Challenge Rap Up for Week 1

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31





We are a family of 6 my husband and I have 4 children 20, 17, 16, and 13 years old so that’s 3 Adults & 3 Teenagers. According to the All You Grocery Challenge we have $150 per week to spend on food. We stayed within the challenge guideline this week by spending $106.75 for all food purchased. We spent $98.23 on groceries and $8.52 at Mc Donald’s for the kids and me on Wednesday. I spent some extra time this week looking for coupons and organizing them to get the best deals I could for the week. I made a menu plan this week but it got changed based on our needs so those meals will get planned for another week.

Our family’s personal grocery budget is $80 per week so I went over budget on that by $18.23. Since Kroger had a great sale week and I continued in my stockpiling I think I did a good job. We try not to go out to eat more than once per week especially since for our family a nice sit down restaurant or buffet cost us $60-80 each time.

We have Teen Tech at our library every Wednesday. We have 4H every other week with this being the last week. We also run errands while we are in town. The kids and I have started a bad habit of eating at a fast food place because we haven’t eaten lunch before we go. I am hoping to break this habit over the challenge because we will be starting up our homeschool on August 10th and our Co-op class will start on Friday’s in September. That would give us two days of the week we are out of the house and busy and we can not eat out that much and I would like to save our eating out for when we can go as a family. We did however get 2 free apple dippers at Mc Donald's.

This week from our garden we have zucchini, broccoli, green beans, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and lettuce. I am try to incorporate as much of our vegetables as possible in our menu plan for the week. I make a veggie tray at the beginning of each week and refill it as needed and I pull it out of the refrigerator for meals and snacks. I like to keep an assortment of fruits on hand. This week we have bananas, apples, nectarines, and oranges I keep one of the drawers in the fridge full and a bowl on the counter. If we have an odd assortment when we start to get low I will make a fruit salad.

We mostly eat leftovers for lunch and quick breads for breakfast. I made oatmeal banana bread this week since I had some bananas that needed used up. I also ran out of milk on Tuesday so I made up some powdered milk for cooking until I went shopping on Wednesday. I ran out of Bisquick so I made up a Master Mix of Homemade Bisquick to use. We did a good job using up our leftovers but still have some that didn't get eaten.

The meals we had this week:

Monday:
Breakfast- Oatmeal Banana Bread and fruit
Lunch-Leftovers
Dinner- Leftovers
Dessert- Ice Cream

Tuesday:
Breakfast- Cereal w/ milk
Lunch- Leftovers
Dinner- Slow Cooker Chicken & Dumplings, Mashed Potatoes, and Green Beans
Dessert- Ice Cream

Wednesday:
Breakfast- Lemon Bread and yogurt
Lunch- Leftovers (Husband), Mc Donald’s (Kids & I)
Snack- Free Brownies (4H Meeting)
Dinner- Cream of Broccoli Soup, and Zucchini Cheddar Bread
Dessert- Cookies

Thursday:
Breakfast- Oatmeal Banana Bread and fruit
Lunch- Leftovers
Dinner- Chicken & Zucchini Pasta
Dessert- Brownies

Friday:
Breakfast- cereal
Lunch- Leftovers (Husband), Sandwiches (Kids & I)
Dinner- Salmon Patties, Taco Rice Skillet, and Peas
Dessert- Brownies

Saturday:
Breakfast- Lemon Bread and fruit
Lunch- Soft Taco’s
Dinner- Free Meal w/Dessert (Birthday Party Invite)

Sunday:
Breakfast- Cereal
Lunch- Leftovers
Dinner- Free Meal w/Dessert (Homeschool Graduation Party Invite)