Creative Cooking

I have spent 80% of my April grocery budget...and it's what, April 6th...and technically, this occured yesterday....so 80% by April 5th....deep, heavy sigh. I remember a time when I was able to feed my family of 4 on $200. Though, my children were quite younger and didn't eat as much...and I can't remember if that included household items....anyhoo, I am tryin to do it again and I can see this may be unreasonable.

Lunch seems to be the most difficult...as the kids lunches are either too skimpy or too heavy on perishables...and well, they perish. In an effort to avoid paying $50+ dollars a month on energy bars (of the Zone/Cliff Bar variety-at Costco they are about $22-$25 dollars for about 40 bars...we all pack these in our lunches) I did some research online and found a VERY good granola bar that my hubby said, "This tastes like a Cliff Bar," at which point I nearly cried! I spent about $10 on items I didn't already have and will easily make 2-3 batches of this stuff. The nice thing is the variety-add peanut butter/nuts/dried fruit-and you have control. The kids were eating at it all day and I had to stop them as 1. It's for their lunches away from home and 2. Don't want their taste buds to tire of it already....:)

I did some pantry scouring and discovered a ton of rice...so this weeks dinners will include....RICE! I have a rice/cheese/broccoli/meat dish in mind for tomorrow and also a risotto style dish with tomato sauce....and mexican rice with beans later in the week. Hopefully these are winners as I will need to make them again at least 1x a week until I get through this month. If I can stick with the original budget of $200...that leaves about $40 left.....worst case scenario, I use my debit card...but the purpose is to stick to the budget...and if the budget is unreasonable, well, I 'll have to address that next month.

I'm off to make Granola Bars.....:)