Happy beautiful and blessed NEW YEAR ahead friends! Now is the perfect time to kick start all the positive changes you'd like to make this new year.

Here is our new frugal food sales, shopping and menu planning post. Please keep this one active! Check in whenever you need to. Please feel free to post:

~ Your spending budgets and goals this month

~ January 2013 sales, deals, coupons, etc.

~ Shopping lists, finds, stockpile goods, etc.

~ Daily, weekly or monthly meal/menu plans

~ Tips and strategies that are helping you save this month

~ Help needed, help offered, advice and overall support

~ Anything else you want to contribute to help with food and grocery savings, meal ideas and menu planning

Bonus: Please feel free to share any new year's goals, resolutions and changes you plan to make with budgeting, grocery shopping and spending, food, diet and menu planning, etc.

Because I am fortunate enough to be able to shop my own stores for cooking, I do need to know what we have and rotate it. So I mean to put the entire food inventory into a spreadsheet so I can know what needs to be used and where to find it. AM

The new year is hear and my next grocery haul is tomorrow. I have been trying to plan how I can budget better this year. I will need to make some budget cuts with grocery shopping because I have been very disorganized and not as mindful as I should be. I have a lot of changes ahead and will tackle the all as I can. For now I am going to test drive spending a certain amount of money less than I usually do during my main grocery haul. I know my numbers and must really try to get a better budget system going here. I have some great tools and ideas on how to help make this work.

I have been home shopping/menu planning from the home front very well the last few days. I will continue to do this for Wednesday's supper. I'm either going Asian or Mexican, this I have not decided yet but if I can menu plan for both themes then I have Wednesday and Thursday's dinner plans set.

I want to use the last of the organic tofu. This is an item I generally don't buy but have and want to use. I skimp and allow it for Asian themes. This time around I have ideas for Asian and for the Mexican theme if I wanted to use the tofu as a sub for the chicken in my creamy chicken/green chili enchilada baked dish. Anyone here done tofu enchiladas? hit or miss?

January I need to do some healthy restocking but only as I see good sales, then I can score. Whatever I can not get this month due to lack of good sales then I will have to buy as needed until I can stockpile sales.

We all know prices for food will be increasing this year. Bummer. Better start preparing now if you have not already... who knows how high things are going to increase and then even more so from there. Has it started already? Indeed. Prices have been creeping up but now another bammer hit me. First my beloved shrimp went up in price at Grocery Outlet, the cheapest place I can get it, and now even tilapia has gone up about $3 increase a bag and they are CALLING IT A SALE!!! The price went UP and now it's a "sale" of the week. What a bummer. This is one of the cheaper fish here so I don't even dare ask about some of the others. I am going to have to shop around to see where I can get the best value as I need to restock our chicken and seafood freezer supply too. I am even out of lentils and now low on potatoes and onions!!! Heavens to betsy folks, at least I can still get those for dirt cheap, lol.

This week we are shopping from home only $20 in the budget this week for groceries ie fresh items until payday next week..My Thoughts area as follows

Wed-->>>>Honey Mustard Chicken Breasts w/ Herbed Diced Potatoes  & Leftovers for Lunch

Thur------>Bulk Chicken Noodle Soup Dinner will be Chicken & Dumplings for me & Soup for DD Leftovers for Lunch

Friday--->>Crockpot Fried Rice & Stir Fry Chicken & Veggie (Leftover plan from this past week)Leftoves for lunch 

Saturday & Sunday Shredded Chicken Enchildas w/ Mexican Rice & Beans

 Oh shoot so soon Im getting my list ready not shopped yet Im only going to do this for one week worth of food no more then 60 dollars spent that is a goal so by the time week 2 comes around Im gonna blow another 60 it will equal to the amount of $120.00 for 2 weeks my goal is to try to do it this way for all three of us and mom is totally on a spiecal diet done by dr. orders .

Jaya, that is some master mind chicken stretching right there! Great job at menu planning from the home shop and chicken stockpile!

So, some of my ideas for this week, focusing on emptying our freezer (so I can defrost it and save money in January).

• beef soup with vegetables
• roast chicken and squash with broccoli
• pizza frittata (using up leftover pizza toppings from the New Year's Eve party... pepperoni, mushrooms, cheese, etc.) or Crockpot Pizza
• breakfast for dinner -- sweet potato hashbrowns with eggs, fruit
• leftovers

Planning just two grocery trips this month.  will purchase just sale items.  If nothing is on a good  sale then i won't even bother with going at all.  Budget is set at $100.  Right now Feb and March are budgeted at $50 a month and that might be too high.  Last year I didn't go to a store at all from Dec. 27th until April 18th. 

Have lots of baking supplies (stocked up during sale season) so will be able to do lots of baking for the family during these colder months. Did up a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Made a double batch but used only 1/2 bag of choc chips and it was plenty. An easy way to do with less and no one noticed. Will need to keep that up. Would like to do apple cinnamon baked oatmeal this weekend.

Dinners for the next few days include pasta; meatloaf; roasted veggies with kielbasa on the side; potato soup.

Notes on menu planning.

I was sitting here menu planning tonight's meal and thinking about what I could home shop to plan before my grocery haul. I do not want to spend additional for the meal while shopping so my goal is another home store meal/no spend dinner. My food supply is feeling very bare but I have noticed that when this happens it's easier for me to menu plan and work with what I have. When I have LESS I actually have more - more ideas that is. Maybe it's easier to navigate or I am feeling desperate without my FULL stockpile but some really nice meals have come from living with less than what I am use to.

Does this happen with anyone else here?

 

Tonight I have menu planned Asian fusion. I have leftover coconut rice. Thai time? Perfect.

I have a lovely and healing Asian cabbage and super stir fry vegetable soup w/lemongrass, spring onion and parsley planned. I will make use of the sunflower sprouts and baby spinach in a salad with mandarin oranges and water chesnuts. I have a bit of vegetarian dumplings. I will boil those up. There is leftover coconut rice, I will reheat that. Then for the entree I will use the organic tofu that I want to use up and make Thai-tofu peanut noodles . I have fresh green onions to top! This will make a nice and giving vegetarian Asian fusion meal and all from the home front!!!