Getting in to a new groove...

My husband got his first paycheck at his new job yesterday. It was only for 1 week's pay, but it was nice to be able to trim a few things out of our budget and pay for most of the things we've been needing with cash that DIDN'T come from hard earned savings. Mostly, we trimmed out unnecessary spending money and dance tuition because dance hasn't started yet. No big deal.

I was a little bit disappointed with the sale ads this week. I think the stores must be gearing up for big Labor Day sales. The picture above is from Hy-Vee. It cost about $30. We also picked up a gallon of milk, a package of spinach tortellini, a loaf of ciabatta and a wheel of Laughing Cow cheese at Trader Joes. We made a quick stop after church at Price Chopper for salsa, shredded cheese and ice cream. We went about $5 over budget, but we'l manage.

Our menu plan is as follows,

Friday - red, white and green sandwiches
Saturday - cereal / McDonalds lunch out with coupons / macaroni and cheese and fruit
Sunday - smoothie popsicles / brats and our favorite bean dip / cold tuna noodle salad
Monday - cereal / brown bag lunches / chicken enchilada soup
Tuesday - smoothie popsicles / brown bag lunches / Papa Johns pizza to benefit school (Pizza didn't happen due to budget constraints. We had black bean and cheese nachos instead. Keepin' it real!)
Wednesday - 100% whole wheat cinnamon toast / brown bag lunches / spinach tortellini
Thursday - smoothie popsicles / brown bag lunches / grilled cheese and tomato soup
Friday - cereal / brown bag lunches / something from next week's groceries

Snacks and sides will be green salad, apples, cottage cheese,carrots and ranch, cereal bars, banana smoothies and whatever else we can dig up.

See more menu plans at www.orgjunkie.com.