So far, so good, with keeping the grocery budget around $170 per month. Time will tell when the garden is put to bed for the winter, as to whether or not we can continue spending this amount on groceries.
Early autumn for us is late September through mid October. I've listed our dinner menus for this time period.
Upon returning from our vacation, I jumped right into my busy season. So, you will find repetition in some of the meals (I made double and triple batches of many main dishes, for easy cooking on busy nights).
As with August meals, we continued in September with many vegetarian dinners. In early October I roasted our last turkey, purchased last November for about 30 cents per pound. The leftover turkey was frozen in ready to use family-size portions, to be used throughout October and into early November.
The autumn garden is producing kale, broccoli, Swiss chard, mustard greens, sugar snap peas, beets, potatoes, pumpkins and carrots. Our cranberries, late pears and apples are now harvested. The crabapples will be harvested this coming weekend. Homegrown produce is now supplemented with some canned tomatoes and produce stand deals. I have been stopping by the produce stand about once a week, finding bell peppers, hot peppers, cantaloupe and corn on the cob, for very good prices.
Here's what we've been eating:
Monday
lentil curry (make double to freeze) with brown rice
sliced pears from our trees
Tuesday
black bean, tomato, bell pepper salad
corn on the cob (fantastic deal at the produce stand 7/$1)
French bread
Wednesday
veggie chili (make super large batch for later in week)
corn on the cob
garden salad
French bread (leftover)
Thursday (babysitting day -- easy dinner)
leftover lentil curry with brown rice
sauteed garden kale and onions
Friday
roast turkey (last one from the freezer), gravy
roasted garden potatoes and onions
mashed garden pumpkin
bread and butter
Saturday
leftover turkey in gravy on homemade buns (make double batch of buns)
grilled onions
cantaloupe
garden zucchini pickles
Sunday
turkey in homemade BBQ sauce on buns
cantaloupe
garden tomato and basil salad
Monday
turkey teriyaki with garden kale and broccoli
brown rice
Tuesday
Italian lentil-vegetable-sausage soup (make large batch)
sourdough biscuits
cookies and pears
Wednesday
leftover lentil soup
mashed winter squash
pizza (make an extra pizza for freezer)
Thursday (babysitting day -- easy dinner)
baked beans
Yorkshire pudding wedges
sauteed garden kale and onions
sliced pears (from our trees), smothered with almond custard and topped with cherry preserves (I finally got my appetite back on this day -- can you tell?)
Friday
night out with daughters for the girls, leftover soup and garlic bread for the guys
Saturday
homemade pasta (fettuccini), with sauteed garden tomatoes (the last), garden zucchini, onions, and some of big batch pasta sauce (made several containers for the freezer), topped with cheese
cantaloupe (twice this month I found a deal on cantaloupe -- 50 cents each)
Sunday
turkey pot pie (leftover turkey in gravy, onions, sage, parsley, chard, carrots, potatoes, green beans, topped with pastry crust)
mashed garden pumpkin
cranberry sauce (with homegrown cranberries, picked this day)
Monday
clean-out-the-freezer casserole (rice, tomatoes, cooked lentils, turkey stock, chives, chopped onions, tomato paste, pizza sauce, combined, then topped with bread crumbs mixed with herbs and grated cheese)
cantaloupe
Tuesday
split pea soup
sourdough biscuits
cantaloupe
cookies
Wednesday
teriyaki turkey (from freezer) with garden broccoli and kale
brown rice
apple salad (apples, chopped dried fruit, nuts in a fruity dressing)
Thursday (babysitting day -- easy dinner)
homemade pizza from the freezer
tomato-basil soup (made with canned tomato paste, fresh basil, onions, lemon juice, salt, water)
cantaloupe
Friday
leftover turkey in gravy from the freezer, with leftover cranberry sauce
stovetop stuffing (made with bread bits and pieces in freezer, turkey stock, onions, butter and sage)
sauteed garden Swiss chard and garlic
pumpkin pie
Saturday
homemade pasta (it was so good the other Saturday that we want it again, and the kids help a lot with it) with sauce and turkey Italian sausage from freezer
garden veggie medley (whatever is left in the garden) with onions and garlic
leftover pumpkin pie
Sunday (quick and easy dinner)
scrambled eggs
pancakes
sliced pears
Breakfasts have consisted of protein shakes (for the daughter trying to gain weight), toast, pancakes, muffins, cinnamon buns, oatmeal, granola, and yogurt. To-go lunches have had a combination of a sandwich (peanut butter and jam or vegetarian bean spread), a container of soup, a piece of fruit, a container of rhubarb sauce, applesauce or pear sauce, a muffin, bag of popped corn, and/or cookies. Weekend lunches have often been leftover soup, fried rice, or toasted cheese sandwiches. I am working on planning my own weekday lunches. Without a plan, I tend towards a series of snacks, and no real lunch. But I'm working on that.
With cooler weather, we are eating more soups and chili, and fewer salads. I like keeping a large container of homemade tomato soup in the fridge. It makes a delicious and warming quick bite to eat for anyone who is hungry, and also can be packed into microwaveable containers for to-go lunches.
You can see, we eat a lot of basic, humble meals. I really haven't the time or energy to do gourmet-ish meals. And that suits us just fine.
Humble cooking -- that's what's for dinner.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
Making room in a tight budget for a little bit of fun
I double-checked my schedule, and getting sick repeatedly was definitely not in my plans. While I haven't been feeling very well, I have been pushing on in things. The worst of feeling bad, for me, was that I just didn't have brain energy to write anything.
There have been some moments of fun this past week, however. A girlfriend came over, one morning, with a big sack of apples from her neighbor's tree. The neighbor didn't want the apples, I think because they were basically flavorless. My friend and I turned those bland apples into some very delicious applesauce, adding lemon juice, cinnamon and a bit of sugar.
Another fun moment came about when my daughter announced that as a theater student at the university, she was obligated to usher some performances on campus. Universities put on a wide variety of productions, many of which are absolutely free to anyone willing to come. Some of the free offerings are recitals put on by faculty or students. This past Friday, there was a piano concert performed by a well-known faculty member.
The one hitch, we discovered with these obligations, is transportation for my daughter. These ushering requirements are fulfilled after hours that commuter buses operate. So, it meant that I'd have to drive downtown to pick her up, after the concert. It's not a huge deal, but the roundtrip drive takes about 1 & 1/2 hours, in the dark (when I can't see to read the signs in unfamiliar neighborhoods).
So, what to do, what to do? We decided to just make the best of the situation. If I'm going to have to drive down to get my daughter, I might as well go down early and enjoy the concert myself.
That's what I did. I met up with both of my daughters in the late afternoon. We had a bite to eat, then went and enjoyed a lovely piano concert.
About that bite to eat -- we had origainally planned for it to just be a very small bite, then we'd eat something more substantial once home. But when we went over to the student union building, to check out the quick service places, we discovered that all perishable foods were 50% off after 5 PM. Well, lucky us! It was probably 5:02 when we walked in. If my drive to the campus had gone any faster, we'd have paid the full price! For $11, I had a large chipotle chicken salad, one daughter had a fruit salad, and the other daughter had a very large ham club sandwich. Not a bad deal at all!
In our budget, I leave a small amount of money for fun outings. Right now, that amount is $10 per month. (In the past, that amount has been as low as $4.) With our budget feeling so squeezed these days, it really helps morale to keep just a small amount for something out of our ordinary frugal pattern. We can look back and say to ourselves, "wasn't that fun the evening we went to the piano concert and had dinner in the SUB?" or, "getting ice cream cones at the $1 cone place really made that day feel special".
I know, $10 per month adds up to $120 per year, which does sound like a lot to us right now. If our budget begins to feel any tighter, then I could see us reducing that amount again. For now, we're willing to make concessions in other areas of the budget, to afford a very inexpensive outing or two per month.
What do you think? Do you think leaving a small amount like $10 per month, for fun, is reasonable, given our reduced income? What would you do? Do you budget for fun outings for your family?
There have been some moments of fun this past week, however. A girlfriend came over, one morning, with a big sack of apples from her neighbor's tree. The neighbor didn't want the apples, I think because they were basically flavorless. My friend and I turned those bland apples into some very delicious applesauce, adding lemon juice, cinnamon and a bit of sugar.
Another fun moment came about when my daughter announced that as a theater student at the university, she was obligated to usher some performances on campus. Universities put on a wide variety of productions, many of which are absolutely free to anyone willing to come. Some of the free offerings are recitals put on by faculty or students. This past Friday, there was a piano concert performed by a well-known faculty member.
The one hitch, we discovered with these obligations, is transportation for my daughter. These ushering requirements are fulfilled after hours that commuter buses operate. So, it meant that I'd have to drive downtown to pick her up, after the concert. It's not a huge deal, but the roundtrip drive takes about 1 & 1/2 hours, in the dark (when I can't see to read the signs in unfamiliar neighborhoods).
So, what to do, what to do? We decided to just make the best of the situation. If I'm going to have to drive down to get my daughter, I might as well go down early and enjoy the concert myself.
That's what I did. I met up with both of my daughters in the late afternoon. We had a bite to eat, then went and enjoyed a lovely piano concert.
About that bite to eat -- we had origainally planned for it to just be a very small bite, then we'd eat something more substantial once home. But when we went over to the student union building, to check out the quick service places, we discovered that all perishable foods were 50% off after 5 PM. Well, lucky us! It was probably 5:02 when we walked in. If my drive to the campus had gone any faster, we'd have paid the full price! For $11, I had a large chipotle chicken salad, one daughter had a fruit salad, and the other daughter had a very large ham club sandwich. Not a bad deal at all!
In our budget, I leave a small amount of money for fun outings. Right now, that amount is $10 per month. (In the past, that amount has been as low as $4.) With our budget feeling so squeezed these days, it really helps morale to keep just a small amount for something out of our ordinary frugal pattern. We can look back and say to ourselves, "wasn't that fun the evening we went to the piano concert and had dinner in the SUB?" or, "getting ice cream cones at the $1 cone place really made that day feel special".
I know, $10 per month adds up to $120 per year, which does sound like a lot to us right now. If our budget begins to feel any tighter, then I could see us reducing that amount again. For now, we're willing to make concessions in other areas of the budget, to afford a very inexpensive outing or two per month.
What do you think? Do you think leaving a small amount like $10 per month, for fun, is reasonable, given our reduced income? What would you do? Do you budget for fun outings for your family?
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