June Grocery Challenge : Week 1

Even though I am shopping on May 31st, since the food is for June today's shop is the first in my challenge.  You can read about it HERE (giveaway ends at midnight May 31st - but don't fret - I will have another coupon giveaway up in mid-June)

I have been looking through the local flyers online, and checking out the list provided by the coupon group I belong to - this allows me to find the best prices.

In the photo above, I have 10 boxes of pasta (price matched to $0.99 each, with 10 $0.75 coupons; 8 bbq sauce (price matched to $0.50/each) 6 Kraft Dinner (price matched to $0.50/each) and 4 kraft peanut butter (price matched to 2.97 each) These are all items that I stocked up on; I won't need to buy more of these until mid fall.

Here is a breakdown of my spending - keep in mind, my freezer is pretty stocked with meat (steak, ground beef) I wasn't able to purchase the chicken I need (they were out, will make another trip this week for that) which will add approximately $8 dollars to my total for the week.

My total VALUE of todays shop:  $140.24
Total Coupons:                              -$11.50
Total Price Matching :                   -54.58
Total Savings                              (66.08)
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Total out of pocket:  $74.16

I saved approximately 47% of my bill - all by using coupons and price matching to the best sales.

My goal for the month is $400.00 - after today, it leaves me with $325.84 for the rest of the month

ETA: I did another shop today to pick up 10KG bag of flour (pm to 7.97 from 13.97) and 2 family packs of chicken (pm to 7.72/kg from 13.82/kg)  I ended up spending $28.00 as well as 2 boxes of yogurt tubes and 1 pack of danino minis which I spent $3.75 on (2.00 each less 0.75 coupon each). So my new total for spending this week is $105.81  (PM savings $69.08 and coupon savings $13.75 = $82.83) and for the rest of the month I now have $294.19

June 1-8th Meal Plan

To go along with my grocery challenge, here is our meal plan for the week; I am only going to list dinners - breakfast foods we always have on hand (cereal/bagels/waffles) and lunches are most often sandwhiches and fruit/yogurt (PB, Bologna, Grilled Cheese are the main ones the kids like)

Meal 1: Sweet and Sour Meatballs served over rice, green beans (there will be enough for leftovers)
Meal 2: Spaghetti w/meat sauce, garlic bread
Meal 3: Tortellini and garlic bread
Meal 4: BBQ chicken, carrots and sidekick
Meal 5: BBQ steak, potatoes and greek salad
Meal 6: leftovers
Meal 7: chicken nachos

When I am buying my groceries for the week, I will be purchasing the veggies for these meals; all the meat is already in the freezer from previous stock ups.  The main part of my groceries this week will be fruits and veggies; as well as stocking up on great sale items (pasta, peanut butter, toothpaste).

How to make S'mores

Having grown up eating S'mores, you can imagine my surprise to come across someone that hadn't tried them before.  This was when I discovered that S'mores are a North American treat.  My friend is from England, and had never tasted the gooey, chocolatey goodness. I made sure to change that, and introduced her to the delicious treat that evening! If you haven't made them before - keep reading to learn how to make s'mores yourself.

Morning at the park

We had such a gorgeous day yesterday that I decided to get the kids out of the house in the morning.  We loaded up the wagon with all the trucks, buckets and shovels we have; then we grabbed some snacks and drinks, slathered on our green beaver sunscreen and headed out the short distance to the park.

When we got there, Mr. J was set on building volcanoes out of sand - and he spent pretty much the entire 90 minutes we were there doing just that. Mr. K alternated between digging, sliding and swinging!

WW: Puddle Jumping

puddle jumping while waiting at Mr. J's bus stop

Summer fun at the cottage

One of our favorite summer activities is heading up to my aunt and uncle's cottage.  It is only approximately 90 minutes away, which makes it easy to go up just for the day; we have stayed over a few times - but mostly it is a day trip for us.  We always stop at Tim Hortons half way up to get timbits and coffee; it's such an easy drive (well, except when Mr. K was a year old and screamed the entire way home...that wasn't so easy)

They purchased the cottage in 2008 and Mr. J took to it right away - here is a picture from our first visit

There are so many activities to do - swimming, building sand castles, collecting pine cones from the yard

watching the ducks swim across the lake

and playing in the boats they have

It took a few summers for Mr. J to be comfortable going out in the boat, which he can only do with my uncle, as none of us have our boaters license.  In Canada, anyone driving a boat is required to be licensed (it is now mandatory), you can check out the website here for more information.  

Another favorite activity is heading to the restaurant across the street from the cottage, they have delicious ice cream and the boys look forward to getting a cone to have! Sometimes we sit in the parking lot to eat them, but other times we cross the street back to the cottage and sit on the deck over looking the water!

Mr. J and Mr. K can hardly wait until our first visit to the cottage this summer.  What about you - what are some of your favorite summer activities or places to visit?

Monday Giveaway Linky

It's Monday again - and that means it is time for Tales of Mommyhood's Monday Giveaway Linky; feel free to list all your open giveaways below, but remember to list which countries the giveaway is open to! Thanks for listing, and good luck to those entering. To gain more exposure, tweeting or sharing the linky is greatly appreciated.