I have slightly different goals, but I
will play along and list mine.
  My DH is leaving for overseas (Army)
anytime between Feb and April, yeah they haven’t firmed up the date yet. 
I want to get a few dinners in the freezer so I don’t have to cook every
meal while he is gone from start to finish.  Right now I am totally out of
 “fast food”  I need to cook up a bunch of chicken and
shred/ chop, cook up a bunch of ground beef, both of these I use as
starters.  Once the meat is cooked you can defrost it for quick meals like
spaghetti, quick throw in the crockpot like soup, or throw in the oven
casseroles.  Also we like to make up a few lasagnas and echiladas get the
mess out of the way once and make 2 to 3 pans.  Each pan is good for 2
suppers and 2 or 3 lunches.  Going to try to do that and cut 50 from the
grocery budget, that’s only 25 each pay day, should be do able.
  I need to pull everything out of the
pantry and see what I have, I vaguely know but I need to organize it better and
make a list of what is there and what I need.
  I need to plan breakfast better.  I
want to come up with a theme… yesterday we had pancakes & sausage (so
maybe Mon could be sausage/bacon and pancake/French toast/ waffle –
alternating each week), today was choice of cereal (cold or hot, everyone had
oatmeal – cold morning), thinking Weds could be yogurt, fruit and muffin/
bagel maybe.  Thurs possibly eggs, toast and fruit.  I find if I ask
what everyone wants they don’t know, but if I cook and then say here’s
breakfast I have no arguments and there is plenty of time to eat.  Anyone
have any ideas on this?   Get
starters and meals into the freezer Organize
and inventory pantry Try
to drop 50 from grocery budget while stocking up Plan
breakfast better/ make menu plan for breakfast
  Kari

…
I made pizza last night from what we had in the house.
We needed more cheese on the pizzas but we did without because I didn’t want to go to the store for more cheese.
The night before we had tacos.
The taco shells were 1 1/2 years out of date!!!! That’s how long they were stuck in my old pantry.
(We just redid our pantry and moved everything.) Needless to say the shells were bad – so we went without.
Tonight we are having hamburger/vegetable soup with the hamburger that was left over from the taco meal (I made too much so I didn’t season it all).
I have been trying to use stuff up from my pantry and we have a freezer full of meat (3 deer and 1/2 beef).
I also need to keep a lot of food on hand and prepared for my hungry kids.
We have six kids who like to eat a lot.
Two love fresh fruits and vegetables (yay!).
Lately I’ve take to making taco meat and they can fix a burrito anytime they want.
I rarely buy premade or ‘kit’ food.
Most of my cooking is done from scratch (including raising and butchering our own chickens).
I make biscuits from scratch because my kids don’t like store-bought biscuits.
In fact, my kids don’t like much store-bought foods except for pot-pies and macaroni and cheese.
I try to keep our grocery bill down to $200/wk.
It’s not too hard with a freezer full of meat.

What an excellent idea! I’m going to use that idea to get things figured out for the menu for the next few weeks! Great idea! Thanks for sharing! Blessings Jolene (who’s kids are tired of cereal….I am more than happy to go back to homemade breakfasts! Cereal kills the budget anyway!) I want to come up with a theme.
yesterday

How does the CVS bucks and the Walgreens register rewards work?   Sheri   Good luck Erika!  I am doing this also, and am excited to use up alot of extra stuff we have in the pantry/freezer that always gets left! Hoping to just buy some dairy, lunch meats, fruits, and veggies this month.  We are a family of 6.
Holly   I would like to actually start a thread….
  I am on this pantry challenge for all of January.  Most of the people that are doing it are talking about it on facebook–but I am just not that big into facebook talking–too much game stuff out there.
Anyway, I thought I would put this out to all of you on this forum to join in and we could talk about it here.    The idea is to use what is in your pantry, freezers,etc and not shop as usual.  Everyone is making their own goals–depending on their needs, etc.  One person is keeping their grocery budget to half,etc.    My goals for this are 1.
no eating out–not even the $1 menu–I tend to do this when my sister and I go out.  .exception, I have a coupon for a free item.  2.
only get what is on my list at the grocery store.  3. the only thing that goes on my grocery store list a little produce and items I get free or extremely cheap with coupons.  4. get milk and bread using my cvs bucks and walgreens register rewards i have built up.  (anyone have a trick to make homemade sliced bread good for sandwiches?  I never find any breads I make are good for sandwich slicing)  5. only go shopping once a week to the stores (I tend to make multiple coupon runs) thereby saving gas and time in the stores–use that time to start a blog on a site I have already.
6.
try more new recipes this month–add variety and use ingredients already on hand in new ways…
  Please throw ideas out!! Erika from MI    

 
Okay I guess I didn’t phrase my reply
quite right last time based on some of the replies.
  First I said that I was going to start
making a breakfast menu and was looking for ideas on that.  Here is my
rough plan for attack on that.  Mon is pancake/French toast/ waffle (one
of the 3, alternating weeks) with sausage/ bacon (also alternating) Tues is choice of cold cereal or oatmeal
(we always have a few of each on hand) Weds is eggs… this week was
breakfast burritos but could also be eggs & toast, quiche, omelets Thurs is yogurt and muffins/ bagels Fri not sure yet… tomorrow might be
another choice of cereal/ oatmeal unless I come up with something better   Second I said something about the kids not
arguing about eating.  I think people took it that my kids argue about
food, really they eat whatever is in front of them.  I should have said
that instead of asking them what they wanted and waiting for them to answer I
just made something and then it was there to eat.  They will eat whatever
is put in front of them, not fussy at all.  I used to ask them and then
wait what seemed like forever to me for an answer.  Now I just fix
breakfast and then wake them up.  Amazingly this has helped with several
things.  First the kids get out of bed a lot more quickly when I say
breakfast is ready, rather than just time to get up.  Second I know I have
to get up to fix breakfast, so no waiting til the last minute to get up, no
more snooze alarms, lol.  Third the kids are actually happy to eat in the
dining room and not asking to eat in the living room with the distracting
cartoons on.  That is a rare treat but they usually ask anyway. 
Fourth because its already to eat and they don’t have to think, they are
done quicker, which means they are ready for school quicker and get play time/
tv time before school.  And I don’t have to get after them to finish
getting ready.  Makes ALL of our mornings go a lot more smoothly so
far.  And since I get out of bed right away and get moving, Im less tired
during the day, doing more and thus I can sleep better at night.  Woohoo.

What is your recipe for the enchiladas that you freezer cook? I’d love to try to make a few pans of enchiladas and lasagna this weekend to freeze.
I need to learn more about that or how to get started.
thanks, Dawn

Erica, I have never been good with Excel…
but would love to figure something out like you have for tracking the groceries.!! Kelly