Truth time. The ending of this pregnancy (seven weeks to go!) is starting to look a lot like the beginning of this pregnancy. In terms of me and my complete lack of enthusiasm for cooking, food, and most especially grocery shopping.
Do you ever find that when you’re on a meal roll (like, every night you’re a mini Martha Stewart, serving up your fam some delish dishes) that it becomes so much easier to grocery shop? You get more experimental, braver, with your choice of ingredients, and shopping becomes a real treat. Almost every purchase of fish for me is motivated by two things: 1) sale prices and 2) feeling like a BOSS in the kitchen that week.
And mathematically, the inverse must also be true. When you have a bad week of meals grocery shopping seems like one more step in a never sending series of ways your children find to tell you they “don’t like this food.” It got really bad for me the night before my grocery trip. I was out of ideas, out of patience, and out of room. Literally. My bump is at the point where it keeps me at a physical distance from my countertops.
So I made, get ready for brilliance, “sausage rice”. Sausage rice, y’all. I cooked some sausage with some tomatoes, threw some spice on it, plopped it over some rice and called it a meal. Mr. B deserves at least a golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of a man who is excited to eat a meal that is somewhat more basic than the title implies. The girls were not as impressed and when they both turned their noses up at Sausage Rice, I was definitely channeling the Beast when Belle refuses to go to dinner. “GO AHEAD AND STAAAAAAAARVE!”
Pregnancy hormones are strong with this one.
When I got to the store on Thursday, morale was low. I mean, just the previous night I had tried to serve my family a meal that would be more appropriately titled, “Easy Protein, Easy Grain, Cooked Lazily”. And, of course, we’re heading into that time of year when there aren’t a lot of good sales (because there are so many food related holidays on the horizon) so there was no manager special inspired “aha!” moment.
But even a sad rice meal comes with a silver lining. I’ve been really great on budget this month, so I went into this last trip of the month with some leeway. And when you’re uninspired by all food, budget leeway is a gift.
- Annie’s Chocolate Chip Granola Bars-$2.49. Buy 5, Save $5!
- Bananas, 1 lb-$.59.
- Boar’s Head Maple Glaze Turkey, .5 lb-$5.19.
- Boar’s Head Sandwich Pepperoni, ,5 lb-$4.76.
- Clementines, 3lbs-$3.99.
- Green Grapes, 2.25 lb-$4.48.
- Gruyere Cheese-$2.52. You know some of that budget surplus was going towards cheese.
- Heritage Farm Chicken Breasts, 10 lb-$20.06.
- Heritage Farm Chicken Thighs, 7 lbs -$7.52. Manager’s special!
- Jeff’s Gouda-$4.55.
- Ken’s Blue Cheese Dressing (2)-$2.98. B5S5 for $1.49 each.
- Kroger Rice-$1.49.
- Red Gold Canned Tomatoes (2)-$1.78.
- Red Grapes, .66 lb-$1.31. So much budget leeway, I let our girls get two different kinds of grapes!
- Simply Raspberry Lemonade (1)-$1.29. B5,S5.
- Strawberries, 2 lbs-$3.99.
- Yukon Gold Potatoes, 5 lbs-$3.99.
- Apps I’ll submit to: Fetch Rewards, Ibotta (.10 off Any Item)
Total Budget: $87.27
Total Spent: $75.81
Total Saved: $10.10
Rolled Over to Fund: $11.46
What do you do when you fall into a meal funk? Do you have a go to meal that gets you out of the funk, like a reset meal that everyone loves, is easy and cheap to make? Will you share it with me? Or at least give me a hint? Help a pregnant lady out. ;) See you in the comments!
UPDATE
So, after I wrote this, I started looking at dinner options. I had some ribeyes I had gotten on sale a few weeks ago, last week’s tomatoes that needed to be eaten, and some cheese. So, here is the result. I mean, it’s just Steak and Caprese Salad, but ohmygosh. I am very excited to eat this food. The funk is broken?
UPDATE TO THE UPDATE
This was, indeed, delicious. The funk is broken!
Kristen B. is wife to the best Prince around, mama to the spunkiest little princesses, and lover of all things Disney. She started her savings journey three years ago and is now dedicated to making her family’s wishes come true one coupon at a time. She is so excited to take her love of saving to the next level and share her journey with you! Click here to catch up on Kristen’s Savings and join in on your own savings adventure!