Meal Planning: Week 3

Wow, the week has gone by very quickly and it is Wednesday again - that means I have another grocery haul and weekly meal plan for you. But first, here are our dinners from the past week...

Wednesday - Spaghetti

Thursday - Sausage with Peppers, Onions, and Potatoes

Friday - Balsamic Chicken over Salad

Saturday - Stroganoff

Monday - Buffalo Chicken Pasta

Tuesday - Breaded Lemon Pepper Parmesan Pork Chops with Pierogies and Corn

The Balsamic Chicken and Buffalo Chicken Pasta were very good! If you like Cajun Chicken Pasta from Chili's or Three Cheese Chicken Penne from Applebee's, let me know and I will post the recipe, because that's exactly what Buffalo Chicken Pasta tastes like!

Sunday evening we had dinner with Nick's family, so we only made six of the seven dinners. Never fear, I made the beef pot roast tonight and it was DEEEE-LISH (pic at the end of this post).

Anywho - I went to four stores for groceries this week and spent $43.90. That's a little more than I expected  to spend since I stocked up on some items last week, but Nick was low on snack items which I couldn't find many deals on this week, and there were a few essentials we have to get week to week no matter what. While I was hoping to come in under $40 this week, we have enough lunch meat and Gatorades for two weeks worth of lunches, so that should help some.

Stop #1 - Harris Teeter

Pictured:

Six ears of sweet corn (25 cents each, great deal!)

Sixteen Gatorades (name brand this week, woot woot!....20 oz)

Planters Lightly Salted Dry Roasted Peanuts

French's Spicy Mustard (for 40 cents, score!)

Total Value: $26.64

Total Spent: $10.84

Gatorade is normally pretty expensive, so I usually purchase an off-brand or store-brand product instead. This week, VIC customers can get eight 20 oz bottles of Gatorade for $3.97. Plus, there is a tag attached with a coupon for an additional dollar off, so I scored them for $2.97 per 8-pack. You can purchase up to four 8-packs at this price, so go! Gatorade is regularly $4.95 at Walmart (lowest price I've found otherwise) for the same size bottles, so once again, this is an awesome deal!

Stop #2 - Lowes Foods

Pictured:

Six Eastern Peaches (grown in SC, 97 cents / lb)

Oscar Mayer Bologna 

Two packages of lunchmeat - Land O' Frost Bistro Favorites 

Total Value: $14.72

Total Spent: $6.48

Stop #3 - ALDI

Pictured:

Butter Flavored Air Puffs

Barbeque Chips

Tortilla Chips

Vanilla Covered Raisins

One dozen eggs

Crunchy Peanut Butter

2 lbs carrots

1 lb baby carrots

Total Value / Total Spent: $12.91

This is where I bought most of Nick's snack items for the week. There are usually better deals to be found on potato chips/pretzels, but they must have been hiding or asleep this week. If you can't find a deal somewhere else, head to ALDI - these are items you can't usually tell much quality difference in between name brand and off/store brand.  $3 or $4 for Tostitos tortilla chips you say? Um, definitely not when I can get them at ALDi for $1.19. I did have some of the Butter Puffs while dinner was cooking and they were purty dang good!

Stop #4 - Food Lion

Pictured:

8 oz Mexican Blend shredded cheese

10 swiss cheese sandwich slices

four sticks of butter

small sour cream

one Hass avacado (89 cents, good deal!)

four bananas

orange juice

Spinach for salads

Total Value: $14.73

Total Spent: $13.67

Didn't save too much here, but in my defense...I planned on purchasing the sour cream, cheese, bananas, and salad at ALDI for some better advertised prices, only to find that the quality of these items looked pretty poor this week. I could have saved three or four dollars sticking to my plan, but I don't like to skimp on quality when it comes to produce. They were all necessary items for the week, so I can't complain!

Value of This Week's Purchases: $69.00

Total Spent: $43.90

Saved 36.4% ($25.10)

Dinners!

For dinner this week, we will be having...

*Beef pot roast 

*Chili with Cornbread

*Barbeque Chicken with Corn on the Cob

*Grilled Chicken with Side Salad

*Lemon Pepper Pork Tenderloin with Mashed Potatoes

*Fishsticks with Fried Zucchini and Corn on the Cob

I only planned six dinners for the week because we are usually elsewhere at least one night. I'm going to squeeze in the homemade pretzel recipe sometime this week, and perhaps some brownies (yum).

Here's a pic of the pot roast...

Super easy to make and Nick gave it multiple compliments - I think that means we will be having this again.

Also, I can't wait to enjoy some salads and tomato sandwiches featuring green thumb hubby's garden produce. I am so proud of his hard work. This is our second year planting a garden and it is so worth it. I'll be doing a separate post on our garden in the near future.

I'm gonna wrap this post up so I can finish watching the NFL Top 100 Finale with my hubby and pup!

*If you want to start couponing or just try it out - go get the Gatorade at Harris Teeter, seriously! You can use your VIC card and the coupon is right there on the product, so you don't have to print it or hunt it down in the paper. It's an $8.29 value for $2.97. Come on, you know you want to :)

*Oh, because I love you all so much, I've scoped out some great deals for the Fourth of July (you know, hotdogs, buns, pasta salad, etc.) and I will post them in the next day or two, so check back soon!