November and December

I’m sorry that it has been so long since my last post...my computer and I were having a little disagreement.  But it has been fixed (for free- thank you Apple Care), and we are back in business.  I have been very excited about the last two months of grocery shopping.  In November, after looking through what we have on hand and doing my meal planning accordingly, I was pleased to realize that I only needed a handful of items for the month.  Apples, carrots, spinach, frozen edamame and broccoli, dried basil, coconut milk, and red curry sauce all made the list.  The total was a whopping $38.35 for the month.  To be very transparent, I needed a container of vegan cream cheese later in the month, so add $2.99 to that total.

For the month of December, (which I completely forgot to photograph), I decided just to purchase the few items we needed to restock and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.  I have a lot of food in our pantry and freezer to use up, which will supplement the produce that we bought to create our meals.  Things like bell peppers, spinach, asparagus, brussels sprouts, broccoli, onion, apples and some spices made it into the cart, plus hempseeds, olive oil, and canned stewed tomatoes.  Our total came out just under $114.  

My in-laws were also here this month, and they treated us to a few groceries that we needed such as bulk popcorn kernels, vinegar, coffee, salmon, mahi, and a couple other items that will definitely save us money in the coming months.  Thank you Mom and Dad Peterson!

My goal over the next couple of months is to clear out some of the space in our big freezer that is in our garage.  As a matter of fact, I am headed down now to get out a frozen crockpot meal that we can have for dinner tonight.  Thanks to a day of hard work several months ago, dinner will be mess and stress free tonight...yay!

I am very happy to have had such low food costs these past couple months because the holidays always stretch our budget.  We are not big on gift giving in our house, but there are countless opportunities to give money (and/or time) to charitable causes.  I will, however, be hand-making something small for friends and family, which I will be sure to share more about in my next post.

How do you keep your food costs down during the holidays?  Do you prefer to donate rather than buy gifts in your family?  What are some of your favorite homemade gifts?  Thank you for reading, and happy holidays!