On a budget....let the games begin.

Yesterday was suppose to be our first day of Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Unprocessed, Healthy on a Budget Eating. But the flu/colds came through this house and we have not had the time or energy to plan for anything. Lucky for us we were still armed with some food left in the house from our pre christmas grocery shopping last pay day and ordered Jimmy Johns yesterday for lunch. HOWEVER! Last night I went through our meat and realized we have enough to feed us for two weeks. So I went to my iPad and meal planned for two weeks. I looked through meijer's weekly ad and then signed up for mPerks. So much produce and lots of organic produce. HOLY MOLY!

Mperks are awesome you go online, sign up, "cut your coupons"(just click on them) and then when you buy your deals you just put in your phone number/pin and you save with those coupons. Go sign up NOW! MEIJER mPerks!

I had 100.00 to spend for two weeks of food with no wiggle room to eat out because we will be out of town on Friday/Saturday.

GOOD DEALS: I got a natural whole chicken for 4.50 which I will use for dinner tonight and then in 2 soups. I got a bag of avacados for 1.50. The coupon said organic but I am not sure if they are. I have paid that for 1 avacado. four? DEAL! Most of my produce was organic. I did not get any processed foods. My eggs were organic and I got a roast for dinner next sunday on sale. Along with some pretty impressive prices on sweet potatoes and organic peanut butter.

I spent 91.00 And being as I had household items on my list I can say I spent about 80.00 in groceries which is 20.00 UNDER budget. I saved 11.00 in mPerks and even more by planning with the ads.

40.00 a week on healthy food for 2 people is pretty impressive. We did have lots of frozen meat though. Next time will be a REAL challenge.

I also threw out all of our processed food in the pantry/fridge. GOOD BYE frosting, canned soup, Hot Cocoa mix, chocolate syrup, powdered parm cheese, and soon candy canes.

I could not with good reason get rid of our butter, cheese, or sour cream as none of it is processed and we will just phase that out this week and start completly dairy free as we get rid of that.

John already had a, "where is the parmesan cheese?" moment looking for the powder stuff.. he looked upset but swore he wasn't. He agreed.

And we still have NO IDEA what he is going to drink. He is insistant he will drink crystal light NOT water. I guess it will be a learning experience all the way through.

My budgeting ideas were encouraged by reading 100 Days on a Budget blogger of 100 days of real food spent less weekly than she would get on food stamps and bought unprocessed, natural food. Pretty fun read.