Well, it was another not stellar day in meal planning. I did find some sesame chicken in the freezer for lunch and made my super quick, easy and some might think, surprisingly delicious breakfast - egg salad - last night. It was a "I need a quick breakfast" one day many years ago (10+ - eep!) that I stuffed egg salad in a pita for breakfast and it was delicious. It has now morphed into egg salad on a toasted english muffin. It's mostly pre-made, it's portable, it's delicious. For all those skeptical, I will say right now - I do not like mayonnaise on hot subs. It just gets oily and gross. That does not happen with this. I'm sure if you really wanted you could add meat or cheese and make it even more breakfast sandwich like, but I'm happy with it the way it is. Dinner was a sandwich. And since I had a sandwich for dinner, and you saw a picture of one of those last night, I decided to post a picture of the wine I had for dinner too (more on that below). 

Another longish day at work today and none of the stores have anything good on sale this week. Well, no good food buys. Hyvee has my favorite "cheap" wine on sale. It's 8.99 regular price (i.e. the price I don't buy it) but frequently on sale for 4.99 or 5.99.  This week - $3.99! Grocery shopping at Hyvee this week! I like Hyvee. A lot. They have good sales. Their fuel saver program is great. What I don't like is that some of their items are priced so much higher than Walmart or Aldi. This was just a quick shopping trip though - wine, ice cream (on sale and a coupon!), and a few sale and necessity items to pick up. 

What did I buy - two boxes of pasta (.01 fuel saver per box); kidney beans for .68; ice cream; they had the nice brand of deli meat on sale so I got some hard salami and pepperoni; a loaf of Italian bread (I know! I need to make my own); sour cream (another .01 fuel saver); tomato paste even though that's another thing that cost so much more there - but not enough to drive somewhere else; refried beans (.01 fuel saver); a pack of tortillas; waffles (.01 fuel saver) and bananas to put on the waffles (with peanut butter) but will inevitably will sit in my fruit bowl until they are only suitable for banana bread. All of that for 20.74 (not counting wine) and 2.50 of that was the ice cream treat. And .05 fuel saver which will be about .50 - .75 cents off my next fill up depending on how empty I let the car get (I get between 10 and 12 gallons when I fill up). 

The planning so far - I think I'll make the pork shoulder I got last week (.99 a pound) since I have to use or freeze it in the next week. I have a bag of coleslaw mix from a sale last week (.77). I also have some orange juice from a sale last week (.99). So, some kind of pork, probably with potatoes and carrots, for the first night dinner; carnitas (with the sour cream and tortillas); and probably some pulled pork sandwiches with coleslaw. I also saw an interesting recipe for pulled pork nachos - they sound quick and easy for a weeknight dinner. I might also make Cincinnati chili (why I bought the spaghetti, since I couldn't remember if I had a box and it was on sale) and then use some of that in place of the meat layer in pastitsio (why I bought the tomato paste). For the weekend I have some egg salad left for either breakfast or lunch; the Italian bread would make delicious french toast; bread, meat and cheese; breakfast burritos, pizza (made at home!).... Lots of options without even diving into the freezer surplus. 

So, week one is down and although it didn't go according to plan, I didn't spend any money eating out so I still accomplished the end goal. And, I still have about $40 to spend for month on groceries and lots of goodies stashed in the freezer. And if the worst happens, I still have my entire "restaurant" budget to spend for the month. 

Let's see how week two goes....