One week left in April and I have 52 cents in the budget remaining. That's enough to buy about 4 or 5 small bananas from Walmart or WinCo. While I can see that our supplies are reducing, we still have a lot of food items in the pantry, fridge, and freezers, with substantial amounts of meat, eggs, milk, beans, flour, oats, cabbage, carrots, and sugar. We are starting to deplete all of those nice little tidbits which enhance meals, such as nuts and olives. But that was to be expected, as we're not buying any of those sorts of items, instead sticking to the staples. Easter left us with the nice bonus of leftover ham, ham stock for bean soup, and ham fat for cooking.
Full disclosure on the budget -- I did have to "borrow" from May's budget in order to use a $10 coupon at Target and take advantage of a sale on peanut butter. However, the peanut butter that I bought is kept out of the stock that we are currently using, and won't be opened until May 1. So, that $11.17 will come out of May's budget.
I began working on May's grocery list around the second week of April. In March and April, we stocked up on ground beef, pinto beans, all-purpose flour, and onions. The stock-up items for May include the already-purchased peanut butter, 50 pounds of whole wheat flour, and 35 pounds of vegetable oil. I see lots of baking in my future! In addition to these items and my regular list of staples, I also have two special occasions to keep in mind while preparing my list for May: Cinco de Mayo and Mother's Day. If my funds are used up for the basics, I believe that I can get by with just adding corn tortillas to my list for Cinco de Mayo and a container of strawberries for Mother's Day. The remainder of the menus for those special occasions can be drawn from my basic purchases for the month and what I have at home right now.
I know that this is still early on in my stocking up, but I've still found myself a tiny bit disappointed that our pantry is not yet looking stocked. I know that will come with a few more months of buying in stock-up quantities.
Do you know what I do when I feel down about my grocery situation? I kick myself in the pants and get busy in the kitchen, preparing as many foods as I can think to provide ready-to-eat snacks and lunch items for my family. Even if it's just boiling some eggs, those boiled eggs are one more thing that my husband and kids could grab to eat. Honestly, that thought cheers me up.
This morning, I had one of those days. I was down a bit, struggling with a headache that's only partially responding to OTC painkillers (day 2 of a migraine), and worn out from the weekend. But I knew if I made myself busy in the kitchen, then that would be addressing one of my situations. So, I made a batch of rhubarb muffins, using a small baggie of pancake mix and an even smaller baggie of corn muffin mix, plus rhubarb from our garden, an egg, oil, vanilla extract, sugar, liquid from the canned yams on Sunday, and whey from homemade yogurt. After the batter was in the muffin tins, I sprinkled some leftover crumb topping from pie-baking over the weekend. I also made a batch of pinto bean and grilled onion sandwich spread, a pot of boiled eggs, and a pitcher of juice. These are just simple foods, but as my family members trickles into the house this afternoon, they will be greeted with snacks already made.
We're still making it. That's a good thing on which to focus my thoughts.
