Thrifty and Fit

I'm trying really hard to be thrifty lately.   I'm determined to cut our grocery budget in order to save.  This is really hard for me.  I'm the type of girl that would rather spend gobs of money on lots of food than on a new pair of shoes or highlites.  I just like having lots of good options in the house.  Meals, snacks, special treats, etc.  And I think I've told myself that the more money I spend on groceries, the better odds I have of staying OP.  

But now I'm challenging myself to stretch what I have and still be as healthy as possible when it comes to cooking and eating.  I haven't been to the grocery in 5 days.  That's a big deal for me.  I love the grocery store.  I'd go every day if I could.  My goal is to use what I have and not got until Monday.  So today I got creative and searched my cabinets for some dry ingredients that I can pull a meal together with.  I'll always have the frozen meals in my freezer if I get desperate, but I also have a bunch of dry goods sitting there week after week waiting to be used.  

I had everything to make pizza except crust.  I got out my bread manual found a whole wheat pizza dough recipe.  It's working it's magic now for lunch.  Then I found some pork chops in my freezer that need to be cooked.  I threw them in the crockpot with some Lipton Soup Beefy Onion mix and water.  That'll be dinner.  I also have a ton of frozen veggies that I'm going to make used of this week.  

Snacks.  I get stumped here often.  I always want *something* to snack on.  But ready made snacks are expensive.  So I found some Vita Brownie mix I've had for a while (Thanks to Jen Carr- yeah, it's been in my pantry this whole time) and I made those.  Then I made some chocolate pudding in individual containers.  I'm out of milk and decided to use my non fat dry milk to make them.  Their in the frig setting.  Dry milk comes in handy.  I made another quart for cereal.  I don't think I'm ready to drink it solo yet.

Fruit is where I get stumped.  We go through a ton of fresh fruit here.  Peaches have been particularly good lately and we've been inhaling them.  Bananas too.  I do have some canned mandarins and some frozen fruit.  I'm going to experiment with smoothies to get our fruit in.

Here's my meal plan today:

Breakfast: 

Whole Wheat Bagel with whipped cream cheese and blueberry preserves

1/2 cup coffee with cream and sugar

Snack:

FF popcorn

Glass of raspberry flavored Emergen-C

Lunch:

Whole Wheat pizza with mushrooms and onions

Brussel sprouts with cheese sauce (frozen pack)

Snack:

Chocolate pudding w/ grape nuts (for fiber)

Dinner:

Pork Chops

Canned Collard Greens with seasoning (greens)

Snack:

Smoothie (Made with frozen fruit medley)