December So Far...

I can't believe that it is already December 8th!

I'm a little behind with the blogging for December because classes began again for me last week so this post is going to focus on the budget. I'll be back on Wednesday with recipes, food pictures, and tips on how I manage to spend 6 hours cooking each week.

I'm two shopping trips in to December and I've spent $206.14 of my $267 budget. If this were last month, I'd be panicking. I learned a lot last month and I'm confident I'll make my budget.

Most of the money I've spent this month has been on meat.



This week chicken breast was on sale for $2.99/lb. After watching last month's sales, I know that this will likely be the lowest price of the month so I stocked up and bought 5lbs. Pork chops were also on sale 10 for $10 with $0.10 per gallon fuel saver rewards. I certainly couldn't pass that up so I bought 10 4oz pork chops. The chicken and pork combined will give me 20 meals.

I also had to spend about $30 on the ingredients for the museli. However, those ingredients will make enough museli for the entire month. $30 for 60 1/2 cup portions of museli for breakfast is a good deal in my book.

And, a trip to Omaha Steaks happened. For the last few weeks they've had a flier in a coupon pack that we get. Charlie loves steak and if you've been reading my blog for the last month you know there hasn't been any red meat.

Nathan, the sales person, was very good at his job and he also convinced us to take advantage of a first time customer sale. In addition to the deal we went for we bought 1 2# pack of sirloin tips and got a second 2# pack and a pack of steak burgers for free.

We spent $102.97 and walked out with everything in the picture. According to the receipt we saved 69% or $223.93. I'm going to deduct the total purchase price over three month because it'll take me at least that long to use everything we bought. My plan is to have red meat once a week, probably on Sunday.

Charlie is VERY happy about steak!

If anyone is interested, I've included a picture of the coupon at the very bottom of this post. They have a code you can enter for online orders. Their steak really is good!

My freezer is packed to the point where I anticipate only having to purchase produce and milk each week for the rest of the month. I actually had to take the ice bin out to fit everything.

All together, I earned enough fuel points already this month to save $5.53 when I put gas in my car yesterday!