Dinner Archives - Page 6 of 8 - Making Sense Of Cents

Grocery Shopping Update 12/3/2011

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 17 Comments

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I went shopping a couple days ago and spent around $80. I’m trying to just go shopping every 2 weeks, as this helps with not wasting my time and me not buying too much junk food. I still go shopping in between these weeks for milk, fruits, vegetable and bread of course and spend around $20.

Anyways, this grocery challenge for our budget is still going really good. This will put our monthly grocery budget to around $200 a month! Now if only we didn’t eat out so much! The BF still gets fast food nearly everyday because he just wakes up and either eats something at his work or needs to eat something on the go. I’m terrified to calculate our eating out amount right now, but I guess I have to soon.

I haven’t been making food EVERYDAY, but for the most part I am cooking. I’m trying to come up with new meals everyday, and it is difficult.

How has your grocery shopping been going?

Food spending in the U.S.

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 13 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I came across this link about the cost of groceries for individuals and families in the U.S. I thought it was interesting because it’s a lot less than what we usually spend.

It says the average family of 4 spends $1,200 a month. And I’m assuming this does not include eating out. This seems like a lot to me! We spend pretty much the same amount on going out to eat as we do on groceries, so I guess that’s why this shocks me.

I guess we fall into the “Thrifty Plan” for families of 2 with individuals between 19 and 50 years old. It says people in this group spend $368.20 per month. This is pretty much what we spend on groceries (a little higher), our goal is around $250-$300 (not including going out).

How do you compare to this?

Food spending and our weekend

Last Updated: October 1, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

We did really good with spending over the weekend. We decided to have a kind of quiet weekend. On Friday night we worked out with a couple of the BF’s friends and afterwards we went out and drank (but only spent $15) and then went over to someone’s house and hung out after the bars closed (I’m assuming this is why I slept for so long the next day).

We got Mexican food the other day like I said in my other blog post and I think that’s all we spent on food this weekend. We made hamburgers last night (delicious, but not the same as how my BF makes them. Mine always turn out funny).

Our food budget has been good so far this month. The BF said that other day that he can’t stand getting fast food anymore or going out to eat because the food doesn’t taste as good as I make. It’s either my cooking skills have greatly improved, or he wants a new expensive toy (I’m going to go with my cooking skills are getting better).

And then on Saturday we just hung out at a friends house while they had other people over also. It was fun just relaxing!

Then after that, we went to the movie store and rented Horrible Bosses and Gladiator. Somehow I have never seen either of those movies. They were both good! I love Jennifer Aniston, but I think the movie could’ve been a little better.

Oh yeah, and I did not start making that wreath that I was talking about the other day, I plan on starting it sometime this week (hopefully!).

Check out Mini Bakers giveaway for baking items!
Check out Mallory Musings giveaway also.
Look at M Loves M ring giveaway!
Take a peek at The Color Issue’s giveaway.

How was your weekend?

Spending, Life and Food Updates… 11/13/2011

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 11 Comments

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Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday. I somehow slept for 14 hours and by time I woke up, I had tons to do. Today is a pretty easy going day though. I have some stuff to do for my classes and I plan on making that Christmas wreath (above) today. Hopefully I actually do that! I’m not the greatest when it comes to doing stuff, so we’ll see how this goes.

Well, last week I signed up for a credit card. I only have 1 other credit card, and it’s boring. There’s no rewards or anything. The new card I have gives me back $300 as a bonus and also 5% on select stuff and 1% back on everything else. So I think this is pretty decent.

I went grocery shopping on Wednesday (I think it was Wednesday, I can’t remember) and spent $81. I bought a lot of stuff. We have made dinner nearly every night this. I went and got sushi on Thursday and it was great! And yesterday we went to a Mexican restaurant, but that was cheap ($19).

Alsooooo, me and the BF went shopping yesterday. I needed some new work clothes since it’s getting colder. I bought a pair of Express slacks, LOFT sweater, AE sweater and a shirt from Target. The BF bought a pair of Nikes and that’s all he liked. We didn’t spend a ton but we still spent money on clothes (that we probably didn’t need) but oh well. We’ve been so frugal with trying to pay off my student loans, that I think we deserved it.

Ok so I finally decided about my MBA problems, that I talked about here and here. I’m just going to graduate in the Fall of 2012 and stick with my MBA with a Finance emphasis, instead of just a General MBA instead of taking the rest of the 6 classes next semester and graduating early. Thanks everyone for your help! I’m taking 4 classes next semester, and either one in the summer and one in the fall of 2012, or just take 2 classes in the Fall. So after this upcoming semester, my MBA will be a breeze!

Anything interesting happen with you! I hope your weekend is going well!

Secret shopping and dinners recently

Last Updated: October 1, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 6 Comments

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I’ve been doing a lot of secret shopping over the past 2 weeks and the second picture is some of the stuff that I’ve gotten recently. I’ve had 3 secret shops at Estee Lauder recently and got lip gloss, mascara, face toner, and eyeshadow. And I also got a gift set for free. I love Estee Lauder, so being able to do these shops is no problem at all. However, since I was at the mall, I went to Forever 21 and bought those shoes. They are really cute though!

The dinners that I made were Gyros, Sweet and Tangy Chicken and Tacos. The Gyros were NOT good. I’ve never really been a fan of Gyros, and either has the BF, so I don’t know what I was thinking. Everything else was very good though, and I was very happy with it all.

What have you been making recently?

And I’m sorry, but the picture below has been repinned a thousand times on Pinterest and has cracked me up everytime I’ve seen it.

What I’ve Been Making

Last Updated: October 28, 2011 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 10 Comments

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This is what I made the past two nights. We had honey ham, salad, potato salad and grapes. And the other night I made chicken lasagna roll-ups, pasta and salad. It was all good! I’m still trying to make something different everyday, but it’s getting hard. I made quiche the other day also and it was great!

Any more recipe suggestions?

I need to run to the store tonight after work and get fruits, vegetables, milk and bread, but other than that, I should be good for quite sometime.

I’m excited for this weekend though! We’re dressing up tonight and tomorrow of course and going out. We all have some pretty funny and interesting costumes.

What are you doing this weekend?

And I won the $50 Novica giveaway from Money Rabbit! I’m so happy.
Also, check out eight six eleven’s giveaway for a $20 VS gift card!

I tried my hand at cooking a lot at once (not nearly once a month cooking)

Last Updated: October 21, 2011 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 10 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

The first picture is actually dinner that I made a couple of nights ago. The second picture is Teriyaki Chicken. The third is just salsa that I made for all of the taco ground beef that I made tonight. And the last one is soup. Everything tasted great! I usually suck at making soup, and it was actually probably the BEST soup that I have ever had.

So I didn’t just make the stuff in the pictures above, I forgot to take a lot of pictures of others things that I made. so altogether I made:

4 Ham Omlettes
About 4 meals of ground beef for Tacos
Salsa
About 2 more meals of Teriyaki Chicken
Around 5 meals of soup
Honey glazed ham (I made a ton of this for dinners and also for sandwiches)
4 Burger jalepeno sliders for a quick snack

So in the end, I think I did pretty good. It took me around 2.5 hours to make everything, but I was also watching the baseball game as I was cooking, so I think that’s what took so long. I taste tested everything (ok who am I kidding? I ate a bowl of everything) and I’m really hoping it all tastes good still when it’s remade/reheated.

Now what I’m really wondering is how long this food will even last. I’m afraid the BF will just raid the fridge and eat it all tonight!

Any tips or suggestions?

P.S. Check out Don’t Read This It’s Boring’s Giveaway!