Trying Again...

2015!  What?

Okay so here I am, with what I hope to be some solid plans for this year.  Admittedly, I think the same thing at the start of each new year, but hey, who am I to buck against tradition?

Being that I'm not currently working, I'm feeling confident about getting stuff done.  Whatever the "stuff" may be.   For now, that means, cooking more, keeping on top of a household schedule and keeping my family on track.

A few weeks before Christmas I had my last work day.  The expectation was that I would get all sorts of things done before the holiday arrived.  Funny, that, I got practically nothing done.  I did some laundry, so that was good.  ;)   Mom and Dad flew in for a week and I feel as though I did everything I needed to that week.  Hang with them and enjoy their company.

So, what now?  It's January 3rd and I'm ready to sort out week one of this year.  For now, I'm focusing on trying a new grocery budget, getting a menu planned (at least for dinners, though, all meals would be even better) and actually cooking.  Last year a lot of food was wasted in our house, which I'd like to see change.  Sometimes food was bought with the hopes that someone would get to cooking it, but unfortunately our schedules got away from us and things went bad.  Somet,imes we had the food available but everyone was just too tired to cook.  I'm pretty ashamed of that fact, but, that's life.  It's not always perfect.

This week we've got a few meals planned.  Chicken/potato vindaloo with rice and salad, copycat Zuppa Toscana with salad and bread, spaghetti and meatballs with salad and bread,  breaded pork with rice and sauteed veggies, quesadillas (varied fillings depending on each family members wants) with refried beans and chips and roasted chicken with mashed potaotes, gravy and salad.   Nothing spectacularly exciting, but enough to get me back into the habit of cooking nightly.

I set a weekly budget of $125 for the four of us.  I'll be doing my best to keep with that but I'm not intending to take myself to task if I go over once in a while.  Now if it happens weekly, that's another story.  ;)  So far today I spent $71 at Food 4 Less, I skipped getting the chickens (whole) and ground beef there.  The prices seemed very high to me.  I'll either hit the commissary or Costco in a day or two.  We have a fair amount of left over baking supplies from the holiday so I didn't buy much snack stuff.  I assume I'll be spending at least $30 more on meat.  Anything left over I'll just roll into the next weeks grocery budget.  This will work especially well since I'm in need of stocking my pantry with some basics that have been missing for a while.  When you eat out as much as we did towards the end of the year, you barely notice that there's no more pasta and the rice is almost gone.  Eeeek!