So, guess who had a $500.00 car repair bill this week. Oh yeah can I tell you how much it hurts to pay $500 for anything that doesn't involve sandy beaches?
We had the money in the bank, the benefit of being a Dave Ramsey nut, but we are also trying to pay off the last $4000.00 in debt. This last $4000.00 has been so hard because just when we scrap up some extra money well Murphy says, let's visit the repair shop.
The Caveman/Alien household needs to do something dramatic to stretch our budget. Right now we are spending about $100.00 in food/household items which isn't much but last night I was looking at my over stuffed pantry, the deep freezer half full and came up with the greatest idea ever.
I will not grocery shop for an entire month. I will not order take out for an entire month. We will only buy milk and the rest will come from our pantry, freezer, and vegetable garden.
When I told Big Papi this he looked at me like I had grown horns. I believe he thinks he will starve, but really like a good majority of Americans we have a ton of food in the house that is just sitting there. I am a Costco buyer after all. What would happen to my family if we just said lets use what we have on hand?
Imagine what would happen to America if we actually used only what we had on hand?
So keep looking at the blog because I am going to tell you what the Caveman and Alien are eating. And I'll start with tonight's pantry dinner. For the kids we still had two hamburgers and buns left over from Crazy Grandma's birthday party; dinner for little people done. As for Big Papi and myself we enjoyed a make shift stir fry with sauce using sweet red peppers I had picked up from the farmer's market, a bell pepper from our garden, an onion, some boneless chicken thighs from the party I hadn't cooked and some leftover chicken broth to make into sauce. I served that over brown rice and we also made a simple salad with grape tomatoes, cucumbers, and dressing. I also took hotdog rolls and toasted them in the oven to stretch out the meal. Yum-I am extremely proud of the results and dinner only took about 20 minutes. Plus I have enough leftovers for Big Papi's lunch tomorrow- well not of the rice but there is an extra roll to make the mixture into a sandwich.
I know this is crazy- and I can just see Crazy Grandma looking at this and thinking we are going to starve her grandchildren. The grandchildren will be fine, I promise.
I did the same thing a while back- I only bought milk and veggies each week. I lasted a little longer than a month with all the chicken and steak we had in our freezer. Since then, I have been spending way less at the grocery store.
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