Shopping Sales & Looking Beyond The Coupon — The Thrifty Gourmand

Couldn’t agree more with this post.

Growing up with a mother who couponed like a fiend made me forever averse to creating a grocery list centered exclusively upon sale items. Not only is the process tedious and time-consuming, but it also forces you to buy larger quantities of food than you need. All of these extra items then must either be […]

via Shopping Sales & Looking Beyond The Coupon — The Thrifty Gourmand

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A week in review – #recipes in our #menu

It was hot this week, really hot. I am so glad we have been focusing on our “Summer Electric Plan.” We had one oven baked dish this week. All the other dishes fell within the cooking methods the meet our “Summer Electric Plan” methods. (No Cook, Grilled, Slow Cooker, Microwave, Quick Stove Top)

Unfortunately, we had a really crazy weekend and had to skip grilling. The good news is, the meat we were going to use is in the freezer. So no worries. We can grill this week or next.

Menu for Week Starting 7/25/2016

Normally, the weekends are ‘fluid’ and we don’t really have menus planned this past week though we did. Well that backfired a little. This past week we ended up with a really busy weekend. We have friends who are moving (sadness) and helped them pack up. As a result a couple of our menu items have been shifted around from what was originally planned for.

We had planned to ‘bulk’ grill Friday night and carry several of those items forward during the week. We will instead be doing the grilling Monday evening. As a result we shifted the meal we had planned for last Friday to Monday. That is why you won’t see any items for those dishes in the shopping list below.

Here is what we have to look forward too:

#groceryshopping results for the #menuplan for the weeks of 7/17/2016 and 7/24/2016

This shopping trip for the weeks including the Menu for Week Starting 7/17/2016 and  7/24/2016 really turned out great, this time we included the middle weekend for a total of 11 evening meals for 4.

This week we finish up using the last of the ham from last week. We really like ham but it is really easy to over do it. So knowing that we left plenty of trimmings on the ham bone and froze it. This week we will be using it to season some beans. That makes for a really inexpensive meal

Given that and other meals of that type we had a really successful shopping trip. 

Menu for Week Starting 7/17/2016

This week we have a full week of dinner menus. Normally, the weekends are ‘fluid’ and we don’t really have anything planned. That means we usually end up eating out at least one meal. Usually Sunday.

Well this week summer is forecast to be hitting hard and that means the A/C will be running full tilt. So we need to start planning now for that huge electric bill that will be coming shortly.

So this week we have several new crock pot (or slow cooker) meals at the beginning of the week and we will end the week by grilling, in fact we will be ‘batch’ grilling the meat for several meals for the weekend and next week come Friday.

Here is what we have to look forward too:

A week in review – #recipes in our #menu

This week we again deviated just a little from our “Summer Electric Plan.” We found a great deal on a ham this week. Even though it does require using the oven to prep it the first day we were able to use it for several dishes later in the week. Some things are just worth it. Ham is one of those things

Besides that we were able to make up for it with several ‘no cook’, microwave, and  crock pot dishes during the week.

What is nice is that we are finding that even though we are using these alternate cooking methods we aren’t really having to sacrifice flavor. All of the dishes we had this week were delicious.

Why my kids don’t allow couponing

People love coupons, in fact one site reports that anywhere for 81%-96% of Americans report using coupons. If that is the case we are in the minority, but why? Clipping coupons is usually the first thing that comes to mind when people think of saving on the grocery budget. Why don’t we use them more?

A week in review – #recipes in our #menu

This week we deviated just a little from our “Summer Electric Plan.” We did a little more stove top cooking than in previous weeks and even fired up the oven. However, it was a holiday week so we made up for it a bit by grilling a large brisket and using it later in the week for other meals too.

The really cool part was that we took the opportunity to invite some friends over when we smoked the brisket and they shared some really great dished with us.

Bacon Wrapped Corn
Smoky Haricots Verts and Mushrooms
Basil Cherry Tomatoes

Menu for Week Starting 7/11/2016

We found a great deal on a ham this week. Even though it does require using the oven to prep it the first day we will be able to use it for several dishes later in the week. Additionally we will help make up for it with several ‘no cook’ and crock pot meals during the week..

#groceryshopping results for the #menuplan for the weeks of 7/4/2016 and 7/11/2016

We did our shopping a little different this week. There are a couple of new ‘cost plus’ stores that have opened near by. So far we haven’t seen any ads ran for these stores so while we were out one evening we stopped by to see what they were all about. In the end those stops decided what we put on our menus for the weeks starting  Menu for Week Starting 7/4/2016 and  7/11/2016