They’re back: Budgeting & Weekly Dinner Menu!
One of my beautiful orchids bloomed for me!! Over the weekend the other bud bloomed fully. I was very pleased to see such a magnificent sight when I came back Sunday night!
Since I have not blogged lately, I have also not posted about our food budgeting and weekly dinner menus. In the past two months we have stuck to our budget give and take a few weeks. Last week was one of those weeks where we did not make budget. To counteract that we’re carrying over the expense of last weeks deficit to this weeks budget of $80.00. Here’s what we’ve spent on so far:
| When | What | Amount |
| Sat 7/3 & Sun 7/4 | ‘bucks, Jamba Juice, Di Lac (vegetarian food): | $23.50 |
| Monday 7/5 | Whole Foods (-2.15 in coupons): | $17.50 |
| $$$ Left for week: | $39.00 |
$39.00….that seems a bit daunting…..Hopefully this weekly dinner menu will keep us on track with the budget…
Now, here’s this week’s dinner menu:
| When | What | Amount |
| Monday | Pizza | ? |
| Tuesday | Green Beans (free) & Tomatoes ($0.79/lb = $1.23) with rice | $1.23 |
| Wednesday | Stir fry w/ waterspinach Vegetables and rice | |
| Thursday | Vermicelli noodles with vegetables and Bi chay | |
| Friday | Tofurky dogs with mashed potatoes and spicy corn | |
| Saturday | Chipotle (with coupon) |
It is going to be a challenging week to get all of that from Tuesday to Saturday to be $39.00 and under, but I as said earlier, I am hopeful. I did something that I normally do not do and that is to include a column for the amount spent on those items needed for that day’s dinner. I’ll fill those in as the week progresses. For Monday’s it is unknown because that was basically from last weeks budget.
Now some people might ask “what about breakfast and lunch?” Well, that is actually already covered either from the pantry items and or last weeks shopping trips and also from the fact that we get vegetables whenever we visit family. All bought last week were: about 7 boxes of different cereals (all bought with coupons), bread, frozen vegetables. What was bought this week so far: milks (bought today at Whole Foods with coupons), energy bars (for when there is not time to eat), yogurt (on sale), a few fruits (some from family).
In the end all of the food consumed all manage to fit into the budget somehow and manage to come out of the $80.00 for the week from previous and current weeks.
Here’s Monday’s Lunch, snacks & dinner:
Sandwich: Multi grain wheat bread, bi chay, seitan, spinach, mayo, mustard, lettuce.
Bi chay is a filling that is put into Vietnamese sandwiches, spring rolls, salads and can also be eaten with noodles and rice. Recipes differ, but they mainly consist of tofu, Jicama, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, noodles, taro all deep or pan fried. Absolutely delicious!
granola cereal on top of blueberry soy yogurt from WholeSoy
Homemade pizza: There were two types of pizza’s, one made with just white flour and the other was a cornmeal dough. The toppings were the same for each. I also added Nutritional yeast and sriracha hot sauce.
Here is the first one (made with white flour) looked like cooking in the toaster oven
Here is the cornmeal dough pizza waiting to be put into the toaster oven while we eat the first one… 
Sweet and sour mangoes are the best closer for the night!
Here are some random photos from last week and the weekend:
My chaotic desk was finally organized before the weekend started.
Good night!
