the Freeze family

the Freeze family
We're hungry for change!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

Food prices are fluid and always changing.  Food budgets aren't.  I can't understand how families maintain a food budget when prices for staple items like milk, butter, cheese, and bananas change constantly.

To remind ourselves that every food item has a cost, everything in our refrigerator has a label listing the food's overall price and cost per unit.  I have also labeled the items that were purchased prior to January 3 as "Off Limits."  It's a good visual reminder and keeps us honest to our $400 budget since I log everything we eat.  When we first started with our $400 food budget, milk at my local grocery store was on sale for $1.98 per gallon.  I got very used to writing down "Milk-8 ounces-13 cents" in my food log every time the boys had a cup of milk.  When the milk that we'd purchased ran out, we had to buy milk at $2.75 per gallon.  What used to be 13cents was suddenly 18cents for 8 ounces.  I know it's only a nickle, but nickles add up very quickly.  Thankfully, milk recently went on sale for $1.79 at a discount grocery store and we stocked up.  I'm sure that milk prices are cyclical and I'll see $1.98 milk at my local store again, but when?  It's difficult not knowing what's going to be on sale at the grocery store until Wednesday when the fliers come out.  Does anyone have a PhD in grocery pricing who can share this info? 

I used to hate leftovers, but I really am starting to like them.  Today's lunch was mostly leftovers from last night's book club.  Leftovers are basically free food since the cost of the food was counted in the original preparation.  Yay!  Also, I made pizza dough from scratch today, thanks to everyone who sent me dough recipes.  I got to use my stand mixer's dough hook which was a lot of fun.  Since I've been cooking most of my family's meals from scratch, I've gotten to use a lot of my neglected kitchen gadgets.  I've resurrected my stand mixer, my mortar & pestle, my six-sided grater, my crock pot, my tea pot (did I mention that we heated so much water for tea in our coffee pot that we broke it?!?) and my vegetable peeler.  And I don't think my measuring cups and spoons have ever been used as much as they have in the last 2 1/2 weeks.

Challenges for the coming week are making soup stock for the first time and trying to bake bread.  We'll see how those things go. 

Here's what we ate today.

Breakfast
- SC&G Cereal with Milk
- K Oatmeal with Brown Sugar
Total $0.54

Lunch
- SK&G Leftovers
- C Sandwich (bread, mayo, leftover bacon) and Milk
- G Banana and Milk
Total $0.45

Dinner
- S&K Pizza (homemade dough with cheese, oven-dried tomatoes, balsamic carmelized onions, spaghetti sauce, Spam, and mushrooms)
- C&G Pizza (homemade dough with mushrooms, Spam, and cheese) and Milk
Total $4.72

Dessert
- S&K Leftover cookies and tea
Total $0.02

Total Spend $5.73

Tomorrow, Our budget takes a SPiN       

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