One of the wonderful benefits of Adam's new job is health insurance that starts on day one. He's had any number of positions in the past which require new employees to wait 30, 90, even 120 days before benefits start, so this is a real treat for me.
Because he now works for a large multinational corporation, we had to choose from among four or five different medical plans. Unfortunately, it took us a few weeks to figure out which option would work best for us, so we're now being treated to double medical withholding for the rest of this month. As our other bills aren't any lower (and a couple are significantly higher this month), that doesn't leave a lot extra for groceries. In fact, we have grocery money at all because we got a wonderful gift of cash over Thanksgiving.
Tonight I'm working on menu plans for the remainder of the month. My challenge is to get 24 days worth of menus out of what we have in the house, plus one or two items Adam is planning to pick up tomorrow. He's not sure I can do it, but I love a good challenge. I'll post the results tomorrow.
As a side note, keeping to our extremely tight grocery budget has had one added side benefit. I think I'm losing weight. Most of my clothes are part of the mom uniform, so it's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure I am.
Amazing!!! I need to sit down and see if I can try this myself. Any tips?
ReplyDeleteI usually start with a list of all the food in the house, including amounts ("3 lbs of ground beef" or "12 carrots").
ReplyDeleteI work at it like a puzzle, what foods can I make with these ingredients? How can I best stretch those that are scarce? You'll notice I have very few meals that include chunks of meat in my meals this month. Chicken goes a lot further diced up in fried rice, for example, than if I were to serve baked chicken with rice and vegetables on the side.