I'm sorry...

I'm sorry I haven't posted... I've been busy working on the house... I am starting the challenge over again, with March. I'm going to try my best to post every day. :) Ok... we haven't done any grocery shopping so far, and it's looking like there won't be able to grocery shop for the rest of the month (if we do, it won't be much...) So, it's a complete pantry challenge! I'm excited cause we have alot of food to go through :). I've started inventorying my pantry & freezer, haven't got it done yet, but I have alot of food!!! :) 5 gallons of milk in the freezer, 5 chickens, 2 turkeys, just for starters!!! Here's what we've eaten so far:

Sunday: Smoked Chicken
Monday: Meatloaf, green beans, mashed potatoes, homemade carrot cake :)
Tuesday: Chunky Soup
Wednesday: Fried Rice
Thursday: Leftovers

Lunches are usually soup or leftovers.

All out of the pantry/freezer :) Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think! I love hearing from my readers!!!

Update on the $30 a week challenge...

Well, I've kinda fudged a little on it, but got some really good deals! Today alone I went to Walgreens and got some amazing deals...

(3) Jif Peanut Butter - $1.50 ea.
(3) Smuckers Squeeze Jelly - $1.50 ea.
(1) Sprite 12 pk. - $3.25 (going back on Friday, cause they're on sale 4 for $13 with a $2 RR. I didn't have enough to get all 4.)
(4) Dozen Eggs - $.39 ea. (BYGO Free Coupons from the incredible edible egg on facebook)
(1) 4 pk. English Muffins - $.99
(4) Progresso Soup - $1 ea. (Sale $1.25 ea. with a $.50 off 2 coupon)
(1) Neutrogena Facial Bar - $.25 (Clearance for $2.25 coupon for $2)
(1) Dixie Paper Plates Dessert size 48 pk. - $1.04 (Clearance for $1.59, coupon for $.55 going back on Friday for more!!!)

Total Spent: $22.63
Total Saved with Coupons: $30.53

:)

My Homemade Laundry Soap

This is the original recipe. Over time I have changed it to fit more of my needs. I'll put how I changed it in parentheses after wards.

Laundry Soap (From Reader's Digest Homemade)

*1/2 cup soap flakes (I use Ivory Soap most of the time, but have been known to use whatever I've been able to get cheapest, just grate them finely, or run them through the food grater, and I usually grate up 5-6 bars)
*1/2 cup baking soda (I usually just dump in 3-4 of the small boxes)
*1/4 cup washing soday (I usually just dump in a whole box)
*1/4 cup borax (I just dump in a whole box of this too)
*(I add in 1/2 box of All-Color Bleach)

1. To make the soap flakes, lightly grate a bar of pure soap, such as Ivory, on a coarse kitchen grater (I've found if you coarsely grate it, they don't melt in the wash water)

2. In a large bowl mix all the ingredients together. Store in a tightly sealed container. (I usually keep mine in a 5 gallon bucket.)

3. Use about 1/2 cup of the mixture instead of detergent in each load of laundry. (I don't use near that much, I usually use between 1 Tablespoon & 1/3 of a cup, depending on how dirty the clothes are and the load size.)

Detering from the plan...

Well, tonight we're neither feeling like cooking, so we're munching on garlic & cheese biscuits that we baked last night. For supper, we're having frozen meals from this last weeks grocery shopping... Oh, by the way, we bought something last night and I forgot to post it. We walked up to the gas station up the road last night and got a sunday paper and a quart of milk. Total: $4.33. We're in for a storm in the next few days... Not sure what we're in for, but ya know...

Followers!!!

I'm so excited! I got on today and I gained 2 more followers since yesterday!!! Yay! Tell your friends!!! So far today we haven't done anything, I slept most of the day, since I didn't go to bed till 6:45 this morning.

I got a special present in the mail today :)

We haven't put it together yet, but it's here!!! I'm really excited. It folds down flat, for easy storage. I can't wait to get it together!!!

Day 3, Morning

Well, Tonight is a sleepless night, as I'm still not feeling well. It's 4:15 am, and we are eating breakfast :). For breakfast this morning we had 1 egg, 2 apple cinnamon muffins with butter and hot tea. All pantry items :) We made up the muffins last night.

For lunch we have planned leftover turkey bowls, with the corn, mashed potatoes, green beans, turkey and gravy leftover from the last two days.

For supper we will have a ham steak (we bought a big bone in ham and sliced out some steaks from it, while they were on sale right before Christmas). We're gonna have buttered lima beans, frozen from the garden, with it.

We also made up last night some jello for today and some pudding that we ate as a snack last night. We're working on trying to eat through all of the expired and close to expired things in the pantry and freezer so that we can start out fresh.

Day 2

Today was day 2 in our challenge. We had leftover ribs with baked potatoes for lunch. Instead of rice-a-roni we had baked carrots with the baked potatoes and ribs. :)

For supper, we had leftover turkey from a turkey that we bought when they were on sale for $.49 before Thanksgiving. We bought 4 of them and we cooked one up at that time to eat on and freeze the leftovers. We still have the other 3 in the freezer. We had mashed potatoes, which we already had on hand, we usually get these in a 15 lb bag for around $2.98 at Food 4 Less. With that we did gravy that I got on sale with a coupon at Target before Christmas. The veggie was corn from the garden this summer that we had frozen.

I didn't get a chance to play with the bread machine today, I wasn't feeling well most of the day. Maybe tomorrow... I'm thinking maybe a pumpkin or banana bread (I bought a case of pumpkin when they first put it out before thanksgiving with the shortage! and I have tons of frozen bananas in the freezer)