Meals on Saturday and Sunday along with My Grocery Expense

Before I get to the content of my post, I am making French Toast Bagels today.  My husband eats a couple of bagels a day and they can be expensive so I have decided to try my hand at making my own.  I've been tweaking a recipe so when they are done and if they pass the test, I will post it.  Let's just say I found another use for the Vermont Pure Maple Syrup my mom gave me.

This weekend was a wonderful warm weekend which meant a lot of yard work on Saturday for my husband and continued work in the living room for me.  We always have leftovers or sandwiches for lunch at noon and then for supper we cooked out hamburgers and hot dogs.  I put a casserole of baked beans in the oven and we had fruit on the side. 

That afternoon I had to make some hamburger buns since we were without.  Mixing yeast dough is compatible with painting I have learned. 

For lunch on Sunday my son and I had a meeting at church and the food was provided. My husband was happy to come home to leftover hamburgers.  He could eat them every night.  Sunday evening is always "fix your own supper" night. 

Now on to My grocery expense for last week.  I went over, not by
necessity, but by choice.

$2.99 - 30 oz. jar of Lite Miracle Whip
    .65 - Strawberries @ $1.18 lb.
  2.17 - Bananas @ 54 cents lb.
  1.50 - One Sweet Red Pepper
  1.38 - Two cucumbers @ 69 cents lb.
    .99 - Lettuce
  4.13 - One and one-half gallons 1% milk
  1.44 - One - 16 oz. pkg. Kraft Cheese Slices
  5.00 - Four - 8 oz. pkgs. Kraft Mozzerella Shreds @ $1.25
  1.98 - Two - Dozen Large Eggs @ 99 cents
    .50 - Onion Powder
  1.29 - Cottage Bread
  1.98 - One - 15 oz. box Generic Raisins
  1.60 - Ten - 7 oz. jars Jet Puffed Marshmallow Creme @ 16 cents
  3.58 - Two bags Cheese Puffs @ $1.79

$31.18  less 11 cents carryover from last week = $31.07 total spent

I didn't need the marshmallow creme but they had a fantastic sale last week of only 16 cents per jar and a limit of 10.  I use this in my frosting recipe so I bought 10.  The cheese puffs were not essential but I have found that I like to have 2 bags of snacks per week for lunch time.  I used to buy 4 bags so I have reduced that amount. We didn't need the cheese shreds, but I realized I had made a mistake when I totaled up the contents of our freezer I didn't have as much as I thought.  Instead of 17 I had 7 bags of mozzerella shreds.  This was a good deal, so I bought 4 pkgs.  If I were in stock up mode, I would have been 10 or 15.

I overspent by $6.07.  I am not going to carry this amount over to this week's grocery budget.  If I was on an extremely tight budget, such as someone who is living on food stamps, then I would not have bought the cheese puffs, the cottage bread (my son would have to eat the homemade wheat bread that I bake), the marshmallow creme, and I would have only bought 1 pkg. of the mozzarella shreds. 

We eat basic fruit in our home.  Apples and bananas are our main source of fruit.  When fresh pineapple is on sale, I will buy it, the same with strawberries.  I have found that my family won't eat oranges or tangerines, but they will drink orange juice. 

I'm happy with how this is going and I am also happy with the contents of my freezer and pantry slowly getting used up.