Ooh, is this the recipe that was posted on Budget Bytes last month? I've been wanting to try that. Not sure if my reflux will cooperate with that much tomato sauce. ---- Our February Menu (so far): Friday 2/1 - Frozen Pizza, Taquitos, and Tater Tots (junk food night... I had nothing healthy left in the house except a half-bag of peas, lol) Saturday 2/2 - Grilled Hamburgers, Roasted Potatoes and Corn, Salad... and homemade cranberry sauce that I put in the fridge to set and forgot to serve Sunday 2/3 - Buffalo Meatballs, Raw Veggies and Ranch Dip, Tortilla/Potato/GF Bagel Chips and Hummus/Salsa (GF bagel chips were a damaged box marked down to 0.99) Monday 2/4 - Lentil Chili with Avocado and Cheese, Salad, Cornbread Tuesday 2/5 - Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken, Rice, Salad Wednesday 2/6 - Venison Fajitas, Rice and Beans, Chips and Salsa, Sweet Corn Cake Thursday 2/7 - Broccoli Mushroom Stir Fry Noodles (or plain noodles for the non-soy sauce eater) Friday 2/8 - Junk Food Night (this month I have frozen pizza, mini tacos, and potato skins) Saturday 2/9 - Chicken Adobo with Rice, Veggies TBD Sunday 2/10 - Red Beans and Rice, Veggies TBD Monday 2/11 - "Clean Out the Freezer" Leftovers night (using up anything labeled from Thanksgiving through mid-January) Tuesday 2/12 - Taco Tuesday This weekend for breakfast we had leftover French Toast and chocolate chip muffins, and DS9 made "American flag fruit kebobs" from a craft book. Haven't decided on next weekend's breakfasts yet.

The sorta-clean during the day and full-on cleaning after dinner option. I probably should have the kids help with the evening clean up but at that time of day I want them to Go. Somewhere. Else. I will say that I have to do a lot more work to keep the kitchen and dining room clean because I do not have a dog. The people I know with dogs don’t have to sweep up many crumbs, just dog hair.

I went out last night and this morning to get the grocery shopping done and spent more in two days on food than I did the entire month of January. Ouch. On the bright side, it’s a short month, and I should have enough to last through the beginning of March. Other than another quick trip to Sam’s and Costco for some sale items, I have everything but milk and produce (ETA: I do have milk and produce for the next week or so, I meant after that). I also splurged a bit on some things to celebrate the low January spending - some huge sirloin burgers marked down to $2/each, fresh strawberries, the ingredients to make homemade ice cream (DS9 has some root beer syrup from Christmas to make root beer float ice cream!), and a couple bags of potato chips. After a couple days of sub-zero temps, we are now enjoying 60+ degree weather (well I am, DH is being walloped by sinuses and allergies). I used a free car wash coupon (and bought a second for the other vehicle, can’t find my other coupon), and DS10, DS5 and I cleaned and vacuumed the interiors. I’m so much more content with old cars when I can see out of the windows and mirrors, lol. Tomorrow we’re going on a bike ride on a local trail. This will be my first ride in... a very long time, and DS5’s first on a real bike. I guess I can sell the tricycle and balance bike now, my last baby can ride. It’ll be either a free fun afternoon or an ER co-pay, we’ll see. I need to sign two kids up for their spring sport ($5 off if I get it done by Monday). DS10 needs new shoes, might see if we can find a used pair. My father in law works for a shoe company and can buy returns and display pairs for $1/each, about twice a year. He typically spends $40-$50 or so to get next-size-up shoes for all the grandkids (and sometimes us adults too!). I hate to buy brand new shoes when he’ll probably have 2-3 new pairs in a couple months. Ordered the food thermometer too. Had to spend actual money at Amazon instead of a gift card to get the right kind we needed. And we needed it, can’t make yogurt or cook many meats without it.

February Goals: 1) Keep food spending under $600. Below $400 was awesome, but we have a lot more empty fridge/freezer/pantry space than when we started. 2) Continue no-spend on non-consumable stuff, except for replacing broken items. Other than trading in old items for new ice skates, I only bought three things in January, all of them replacing broken items (charcoal chimney, travel mug, baseball glove). 3) Get tax return filed. 4) Don't lose the replacement retainer. We have a birthday this month, several kid activities/registrations, and will probably host family a couple of times. Hopefully that doesn't torpedo the spending.

Happy February Eve! Yay for nothing broke, boo for sickness. Hope you all recover quickly! So last time I posted, my monthly food spending total was $360.68. Final total on January 31st.... *drumroll*... $360.68. Yep, too cold, random snow/ice during the times I could get to the store, and I just didn’t feel like going. I have one banana, about 4.5 lbs of potatoes, one avocado, about 1 cup of frozen cherries, and a small assortment of frozen veggies (kale, peas, green beans, and shredded carrots and cabbage). And about 2/3 gallon of milk. My niece and nephews are supposed to be here tomorrow, and they’ll be thrilled to fill up on homemade pizza, popcorn, and cookie bars using leftover holiday candy, lol. They’ll survive one day without a fruit bowl. $400/month is definitely not a feasible monthly budget on a regular basis. Maybe every 4-5 months in order to use up what we already have. The only major money woe this month (well, technically next month) is that we have to replace DS10’s lost retainer. $200. I Marie Kondo’d the snot out of the house and van the past couple weeks, but the retainer is definitely not here. Sigh. At least the broken glasses were covered under the warranty. I also have to replace my meat thermometer in February (dropped it one too many times), but I still have gift cards to spend on that. There was something else I needed to get from Lowe’s but I can’t think of it right now. I knew I should have written that down.... See you all in February!

Most houses have basements here. Ours is actually what sold me on the house. It’s an “L-shaped” walkout basement, and the room where the TV went is almost entirely underground and surrounded by 3 concrete walls (and drywall). When there’s a tornado watch overnight, the kids can just sleep down there and we don’t have to wake them up to move them if a tornado heads for us. Honestly, I’d refuse to buy a house without a basement here unless it was my only option. Because tornados and kid noise levels. We just had ours recently remodeled and have more usable space than before. It looks way nicer than the rest of the house.

Sidetrack, is there an Aldi anywhere near Universal Studios? We'll be there in May and need to buy some groceries once we get there. Last time we were in Florida we were in Panama City Beach, and there wasn't an Aldi anywhere for miles and miles and miles. I about fell over at the grocery prices.

For pancakes, the King Arthur brand Gluten Free Pancake Mix makes the best pancakes I've ever had - gluten or not. I do usually add a bit of maple syrup and vanilla extract to the batter out of personal preference, but it's fine without. As long as you really do let the batter rest for 10 minutes before griddling, they turn out perfect (sometimes DH jumps the gun and they end up kinda flat). Lately I've just been making pancakes with the Measure for Measure flour because I'm trying to not pay $4.50/box for pancakes... not as good, but they get the job done. GF pancakes are heavier than regular ones, so if he normally eats three at a time, one or two may be enough to fill him up. I made these for my niece and nephews last year, who tried to eat the same amount they normally do, and they didn't feel well afterward. Oops. Do you have a Costco? They have GF frozen pizzas and GF chicken nuggets (I buy these for my not-GF kid because they are "plain and unseasoned" and he doesn't like seasoning... as he drowns them in ketchup). We buy a lot from Aldi too. Their store brand rice krispies are GF, to make treats or chewy granola bars. We don't go out to eat at all anymore (DH can eat Five Guys on work trips, but other than that he usually reacts), and other than having to buy specific, safe brands, I often forget that I cook entirely gluten free. I know a lot of people recommend not eating any processed/imitation GF items at first, but I think it's really helpful to figure out quick, edible snacks (instead of Goldfish crackers) you can keep in the car when you're out past lunch, or what to throw in the freezer for an emergency dinner now that Domino's is a no-go.

Nope, that’s what I meant. Snap, Crackle, and Pop with all the temperature and pressure fluctuations.

I didn’t really take the weather into account for my menu, but I do have ham and potato soup on the menu for Wednesday, when it’ll be 0F outside. And then grilled chicken this weekend when it’ll be back up into the 60’s. Bring on the Rice Krispies in my sinuses.

Well now I feel like a weenie. I was also hoping to get out of driving to violin lessons on Wednesday, but it’s going to be a balmy 0F here (with wind chills reaching -40F).

The Good Stuff: We have $39.32 left if I want to keep the grocery bill under $400 for the month. I have to run into Aldi on Wednesday, but my last produce/milk run there was only $23. I think I can do it! I did a quick run through the 1040 for taxes and unless I royally screwed something up, our refund is also higher than expected. We adjusted withholding as bit, but not enough apparently. I signed up on Ibotta at the end of December to come up with a few more dollars on stuff I already buy to help pay for the kids activities, and I already have $33 in the account. I try to pick mostly free/cheap activities (and there are a LOT in this city) but I do have one set of tickets this semester that will cost ~$50. DS10’s glasses broke, not because of anything he did. I think it was a poorly soldered pair. They are still under warranty so they are being replaced for free. DH got a code from a friend-of-a-friend to try out a new video game instead of pre-ordering it first. Despite the cold weather, our electric usage is way down compared to last year. We’ve replaced a couple appliances, a door, and three windows in that time, plus bumped the thermostat down a couple degrees, and it seems to be making a difference. It looks like we’ll have 12 zero-spending days this month, including bill paying. If we only count shopping/activities and not bill payment, that goes up to 16 days. Doesn’t seem that impressive, but bills were sort of spread out, and a couple days were just a couple bucks in cash for parking or activity fees. The Not-So-Good (on the budget) Stuff: My Costco list is already enormous for February. I’m going to need another Vitacost order soon, and maybe Amazon, too. DS10’s retainer is missing. I’m going to tear up his room looking for it today, but we may have to replace it. I also need a dental appointment and possibly more work done. Our escrow payment is going up because our property taxes went up. I can’t complain though because it’s mostly an increase for our library, which desperately needed it! Because of the weather and sort-of illnesses keeping us home a lot, we are blowing through school work, and I need to start making a list of new curriculum we need. I thought we could just “go sideways” and use other materials we already have, but I think we’ll run out of that too. Finally, I got our phone plan sorted out, but because I switched payment methods and due dates, I ended up having to pay the bill twice this month (although bill #2 was much smaller). ******* @soror, I’m glad your DH is okay! And yay for soon-to-be-paid-off vehicles! DH wants a truck and 4WD but the gas costs always hold us back. He has a low gas mileage commuter car, but it barely made it up the hill in our subdivision the other night during the snow. My brother and his Jeep friends were driving all over the county towing and pushing cars that the sheriff’s department and tow trucks couldn’t get to. @HomeAgain, staying that far under the grocery budget even with kitchen appliance and plumbing issues is awesome! I hear you about the winter blues. My laptop screen background was snow, and I changed it to a beach last night. But even that beach looked cold. We’re getting single-digit high temps this week and I just want to camp out in my tiny bathroom with the space heater all day. And dream of palm trees.

Before I had kids, I was an emergency dispatcher at a small agency, where it was me and one other person in a small room with a lot of down time, and officers going in and out most of the day. Most of my coworkers had adult or older teen children who called their parent at work for this and that. And I kid you not, every single one of them would be kind and "normal" on the phone with their kids, and as soon as they hung up the complaining and swearing and eyerolling would start, no matter what the conversation was about. It seemed that none of them were able to have functional relationships without behind-the-back irritation and annoyance. They'd make stuff up if they couldn't find anything to bother them. It was a line of work that naturally attracted negative personalities with a permanent stick up their butts, but it was shocking how they all extended the same irritation they showed "frequent callers" and obnoxious sergeants to their own family members. It's not you, there's a surprising number of people that just are this way and seem to need invisible conflict to maintain a relationship. Of course, I may be reading into it when the truth is a more benign explanation, but I heard so many times the "parent-half" of those kinds of conversations that it stuck out in my head immediately.

Is it possible that your dad was annoyed by a day-of pickup request (assuming that this was a scheduled early release and not a weather related thing) instead of something planned out in advance?

I’ve tried the monthly shopping thing before, but it just wasn’t flexible enough. I’d miss sales or go over budget running out to get those anyway, menu would get switched around and stuff would go bad before I could use it, I’d miscalculate how much we would need and have way too much or not enough. I am trying to limit my Costco shopping to once a month and that seems to be working. We did run out of tortilla chips, but fortunately had a few extra bags that were marked down at a different store. At the same time, trying to stop at the store every few days wasn’t working either. I’d overbuy sale items and ignore what I already had. What seems to be working here this month is hitting Aldi every 7-10 days, running into other stores just for their loss leaders, and never taking the kids into the store. 🤣 The spotty weather seems to have enforced this routine, we’ll see if it holds up in a few months once the snowy and dreary weather clears out.

The illness sounds similar to what I had a few years ago, shigellosis. I was hospitalized for a few days for it. The county health department called after I was home and basically told me not to leave the house or use the same bathroom as anyone else for 2-3 weeks, let alone travel anywhere. I hope he feels better soon!

Tonight is Roasted Red Pepper and Spinach Pasta. Or there's spaghetti sauce and plain noodles for those who prefer that. Several of us put up weekly menus in the monthly frugalista thread. Lots of ideas in there! The rest of our week: Tuesday: Taco Tuesday, Frozen Veggies Wednesday: Shrimp Dragon Noodles (or plain rice), Salad Thursday: Tex Mex Black Eyed Peas Casserole, Carrots, Salad Friday: Junk Food Night (last week was frozen pizza, tater tots, and spinach dip... this week TBD) Saturday: Sheet Pan Sausages and Veggies, Some Sort of Bread, Cranberry Sauce Sunday: Mango Habanero/BBQ Wings and Drumsticks, Carrots/Celery/Cukes and Dip

I made ham and navy bean soup in the Instant Pot last week with a ham bone. It was so, so, so good. I had intended to put a couple servings in the freezer for backup lunches, but it didn’t survive that long.🤣

Here's how we did on last week's menu: Tonight: Leftovers. Two kinds of chicken tortilla soup (chipotle or reflux-friendly), ham and bean soup, baked pears and granola, cornbread, salad, homemade GF pretzel bites and cheese sauce, and snow. I think I threw out one pear that didn't get eaten.Monday: Black Bean Enchiladas, Roasted Potatoes, Avocado Ranch Dip, Salad Yum, only threw out a couple tablespoons of ranch dip.Tuesday: Lemon Pepper Chicken and Orzo, Brussels Sprouts... although I don't have any lemon pepper, so it may just be pepper chicken This was kind of a disaster in the Instant Pot, but I transferred it to the stove and made it edible. The brussels sprouts were tasty as always (roasted and drizzled with kosher salt and maple syrup). All eaten.Wednesday: Sausage and Broccoli Pasta, Brazilian Cheese Balls (depending on my mood), Salad Had extra chicken, made chicken and orzo soup instead, and garlic cheese toast instead of bread balls. I made the pasta and divided it up into containers for lunches Thursday and Friday. All eaten.Thursday: Ranch Pork Chops, Roasted Whatever Vegetables are Left, Apples (Baked? Raw? Sauced?) Used up the last of the ranch in the pork chop marinade/breading, and baked them on a sheet pan with carrots. I just sliced up apples and put them on their plates. I also made a triple batch of savory rice and had enough spinach for small salads. All eaten.Friday: Junk Food Night (Frozen Pizzas and Tater Tots) I had a frozen GF pizza and pepperonis bought on markdown for DH (kids get regular Costco frozen pizza), and I also made a batch of spinach dip to go with tortilla chips (Christmas ones bought on markdown, too). Still a bit of dip left.Saturday: Ham, Cheese Grits, Toast, Fruit and Veggies (for lunch, weekend dinners are leftovers) I got a late start on breakfast, so I combined the two for brunch - added scrambled eggs, bacon and plain/almond dutch babies, plus I had a roll of blueberry vanilla goat cheese from Christmas that we never ate. Sauteed peppers and onions from the freezer, too. About 75% gone, had the grits for breakfast today.Sunday: Lentil Risotto, Veggies TBD Instant pot recipe, turned out MUCH better than the orzo (added Parmesan cheese at the end). Did green beans almondine and gluten free biscuits for sides. Delicious! DH and I will eat these leftovers for lunch today. Monthly grocery total is $313 so far, which includes some junk food for extra kids in the house today and a whole pork butt roast to make pulled pork next month (probably for DH's birthday - already have a cheesecake and GF pie crust for that too!). Still quite a bit of leftovers in the fridge too. This week's menu (I'm kinda winging it on sides for the most part): Monday: Roasted Red Pepper and Spinach Pasta (or spaghetti), Peas and Carrots Tuesday: Taco Tuesday, Frozen Veggies Wednesday: Shrimp Dragon Noodles (or plain rice), Salad Thursday: Tex Mex Black Eyed Peas Casserole, Carrots, Salad Friday: Junk Food Night Saturday: Sheet Pan Sausages and Veggies, Some Sort of Bread, Cranberry Sauce Sunday: Mango Habanero and Barbecue Wings/Drumsticks, Carrots/Celery/Cukes and Dip I have two more grocery store runs this month, mostly just milk and produce. I'm still hoping to come in under $400. Unfortunately, my Costco list for next month is already very long. At least it's been too cold/snowy/icy to go spend money anywhere. I mentioned before that I passed up a couple pints of pumpkin spice latte ice cream, even though it was marked down to 99 cents. It was still there, and this time I bought it. Turns out, there was an Ibotta rebate for each pint for $1.25 each, so I made a little money off each of them. The Ibotta money pays for the kids' co-op activities and field trips, so every little bit helps! I'm going to need that ice cream after having six noisy kids stuck in the house all day. Oy.

We had the same experience with the Bosch. It barely washed anything, constantly moldy and gross on the inside, had to replace the sprayer arms at least once a year, and eventually we quit using it. Suddenly one day it came back to life on its own, without anyone going near it, turning off and on randomly all day like a ghost was messing with me... and then the pump broke. We ended up replacing it with a Maytag with the hard food disposer. Much better.

So, my dishwasher (it's a Maytag with the garbage disposal in it) has the dirty dish sensor thing, and after a little bit it'll adjust the time based on how dirty the dishes are. I watched DH, a scraper-not-rinser, load the dishwasher after lunch today, and I unloaded it. I had cooked lentil risotto, green beans almondine, and gluten free biscuits for lunch. Everything came out of the dishwasher perfectly clean... except whatever had touched biscuit dough looked like it hadn't seen a speck of water, even though it had been soaking in the sink while we were eating. I'm guessing since there were so few biscuit-making dishes in there, the less-filthy dishes fooled the sensor into thinking everything was hunky dory at a normal wash setting. I think when there's enough goopy stuff in there to trigger the sensor, it's fine. One biscuit dough bowl and spoon aren't going to be enough. I *could* have just hand washed the biscuit bowl, but that would have required remembering to tell DH what not to put in there. After ten years he's finally figuring out where things go in the cabinets, I don't want to confuse him further.

I have an "excited stim" (rapidly scrunching the back of my hair between my fingers, kinda like miniature hand flapping except on my head lol), and I'm not on the spectrum as far as I know. I am self-conscious about it, but I tend to only do it at home and not out in public. It's an anticipatory anxiety thing, but with happier stuff instead of a dread-anxiety reaction. I used to happy-puke as a kid ("We're going to my favorite restaurant? Awesome! Yay!" *BARF!*), so I'll take the hair-twitching and deal with the awkwardness of it. DS10 has a bit of this quirk too. DH was about to tie him to a chair (not literally of course) while they were playing D&D this morning, because he was just flailing all over the place.

Pretty much everything goes in except the enameled cast iron and the meat thermometer. The vast majority of the space is leftovers containers. When containers get used up, they go in. When they don't get used up, they get transferred to a smaller container and I wash the larger one for the next set of leftovers. We use almost no paper plates/bowls/cups/baggies. So, right now I'm in the middle of making brunch (ham, bacon, cheese grits, peppers and onions, blueberries, and two types of baked pancake), and the dishwasher is almost full. There's a mini-crock and lid, plate, utensils/cutters, dipping bowls and baskets from dinner last night (junk food night - frozen pizzas/tots/spinach dip), bowls, juice cups, coffee mugs, and smoothie cup with blender lid from breakfast this morning, a couple leftovers-type containers from who knows what (they also get used for snacks and toy hauling), three liquid measuring cups, two dry measuring cups, whisks, knives, plastic cutting board, mesh strainer, cheese grater, spoon rest, container and lid from some leftover evaporated milk that I used up cooking brunch. And two pairs of kitchen scissors that the kids used for who knows what. The small enameled pot from DS10's oatmeal is still in the sink, and there's a stock pot in the sink thawing out ham that I forgot to take out of the freezer last night. I'll hand wash those. And I'm still drinking my coffee from this morning. The rest of the day will be snacks and leftovers, but we'll still have a load of lunch dishes and whatever random things show up from this evening to run another load. ETA: The blender is in the sink too, from the pancake batter, but it'll go in the dishwasher. We used to hand wash it but I kept cutting myself on the blades, so it goes in the dishwasher now. It's practically falling apart but I'm too cheap to replace it with something worthy of hand washing. ETA #2: We also make a lot of condiments and stuff from scratch, and that adds to the dishes. Yesterday, I made a batch of coffee creamer for the weekend. The day before that I made a pint of Western-style salad dressing. DS10 used the rest of the BBQ sauce last night, so I'll make that later today (if the power stays on!). DS10 also wants to make a batch of mustard-style BBQ sauce. And in a couple days I'll need to make yogurt again. Plus, DS10 is working through The Food Lab this semester/year, so there will be more dishes from experimenting with that.

Semi-rinse. Mostly because it grosses me out to touch all the gunky dishes without constantly rinsing my hands off (smoothie cups, I'm looking at you). But if something gets left in the dishwasher dirty and only sorta-rinsed overnight, it often has to be washed a second time. We run 2-4 loads a day (usually 3), so that rarely happens. It's typically from someone piling cheese in a bowl of soup or chili and not scraping it out or soaking it. Diamonds and melted cheddar are forever.

Get some rest and feel better soon! Moving would be a lot harder with a drawn out recovery from illness.