Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Feeding 3 on $164 a Month


Let me put this simply, this summer has not been good. I am now working 2 jobs in one day, double shifts people! Yet making no money. But this girl is not giving up. I am not ashamed to say I get food stamps. It sucks to be this poor but this is the life of a single mom that gets NO benefits. That $164 is for one person, no dependents. But watch me make it work for 3 people.

I did a lot of searching but came across how people do these budgets and feed their families. I will link this one lady's at the end of this blog. She helped me understand budgeting. 

At the end of June, I knew I had no money in July to feed Evie or myself and what about my brother! I have food stamps, WIC and the food pantry. Ok so that was what I was going to use. On July 1st, I went to the food pantry to see what we could get and to get us to the 10th, food stamp day.

By July 10th,  I was ready.  I planned our meals around what was on sale. Potatoes where on sale at Cashsaver for a 10 lbs for $1.64.Chicken was $1.99 a lb at Gerbes. That's not a great deal but good enough. I simply looked at the deals and went to those stores. But first, I was looking at what we had at home and building off that. WIC helped a ton! I used the fresh/ frozen check for frozen veggies. This is the best for your money, unless strawberries or something else is on sale. Because Evie doesn't eat the WIC stuff, I just buy her stuff with the food stamp money. We also go thru 1 and 1/2 gallons of milk every week. Just depends on Evie. We also drink koolaid and a lot of tea. This all needed to be in the budget.

I made a 2 week meal plan for us. The only exception was to go to the store for more milk and fresh bananas or produce if needed. Having a list and a plan helped so much and stopped impulse buys.
We planned all dinners. Then breakfast is what we have here, eggs, oatmeal, ect. Lunch is what we have/ leftovers.

Here is our meal plan for the 1st 2 weeks:
(***Chicken with Rice & poor man's stew did get taken off and turned into left overs/ pizza and stirfry)

Sunday: Meatloaf
Tuesday: Burritos
Thursday: Chili Dogs (already had dogs and frozen chili) Free Meal!!!
Friday: Chicken soup w/ Rice ( Scratched and made it a homemade pizza night, had everything)
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Tacos (no recipe just my mom's taco salad)
Wednesday: Spaghetti
Thursday: Easy Beef & Gravy Over Noodles ( stew meat $4 for pack, on sale. I divided it into 2, 1 for this)
Friday: Crock pot Chicken & Stuffing, see picture, no recipe. Also I only used half of the stuffing to make it go further for another meal. 
Saturday: Poor Man's Stew ( Went to Weeknight stirfry)
Sunday: Leftovers

Alright also Evie is super picky, so she was given the chance to eat what we had or one of her foods like yogurt. So also I had to buy her food too. This 1st trip we spent a lot because I picked up extra meat and we needed some of the spices and things. The second week I did go back to CashSaver for the sugar deal, $1.10 for a 4 lb bag. I stocked up a little and Lipton Tea, $1.70 a box. Then Moser's had Koolaid, 8 for a $1.

For the last 2 weeks I freaked out a bit. We had so little left. How can I do the impossible? Well I pulled it off.

Cashsaver had whole chickens $.50 a pound!!! Omg people. I got 4 and looked up how to cut up a chicken. Then I made my list according to sales. I shopped at Aldis first, as they always have the cheapest things.Then made my rounds to all the stores. I shop all in one day and without Evie. We already had our meat so we just needed more veggies, Evie's food and my brother needed another box of tea. Also got Evie 3 lbs of yogurt, on sale, for $.99, got 2. Yogurt stays good and is ok after "expired". It really helped make our budget. We have $11 left.












These next two weeks look like this:

Monday: Roast Chicken
Tuesday: Chicken Quesdas
Wednesday: Catfish (all ready had fish)
Friday: Weeknight Stirfry (mix up veggy choices)
Saturday: Poor Man's Stew
Sunday: Leftovers/ Evie's party
Monday: Mom is in town!!! So mom is cooking something awesome.
Tuesday: Mom still in town!!! But we making Creamy Cheesy Chicken Rice
Wednesday: Beef and Broccoli (have the little packet, stew meat and broccoli)
Thursday: Stir fry again, this time chicken
Friday: Enchilada pasta (frozen leftovers from last batch)
Saturday: More weeknight stirfry
Sunday: Crock pot Chicken and Gravy (using cream of chicken from not making chicken soap)

By Aug. 1st we may need more veggies, so WIC will help. Also we have to go till the 10th! So also food pantry will help get us there. It's just so fun to be poor, what a great country! But I did it. And you know this has been great, being fugal and also trying lots of new food.

Read more at this lady's blog.



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