Grocery List and Menu Update

I had a car wreck a couple of weeks ago. This resulted in a $95 tow bill and a $100 deductable. So, add this in with that I absolutely used all extra money for Christmas...so in very blunt terms, we are broke right now. So,the challenge was to get groceries using all of our Wal-Mart gift cards from Christmas and not use any cash.
So, here is what I got:
Cabbage
Onions
Dog Food
Lettuce
Bananas
White Vinegar
Milk
Generic Cereal
Grape Capisun (School Lunches)
Toilet Paper
Dawn Dish washing liquid
Dried Beans
Generic unsweetened lemonade
Taco Seasoning
Baking Soda
Salt
Crackers
Snack Bags
Applesauce
Salsa
Canned Soups
Tuna
Green Chilis
Canned Chicken Breast
Hamburger Buns
Bread
Coffee Creamer
Turkey Smoked Sausage
Cheese
Large Generic Yogurt

Grand Total: $78.30
Mission accomplished!

Okay, so with all that said...I have some supplies on hand (another reason for food storage!!!!). Listed below is my menu plan for the upcoming 2 weeks.

Menu Plan
Manwiches
Breakfast Dinner (Bacon and Eggs)
Smoked Sausage
Butter Beans with potato cakes
Spaghetti
Turkey
Deer Steak with Onions and Mushrooms
Quesdillas
Chili
Meatloaf
Lemon Pepper Roasted Chicken
Breakfast Casserole
Shepherds Pie
Rice with Venison and Mushroom Gravy

Those are my main dishes and they will be served with veggies.

The kid's lunches and ours will be soups, sandwiches, and spaghettos. Snacks will be popcorn and homemade cookies. Breakfast will be pancakes, cereal and oatmeal.

2011 Goals

2011 Goals...where to begin....there is so much I want to accomplish, I can get totally overwhelmed by it.
1. Continue to get my debit paid off. This year was the first Christmas that we absolutely did not purchase one thing on a credit card. It felt great!! Yes, Christmas was a lot smaller in the gift area, but you know what it was GREAT!! We had a wonderful and blessed Christmas without the "stuff"!! So, it has really empowered me to even be more intense about living simpler and with more of a purpose than just collecting stuff!
2. Become healthier in our eating and lifestyle. I continue to get the processed junk out of this house! Christmas was a bit of a slip up with all the sweet goodies. But, now it's back on track. I am constantly on the search for healthy frugal recipes and I am enjoying the journey. Also, I am becoming more aware of the chemicals that I am using cleaning and using on our bodies. I have made several improvements and will continue to work on this.
3. Learn to cook venison. I am still a beginner. I have been blessed with some deer meat and I am experimenting with it and look forward to cooking more with it.
4. Making more cleaning products. I have started making my own laundry detergent that is so cheap and healthy!! I will post the recipe later. Next I'm making my own dishwasher detergent and natural cleaning products. My great friend Elise gave me a book for Christmas with lots and lots of recipes I'm excited to try! Not only is this going to be healthier for our family, but also save us money.
5. Start back on my stockpiling of food. My goal is to get at least 3 months or more of food stockpiled. For those wondering why...well, we never know what the future holds. I want to make sure that I have the means to take care of my family. Prices are going up but not paychecks, jobs are uncertain, economy is scary and honestly I am not sure how much tribulation the church will see before the rapture. My spirit has been telling me for a while to get prepared. I have been distracted or unable due to money, but I truly want to get back on track with this. I have storage issues, but that's not going to stop me!

Well, that is my narrowed down list. There are a couple of things that I did not list, but I consider them a given...
I want to strive to put the Lord first in my life, read the Word more, Worship more, Serve more, submit more, surrender more....I want MORE of the Lord!!
I want to be a better wife and Mom.
I want to slow down and enjoy life instead of going wide open and feeling like I have to constantly be doing something...I want to spend more time just being. To savor each moment instead of looking for the "next" moment to happen.
Okay, I could possibly go on forever with this list, so I will stop now.
So, there you have it...my condensed version of my 2011 goals!!

This and that...

As usual I start this post out with an apology for not posting in a while. I must confess that I have become quite addicted to facebook. The time I would usually spend updating my blog, I now spend on facebook. I hope to change all of that. Less time on facebook and more time to blog. But, I won't increase the time that I spend on the computer, so if I slip up and spend more time on facebook, then no updating blog. I refuse to increase my time on computer to do both. It's a personal decision that I had to make. I do not want my time with the Lord or with my family to suffer.
Now, with all that said...this morning I made my menu plan for dinners. I have went online to find different ideas. I tend to get stuck in a rut when cooking dinners. At the end of the day the last thing I want to do is think too hard about dinner. I like to pre-plan and have everything together where it's a no brainer. The dinners need to be cheap but healthy...hmmm, that's not always easy. But, I am very excited with garden season coming up! The down side is I only have room for a small garden, the good news is...fresh fruits and veggies are a lot cheaper during this time! I am on the lookout for meatless recipes where I can utitlize all those veggies!
This year I would also like to learn how to can. I have wanted to do this for a couple of years now...maybe this is the year! Fingers crossed! But, of course I will be freezing some fresh fruits and veggies, starting with strawberries! They are in season now....but keeping my family from devouring them before I can freeze them is a different story! Lol!
My stockpiling of food is going pretty well. I still have a long way to go, but I am doing a lot better than I used to. My goal of having 3 to 6 months of food on hand is still not met...I guess I have maybe 3 weeks worth stockpiled. But, I am still plugging away at it...slowly!
This weekend I was able to go to GW boutique (GoodWill)and find some great things. I found Autumn 2 shirts(one from Izod and the other from Children's Place)and a pair of jeans and capris from Old Navy. I even found Trent 2 pairs of shorts and a pair of jeans...I can't remember the brand of those. And lastly, I found Jeff a pair of Lee brand shorts. All of this for $24!! Love GW!!
Little things like this make a huge impact on your budget. If I was to go to a store and buy this...could you imagine how much I would spend?!
So, there you go a quick update. Hopefully I will stay on top of my blogging!! Until next time.....

Cooking in the Great Depression!

I was on Hillbilly Housewife and she was talking about Clara. So, I went to YouTube to check her out. She is sooooooo sweet. I love hearing her stories and she shared lots of recipes from the Great Depression Era. We can learn so much from our elderly people, if we would just take the time to listen! I wished my Grandmother was still living. I never took the time or made the effort while she was living to learn....I missed out on so much! I think in this generation we are so spoiled and have a somewhat distorted view on what we need to survive. Clara puts a lot of things in perspective for me.

Earlier in my blogs I shared where I wanted to start stockpiling some food. I honestly believe that the Lord is leading me in this direction. I believe the Lord ALWAYS wants His people to be prepared. You never know when you may lose a job, economic collapse (yes, I listen to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh!), or a terrorist attack may happen. My Grandmother always had a stockpile of food....ALWAYS! I have been prayerfully seeking how to begin my stockpile. These videos put in perspective that I don't need to have a lot of elaborate things in my stockpile to feed my family. You will keep hearing Clara say that "Times were terrible, but we always had good food." During the times she made the videos she was 91 and 93 years of age....she must know what she is talking about! Check out her videos on YouTube! She is awesome!