and limes. Tasty, refreshing and as I cooked the fish in the toaster oven, it didn’t generate a lot of heat. Twas yummy!

May 12

Spend free day. I planned something that didn’t need cooking because it was supposed to be hotter this day than the day before. WRONG. It’s okay though, my Chicken BLT Wraps were refreshing and easy.

May 13

I desperately needed a pick-me-up this day, so I grabbed a Diet Dr. Pepper from CVS. $2.02 from the “snacks” kitty, leaving $10.20. I used the leftover cooked turkey from the freezer to make Dragon Turkey Stir Fry. Spicy and delicious.

May 14

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Thursdays I work in the showroom at work, so I threw the stuff for beef barley soup into the crockpot before heading to work. After work I did a Roadrunner Adventure run, which was a blast, and I WON something! Isn’t it wonderful to win things when you attend free events?! Spend free day!

May 15

Ugh. This day was a bit of a wreck calorie-wise. The Hubs and I had planned on going out for breakfast at the Barnes & Noble Cafe, because we had a gift card I’ve been trying to use up. Well, we didn’t do a very good job of checking to see what time they opened, and when we pulled up at 8 am, they were not yet open. So, we went to Taco Bell. $9.82 from our “snacks” kitty, leaving us with a whopping $0.38 halfway through the month. I think we can consider that a fail. Oh well. Dinner was Balsamic Onion topped Pork Chops with Crispy Garlic Potatoes and Corn.

May 16

This day I was active! I did a 5K for charity before work, then worked most of the day before heading home and making Veggie Black Beans and Rice for dinner. Last month, I found an online deal for a free Love with Food snack box. All I had to pay for is shipping, which was a mere $2. It arrived on this day, blog to come on Wednesday! The Hubs and I got a head start on Week 3 of Frugal May Days with a frustrating trip to Acme. BAH. But I’ll talk about that next week.

Conclusion

I got paid to buy Coconut Milk again, I love that!

Grand total in groceries for the week was $56.29! Total success! That brings the total for the month to $127.66. Here’s the chart of savings for Week 2:

Week 2 Savings – Sheet1

How did YOU save money this week?