Week 3: $25 in groceries; free food!

I will admit right off the bat that we did dine "in" one night with ordered pizza.  I was considering including that cost against the $25 for the week, but I know that there will be other times in the next several months that we will go out to eat and it will not be counted.  Plus, we used a gift card that we had before we started our $25 a week budget.  It was an evening where I worked and Jaimie's appointment went a couple hours longer than expected, so the girls were picked up two hours late from day care.  Jaimie mentioned that it would take an hour to boil the beans and I suggested that we just bake a pizza.  I've got to say, it really was delicious.  I love the Gourmet Veggie pizza at Papa Murphy's.  It's one of the very few places where we can get Real food. 

This is how our week went:

2 gallons of milk (no rBGH), with coupon: $4.58
Bananas: .69 & .56
Coconut milk: $2.98 (for making sticky rice, or maybe coconut ice cream)
puff snacks for June (not natural, and not real, but I got them because they are convenient for the car and she likes them): $3.34
eggs: $3.50
flour: $3.00
Tortillas and cheese: $6.11 (I didn't split this up because I don't recall what the exact separate amounts were).

That comes to $24.76, 24 cents under budget. 

We also went to a swap this week.  There was a food swap in the cities that I have wanted to go to but it was shut down because trading homemade foods is "selling."  It's unfortunate that I didn't get to attend because I really wanted to try out other people's things and have people try some things from us (especially the coveted violet jelly).  Anyway, we went to a swap at the SPC.  Basically, you could bring your things that you wanted to get rid of and swap them with other things people brought.  After everyone has gone through and taken what they want or need, the rest is bagged up and donated to Goodwill.  Well, one person brought a large amount of nuts (I don't know that Goodwill would have taken them, but it made sense to bring them to the swap if anyone wanted them).  I got over a gallon of nuts (still in the shell).  I'm certain we will be making some more crack granola soon, at least by next weekend when it was requested of me to specifically bring it.

Would you like some free food too?  Try entering the Whole Foods Pantry Stock-up Contest.  You must enter by January 31st and write them an e-mail telling them what items are must-haves in your pantry.  They will select e-mails at random.  There is a grand prize of a Whole Foods Gift card for $599!