Monday, March 2, 2020

My 6 Goals For This Week and more...

Like I shared yesterday, it was quite the roller coaster week last week. This week, is a full week, too, as baseball is starting,  Kathrynne is leaving for Suriname, and I'll be at a Women's Discipleship Retreat Friday-Sunday. So, once again, I'm ...

Intentional finance. Intentional family. Intentional business.

My 6 Goals For This Week

Like I shared yesterday, it was quite the roller coaster week last week. This week, is a full week, too, as baseball is starting,  Kathrynne is leaving for Suriname, and I’ll be at a Women’s Discipleship Retreat Friday-Sunday. So, once again, I’m keeping my goals simple!

Last Week’s Goals: 2020 —  Week 8

Personal Goals

1. Get in 54,000 steps total. (I use the FitBit Ulta HR to track my steps every day.) 

2. Finish reading Love Idol and Don’t Overthink It. Finish listening to Good Leaders Ask Great Questions.

Home/Family Goals

3. Read 30 more pages of Carry a Big Stick aloud as a family.

4. Get a breast pump (I need to research whether our insurance provides this or not.)

Work/Blog Goals

5. Finish the rough draft of chapter 5 of my manuscript.

Word of the Year Goals

6. Pop popcorn and watch another classic movie as a family. 

This Week’s Goals — 2020 — Week 9

Personal Goals

1. Get in 54,000 steps total. (I use the FitBit Ulta HR to track my steps every day.) 

2. Finish reading Risen Motherhood, Made to Move Mountains, and finish listening to The Austen Escape.

Home/Family Goals

3. Read 30 more pages of Carry a Big Stick aloud as a family.

4. Wash all baby clothes in Dreft.

Work/Blog Goals

5. Finish the rough draft of chapter 6 of my manuscript.

Word of the Year Goals

6. Pop popcorn and watch another classic movie as a family. 

What are YOUR goals for this week? How did you do on last week’s goals? Tell us in the comments!

    
 

We spent $68.74 on groceries this week (ALDI + Kroger)

Want to see what we bought for this week’s $70 grocery budget? I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

For live updates, be sure to follow my Instagram Stories. See all posts on my $70 Grocery Budget here.

We’ve been eating a LOT of cereal these days. Somewhat because I’m moving more slowly and am more tired now that I’m in the third trimester so it’s an easy snack/meal, but also because I keep getting great deals on it and cereal/milk are one of the few things that don’t give me heartburn!

(I didn’t get a picture of these groceries before the kids already got into the cereal & milk!)

Kroger Shopping Trip #1

  • 1 gallon milk — $2.69
  • 2 tubes Colgate toothpaste — $1.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $4/2 Kroger digital coupon = free after coupons
  • 1 box Raisin Bran — $1.79 when you buy 5 participating items
  • 2 boxes Cheerios — $1.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $1/2 Kroger digital coupon = $1.49 each after coupons
  • Total with tax: $8.49

I was so excited that Kroger had butter on sale for $1.99 again this week! We still have 4 pounds in the freezer from the last sale, but you can bet I went ahead and got 5 more pounds to stock the freezer!

Kroger Shopping Trip #2:

Since we had about $26 left in our grocery budget, I decided to run by Aldi on Saturday after Silas’ baseball practice. I was hoping to pick up some cereal and cheese. I let Silas add up the amount of the our purchases as we added things to the cart and he made sure we stayed within our budget. He did a great job of doing the mental math!

Aldi Shopping Trip

  • Chocolate Chip — $1.69
  • Dried Cranberries — $1.29
  • 2 Cinnamon Crunch cereal — $1.39 each
  • 3 boxes of Macaroni & Cheese — $0.33 each
  • 6-pack of Peach Tea — $3.99
  • Eggs — $0.58
  • Baby Carrots — $0.89
  • 2 Honey Crunch Oats cereal — $1.29
  • Milk — $2.49
  • Frosted Flakes — $2.29
  • 2 packages cheese — $1.69 each
  • Total with tax: $24.55

Our Menu Plan This Week

Note: When you see the meals below, please remember this: I buy ahead often. Which means that when I find a great deal on something I know we’ll use, I buy as much as I can afford in our budget to have on hand.

This means that you aren’t going to see all of the groceries my shopping trip that I used to make all of the meals we ate.

Please also remember that I’m putting this out there and it’s not a perfectly balanced menu. This is just really what we ate — and I hope that it encourages you to see the real-ness and lack of perfection here.

Breakfasts: Cereal

Lunches/Snacks: Leftovers, Salad, Apples/Peanut Butter, Mac & Cheese, Danimals, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, Scrambled Eggs, Cookies, Chips, Random other markdowns/sale items 🙂

Dinners:

Sunday — Frozen Pizza

Monday — Quiche (used marked down pie crust, mixed veggies, ground beef, eggs, spices), Apple Turnover (used marked down pie crust)

Tuesday — Instant Pot Apples, Pumpkin Waffles, Sausage

Wednesday — Chicken Noodle Soup, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Thursday — Parmesan Chicken, Rice Pilaf, Peas, Biscuits

Friday — Leftover Buffet, Oranges (Jesse was out of town)

Saturday — Frozen Pizza, Salad (Jesse was out of town)

    
 

Gretchen’s $89 Grocery Shopping Trip and Weekly Menu Plan for 5

Aldi

2 dozen Eggs – $0.98 each

1 bag (5 lbs) Baking Potatoes – $2.69

1 Sour Cream – $0.89

1 gallon Milk – $2.39

1 bag Frozen Broccoli – $0.99

1 pkg Cream Cheese – $0.79

1 Unsweetened Applesauce – $1.95

1 bag Navel Oranges – $2.19

1 loaf Bread – $0.95

1 can Green Beans – $0.49

2 cans Cream of Mushroom Soup – $0.49 each

1 Half & Half – $1.55

1 pure Maple Syrup – $5.99

2 Avocados – $0.59 each

2.33 lbs Red Grapes – $2.31

2 pkg Yeast – $0.89 each

1 pkg Cinnamon Bagels – $1.49

2 pkg Shredded Cheddar Cheese – $2.75 each

1 pkg Oyster Crackers – $0.79

1 pkg Baby Carrots – $0.89

1 bag Frozen Chicken Breasts – $5.85

Total: $43.60

Kroger

2 Kind Simple Crunch Bars – $1.99 each, used 2 $0.50/1 Ibotta rebate AND $0.50/1 Kroger Cash Back – $0.99 each after rebates

2 Kellogg’s Rice Crispies Cereal – $1.79 each, used $1/2 printable – $1.29 each after coupon

1 Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes Cereal – $1.79, used $0.50/1 printable – $1.29 after coupon

1 Quaker Chewy Granola Bars – $0.99

1 bag Kroger Rice – $0.89

2 bags Apples – Marked down to $0.99 each

4 Kroger Butter – $1.99 each after e-coupon (no longer available)

1 Green Leaf Lettuce – $1.69

1 Turkey Hill Ice Cream – $1.99, used $1/1 printable – $0.99 after coupon

2 Ole Tortillas – $0.99 each

2 StonyField Yogurt – $2.49 each (I had an Ibotta rebate for these that would’ve made them close to free but discovered when I got home that I had purchased the wrong kind. Bummer!)

1 pkg Pork Ribs – Marked down to $2.41

2 pkg Kraft Mac & Cheese – $0.69 each

1 Herdez Salsa – $2

1 Mom’s Best Cereal – $1.79

2 pkg Kind Nut Butter Filled Bars – $1.99, used 2 $0.75/1 Ibotta rebate AND 2 $0.50/1 Kroger Cash Back – $0.74 each after rebates

1 Kroger Hashbrowns – $1.79

4 bags Angies Boom Chicka Pop Popcorn – Marked down to $0.89 each

1 pkg Diced Pork – Marked down to $3.02

1 pkg Green Peppers – Marked down to $0.99

Total after coupons and rebates – $45.73

Total for both stores: $89.33

Menu Plan for This Week

Breakfasts

Cereal, Toast, Eggs, Fruit Smoothies, Oatmeal, Cinnamon Bagels

Lunches

Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches, Tossed Salad Bar, Cheese Quesadillas, Cheese/Crackers/Fruit/Veggies, Hard Boiled Eggs/Applesauce/Peanut Butter Crackers, Leftovers x 2

Dinners

Baked Chicken Taquitos, Chips (leftover from last week)

Pork & Gravy over Mashed Potatoes, Steamed Asparagus (leftover), Biscuits

Hashbrown Casserole, Eggs, Apple Muffins

Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole, Tossed Salad

Sour Cream Enchiladas, Steamed Peas (leftover from last week)

Homemade Cheese Pizza, Breadsticks

Grilled Chicken, Baked Potatoes, Steamed Green Beans

    
 

Life Update: Pregnancy (31 weeks) + foster care update

31 weeks — and my belly “popped” significantly this week! (I usually have three major “pops” during my pregnancies. My first pop was around 23 weeks and I’m guessing it will pop for the third time around 36-37 weeks.)

Highlights

This was kind of a roller coaster week for us as we were asked if we would be willing to take in a newborn baby in foster care. After we wrapped our heads around what that would entail, talked and prayed as a family, and thought about how we’d manage two babies, we felt very strongly we were supposed to say yes.

So we said yes… and we were told we would likely be getting the call at any time. And then we waited all week and no call.

Those of you who have done foster care for a few years are probably very, very used to this. But this was our first experience with this sort of thing and it brought a whole host of varying emotions throughout this past week.

(By the way, we still could get the call. Our foster care support worker wisely told me after almost a week of us hearing different messages each day, “Just go about your normal life and just know you might still get a call.” So that’s what we’re doing.)

Notable

So yeah, that was our week in a nutshell. In pregnancy-related news, I’m definitely feeling more pregnant and moving a little more slowly, continuing to require extra sleep, having a little bit of swelling, and getting tired more easily.
However, I’m so grateful for how well I’m feeling overall, how fast time continues to pass by, and how much energy I still have.

Cravings

I’ve been really craving all the carbs this week — which is a bummer since so many of them give me heartburn. But at least I can still eat cereal and I am look forward to eating a lot of carbs once baby is here and I’m so grateful I have been able to avoid heartburn meds by being so careful with my diet!

Weight gain: 23 lbs.

How are the rest of you pregnant mamas doing?