January 2015 Grocery Money Journal: making progress!

Oh boy, I've got a large deficit coming into the new year. $117.41 in the hole to carry into this month, leaving me only $42.59 for the entire month. I know I'll likely spend more than that, but I should be able to bring the deficit down quite a bit, anyway.

Here goes:

January 1. First day of the new year. It even feels lighter and brighter now that we're into January. Perhaps this is a good omen for our financials for 2015. Anyway. . . stopped in Dollar Tree and picked up 4 quarts of soy milk, enough to get through the month. Spent $4

January 6. Bartell's, the local drugstore chain in the NW, has a large electronic board right at a major intersection on my drive to and from local errands. They're advertising Seattle's Best Coffee, $3.99/12-oz bag. A bag of decaf would be very nice to have. I pick up 1 bag. Also, they're advertising Guittard chocolate chips for $1.99/12-oz bag. This is a brand that I find to be quite good -- very creamy. And they often have the white chocolate, as well as milk and semi-sweet. I buy 2 bags of white chocolate chips (good melted, for dipping cookies, or for drizzling over the tops of desserts), and 4 bags of semi-sweet. I spend $15.93

Also on January 6, just down the road is Dollar Tree. If I'm gong to make my favorite oatmeal-cranberry-pecan cookies, I'll need some pecans. They've been carrying small bags of pecans halves all fall and now into winter (I don't have one of the bags in front of me, but I think the price per pound was about $10-something, decent enough for our area). I buy 2 bags and a box of baking soda (59cents). Spent $2.59

January 8. Walgreen's has eggs on for $1.49/dozen. This is not a stellar price, but we are needing eggs, and this may just be the new normal on egg sales, for the time being. I decide to buy 4 dozen. While there, I find markdowns on lunch meat ham, milk, and turkey bacon. The turkey bacon and lunch meat ham are 99cents/package. The milk is $1.99/gallon. I buy 10 packages of turkey bacon, 9 packages of Oscar Meyer ham and 1 gallon of 1% milk. I also peruse the leftover Christmas candy section and find both Special Dark Hershey's Kisses and the regular Milk chocolate Hershey's Kisses, 8.5-oz bags for $1.04 each. I buy 2 Special Dark and 1 milk chocolate. Total spent at Walgreen's today -- $29.88

January 24. We are really needing some produce these days. The transit center where I have to pick up one daughter is near the Cash and Carry wholesaler, so I swing by there, and buy 3-lb box of frozen spinach ($2.49), almost 6 lbs of bananas for 49cents/lb, 5-lb bag frozen peas ($3.54), large bag of medium-sized avocados, 16-count ($6.98 -- that's about 44cents for each avocado, great deal for our area), a 5-lb bag of carrots ($2.15), 1 head of green cabbage ($2.00), 1 19-oz package of firm tofu ($1.54), and 3 large cans of party peanuts (56-oz cans, for $5.95 each, that's $1.70/lb). Total spent today, $39.47

So far, we're up to $91.87. I won't need much more in these last few days of the month. But still I will carry another deficit into the next month.

January 28. Dollar Tree to pick up some flour tortillas and a box of crackers for the gang at home, for when I'm away over the weekend. Spent $2.

Well, well, well. I didn't need another single thing this month. Total spent for the month of January, $93.87. I reduced my deficit from $117.41 to $51.28, going into February!! Whoopee! Yeah, yeah, if I hadn't bought the chocolate chips or clearance Christmas chocolate, I'd have done better. But those treats will be welcome in the coming months, and will prevent me from buying other, more costly treats. (That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.) I've already used some of the white chocolate for dipping my favorite oatmeal cookies. And I'll be using some of the dark chocolate for dipping strawberries for Mother's Day, and making English toffee for Father's Day. If I get to it, I'd like to make truffles for Valentine's Day. And of course, some good old chocolate chip cookies sound like a plan sometime in the next month. See, at least I have a plan!

And a bit of good news on income. My husband received a cost of living raise, effective in January. This means I can raise our grocery budget a smidgen. Next month, we'll have a budget of $175 for groceries, instead the $160 we've been living on. I know we can do this!

How are grocery prices in your area? Are you seeing any relief on some of the basics, like eggs, milk and meat? Or are prices remaining high?

Wishing you all well.
warmly,
Lili

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Chasing the sun for a couple of days!

Once again, I am off chasing the sun. Yeah, I do this nearly every winter. It's part of how I deal with my seasonal affective disorder. Way more fun that my special "happy" lamp.

But before I leave, I always fix a bunch of edibles for whoever stays behind. I suppose it's "guilt food", as I get to have a getaway for a long weekend. Anyway, for this trip, I've been fighting a cold all week, so had minimal energy to cook much.

basic brown sugar-cinnamon granola

Still, I did make a new container of granola.

And a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Plus some homemade refried beans and Spanish rice, for making quick burritos.

And a pot of rich Minestrone soup.

I also left some bread, lunch meat, crackers, carrot sticks, nuts, avocado and fresh fruit. I'm sure they'll be able to put together meals for a couple of days.

Have a great weekend! I'll be back on Monday.
warmly (and I do mean "warm-ly"),
Lili

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How to fit 20 muffins into a 30-inch oven, on one rack, at the same time

I could make 20 muffins in one go, with this trick

Don't you sometimes wish you had Mary Poppin's magical tapestry carpet bag?

If I did have such a magical bag, I could reach deep and pull out the assorted necessities for life's conundrums. Lacking the magical nanny's tricks, I have resorted to my own contrivances, solving a few of those head-scratching household puzzles.


A question for you -- how many cups does your muffin tin have? Mine has 12. In fact, I have 3 muffin tins, each with 12 cups. Now, how many muffins does your favorite muffin recipe yield? My favorite recipes all seem to yield between 15 and 18 muffins. Hmmmph!

I have a few choices, when baking more than just 12 muffins in a spell. I can move the oven racks, so that one rack is 1/3 up from the bottom, and the other rack is 1/3 down from the top of the oven. Bake my muffins in two tins, at the same time, but swapping places halfway through baking, so that neither batch top-burns or bottom-burns.

I can leave my one rack in its current position and bake 12 muffins, remove from oven, then bake the remaining muffins.

Or, I can do this -- contrive my own 20-cup muffin tin from 2 separate muffin tins.

Most of the time, I just need enough cups for 15 to 18 muffins. I fill one muffin tin, completely (12 muffins). In the second tin, I leave a strip of 4 empty cups, then fill the middle section of 4 cups, and any I might need in the far strip of 4 cups.

Once filled with batter, I place the partially filled muffin tin to the left of the oven rack.

And I place the completely-filled muffin tin to the right side, but with 4 of the filled cups sitting directly in 4 of the empty cups of the partially filled tin. Does that make sense?

I can now bake up to 20 muffins in one go, with no swapping of tins to ensure even browning.  I save time and electricity by baking the muffins in this manner.



What's that saying? Necessity is the mother of invention. Or is it this? Where there's a will, there's a way.

We're all a creative bunch, here. What sort of contrivances have you managed, to solve a household conundrum?

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