Super Saving Saturday/ half way through month 2

This week at Gaint, my bill came to 80.37
After Bonus Club and coupons I spent 50.87.
(24 bucks under budget)

Apple and Eve Juice was a good deal - after coupons, they were 1.17 each.
Barilla pasta was .09 after coupon.
Vitamin waters were FREE - priced 10/10 and I had 3 $1 coupons.

Other good deals without coupons: Shredded cheese was 3/4 (1.34 each) which is an excellent price. OJ was also 3/4. We go through one of these a day in this house.

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This week, I made split pea and ham soup with the leftover bone from Easter Dinner. I kind of concocted my own recipe, but it came out delicious and cheap and is something I will surely make again - probably soon!

I also made my own whole wheat pizza crust - from scratch. It was quite tasty.
I tend to shy away from recipes involving yeast (not sure why, but it just seems like one of those things that I would mess up without much effort) but 'kneading my own dough' made me feel domestic and kind of "Donna Reid-ish." For a minute I thought I might try to make my own bread sometime, but I'm highly doubtful that will happen.
We have been trying to make our own pizza whenever we can, but I have some cash put aside in case we're in a pinch and need to order out. I noticed that our favorite pizza place offers a special during the week - 2 large pies for 16 bucks! The catch? It's M-Th only. So, we just moved our regularly scheduled pizza night from Friday to earlier in the week and we can save a few bucks.

I also stopped to think how cost effective it might be for me to make my own cookies, rather than buy them - and when I can get the ingredients for next to nothing, it only makes sense for me to bake them myself. The only problem is, I'll probably eat more than my fair share.

I'm still planning our meals according to what is on sale, and usually making enough to freeze for future meals. I've learned that Bobby really loves to cook, so I've been letting him take over in the kitchen - mostly on the weekends. He can make an incredible pork roast and very yummy chicken soup from scratch.

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The month is more than half over. We have only spent $60 on gas so far this month - which boggles my mind! I am below budget on groceries as well. Month 2 has been a good month so far. We will be having a garage sale next weekend, and we're hoping to bring in at least $200. We've got a quite a few big ticket items and as long as we sell them, we should meet our goal easily.

This month, we paid $500 to our debt. That's $200 more than last month and 15 TIMES the minimum payment!
Next month, we are already budgeting for some gardening and golfing for Bobby. The kids will have their portraits done and were having the upholstery professionally cleaned - with cash - ALL with cash!

I better quit blabbing so I have something to post about at the end of the month!