Thrifty Couple Weekly Menu Week of 4/19! Our First $1,000 Meal – Yes, You Read That Right!!

How many of you have paid $1,000 for a bag of potatoes? You can raise your hand, it’s okay – it is a computer – no one will see you! So, here we are admitting that we paid $1,000 for a bag of potatoes! Yes, we are The Thrifty Couple.  You are saying,”what on earth does this crazy couple think being thrifty is? I know I can do much better than that for a bag of potatoes!!”

You are probably right! $1,000 is way overpriced! However, it wasn’t the potato farmer that got the money! It was the hospital and doctors………!!!!!!

So, here is what happened! First off, we ended up saving more than planned on our menu last week. The lasagna meal is what started it. Our family wanted homemade bread instead of garlic bread – we can make this for pennies on the dollar! Also, the lasagna lasted us for the next day’s lunch and dinner! So we did not have to make dinner one of the nights and decided to push back the menu plans by a day!

This left us with Saturday’s roast for Sunday instead.  Sunday roast is a great Sunday meal! PLUS I had plans for this week’s menu, which involved leftover roast!

So I put the roast in the crockpot earlier in the morning.  A few hours later in the afternoon, were all going to listen to our 6 year old read a Bible story! I said,”wait, let me cut up the potatoes real quick (hint – key words to our story) and I ran into the kitchen to do the chopping.  I was hurrying!! Listening to my children read, and especially read the Bible, gets me very excited – but we did need to eat soon too, so those potatoes needed to chopped.

I would consider myself a decent home cook and much experience with chopping up food, I pretty much do it on a daily basis! So I took my precision cutting abilities for granted…….. and the next thing I know is that I took a very deep and large slice from my left index finger.  Thrifty Al had gone outside for a minute, I grabbed a towel and wrapped my hand – he walked in the door and blood was dripping on our floors from my wrapped hand.

He did what every great husband would do: find out if I was okay and get me ready to go to the ER.  He ran to the neighbors to get a quick sitter and off we went.

So, it was just a normal and usual visit to the ER, except we did find out interesting news….. this apparently is a very common Sunday accident!! Those roasts and potatoes ruin many a Sunday dinner! In fact the admittance staff, triage nurse, ER nurse and ER doctor claimed and acted as if it was Sunday Business As Usual, which honestly made me feel much better that I wasn’t the only one!!!

So all in all, great doctor who was fast in getting me stitched up as I never stopped bleeding profusely from my finger, until about half way through the stitching! I had a numb finger (the numbed my whole finger from the base), which was one of the oddest feelings I have ever felt – I could see my finger, but it certainly didn’t feel like it (although I was VERY thankful for that odd feeling!!).  Let’s not forget a decent amount of pain since, in addition to a Tetanus shot to boot!

So why $1,000? Well, I wouldn’t have had to go to the doctor if it wasn’t for me cutting the potatoes – that cost about .40! That .40 turned into $1,000.  Don’t forget the part of the ER visit when the admittance staff enters and goes through final information, including that of estimate of cost – our portion……around, you guessed it – $1,000!

After all of that, I had to share a picture…… don’t worry, it is after the bandage of course, I could not do that to you!

Isn’t it cute? Well under those bandages is a swollen finger, 9 stitches, a wound that will take one year to heal, and a scar for the memories!

So here’s what I am doing sporting this bandage:

• Hoping to market new finger warmers in hot colors (I am wearing green in the picture, but I also have hot pink and a nice looking purple) and maybe make back some of my $1,000
• It is also a great child attention getter – it is kind of hard for them to ignore and green finger waving in their face! They seem to be listening better the first time!
• It is a great “get out of dishwashing” tool – maybe I can market that too!
• It is also a great tool to wave in front of the hubby and say, “I really need a nap!” The hot colors are nearly hypnotizing and effective!

So that is our story of our $1,000 meal!

Now on with this week’s Thrifty Menu!!

As a recap of how our menu works:

1. We don’t necessarily have a day-by-day plan for our lunches and breakfasts or snacks, just our dinners.  We have a list of ideas for those meals that week, and so we wake up eating selections from the list. For lunches, we also have a list of possible lunch ideas for that week, but most lunches end up being leftovers, which is why we have a loose plan!
2. Although we have stayed within our $240 per month budget (covers groceries, toiletries, household, and diapers), we haven’t necessarily tracked how much each meal costs us and thought it would be fun to figure it out and share it with you as well.  We will be laying out the cost of our dinners!
3. Desserts are planned last minute as well! We usually crack open a box of cookies, however, we lay out ideas and then sometimes make something special!
4. Our Sunday dinner plans are varied, we try to have guests from church over every other week, if we know in advance, we usually put a roast in the crockpot, or prepare a casserole. If it is planned last minute (as many are) we have homemade chilis and stews in the freezer to heat up, frozen entrees and sides to heat up,  or lots of pastas to quickly feed a crowd! Thank goodness for a full pantry! Anyway, if it is just us, we usually have leftovers, lunch or snack items, or simple prepared meals! So on our menu, you will find Sunday’s marked with a “?”
5. Our goal for this site is to share the deals, freebies, hot finds; but we also want to share how we live as a larger family on a tight budget everyday and ways that we try to live thriftily in every area of life….. so this would be one of them!

Here are the ideas for breakfasts this week:

• Pine-Apple Cafe’ Muffins
• Oatmeal
• Yogurt with fruit
• Cold cereal

Here are the ideas for lunches this week:

• Leftovers
• Cheese Burritos
• Chicken Nuggets
• Chili and crackers

Here are the snack ideas for this week:

• Celery and cream cheese
• Carrots and cucumbers with dip
• Apples
• Yogurt
• Homemade bread and honey
• Suckers for the potty training kid!

Here are the dessert ideas this week:

• Frozen Yogurt with fruit
• Fresh baked cookies

Dinner Menu:

• Monday: Beef and potato enchiladas, corn, salad, oranges
• Tuesday: Meatloaf, creamy roasted asparagus, green salad, homemade bread and honey butter
• Wednesday: Crockpot Chicken with dressing marinade, leftover potatoes from the roast, green salad, bread and butter
• Thursday: Sweet and Sour Meatballs, brown rice, Jello-salad and green salad
• Friday: Family Dinner Out
• Saturday: Grilled garden burgers, hot dogs, potato salad and coleslaw
• Sunday: Low key soups, sandwiches and leftovers!

Monday: Beef and potato enchiladas, corn, salad, oranges

• Leftover roast and potatoes FREE
• 6 tortilla shells .50
• Family size enchilada sauce $2.18
• Frozen corn .52
• Salad and dressings $1.00
• Oranges .60

Total Cost: $4.80 for the whole meal for 6 = about .80 per serving!

Tuesday: Meatloaf (2lb. loaf for leftovers), creamy roasted asparagus, green salad, homemade bread and honey butter

• 2 lbs. ground beef $2.00
• Ingredients for meatloaf est. .60
• Salad and Dressings $1.00
• Bread and butter .69

• 1 lb.  asparagus $1.99
• Homemade Hollandaise sauce about .40

Total Cost: $6.68 for the whole meal for 10 = about $1.11 per serving!

Wednesday: Crockpot Chicken with dressing marinade, leftover potatoes from roast, green salad, bread and butter

• 1 Package of all-natural chicken thighs = $2.40
• Dressing for marinade FREE
• Leftover crockpot potatoes FREE (not counting the previous $1,000 spent!!)
• Salad and dressings $1.00
• Homemade Bread and butter .59

Total Cost: $3.99 for the whole meal for 10 = about .67 per serving!

Thursday: Sweet and Sour Meatballs, brown rice, Jello-salad and green salad

• Meatballs $1.44
• Kraft Sweet and Sour sauce .90
• 1 Green Pepper .50
• 1 Onion .20
• 1 Can chunk pineapple .50
• Brown Rice probably about .60
• Jello.25
• mandarin oranges .33
• Salad and dressings $1.00

Total Cost: $5.72 for the whole meal for 6 = about .95 per serving!

Friday: Family Dinner Out – remember, this doesn’t come out of our grocery budget, but our eating out budget!

Saturday: Grilled garden burgers, hot dogs, potato salad and coleslaw (this will probably be a full second meal for Sunday – this meal usually is!)

• 4 Garden Burger patties $2.00
• Beef Hot dogs .99
• Hot dog buns .69
• Hamburger buns .69
• Homemade potato salad ( may let Thrifty Al cut them up – not sure if I can stomach it that soon!) about .60 for a huge batch!
• Coleslaw and dressing $1.25

Total Cost: $6.22 for the whole meal for 6 = about $1.04 per serving (plus lots of leftovers for an entire Sunday lunch!)

Sunday: Low key sandwich, soups or leftovers! Cheap!

COST SUMMARY FOR THIS WEEK’S DINNERS: Cost for the dinners this week $27.41 for the 6 of us!