An uneventful Saturday, to the say the least.

I was wide awake about 7am.  Jumped up to go potty and heard Steve shuffling in.  He had remembered there was no TP in the master bath so he brought me some in.  Very sweet of him! (Sorry, may be TMI but I don’t care.  It touched my heart! LOL)

I decided I wasn’t ready to face the day so I jumped back into bed and dozed for another hour and a half or so until I heard Sammy whimpering.  I shot up when I heard him jump off the bed and throw up on the floor.  Poor guy!  He has such a sensitive stomach sometimes.  Plus, it’s been real dry in here these days and I think he’s having some hairball issues.  But it was a quick clean up and he seemed okay the rest of the day, so not to worry.

It took me forever to get motivated but I finally did.  I made a grocery list and set a budget then headed out to the new Bi-Lo down the road, which has quickly become my go-to grocery store (when I don’t feel like trekkin’ to Publix).  I was only in there an hour and half and came in $34 under budget.  I saved $54 and now have a little over two weeks worth of groceries.

I’m not a heavy coupon clipper and I never take the time to double-coupon or stockpile on things and only pay like $5 for 18 bottles of shampoo or something, but I have my techniques.  I’m only shopping for two people but we try to be a bit budget friendly, mostly because I hate wasting food.  Here’s what I’ve been doing lately:

• Planning my meals around the sales.  This may be a no-brainer, but it didn’t even occur to me to do this before.  I would just plan my meals then buy what I needed for the recipes, regardless of whether it was on sale.  This has made a good difference for us.
• Compromise on name brands.  There are certain things that I will not buy generic.  Diet Dr. Pepper, for example.  I drink a lot of this – it literally is my coffee, my cigarettes, my get up and go.  I’m probably very addicted to it.  But only Diet Dr. Pepper.  No Diet Dr. Bob.  No store brand stuff.  It doesn’t come near the real kind.  So I won’t buy anything else.  But Steve will drink store brand soda.  And other things, like mac-n-cheese – it’s ok to buy generic.  Or paper products (as long as the toilet paper is two-ply).  Set your standards and then work with them on other things.
• Cut your own meat (or, don’t fall victim to convenience).  I’m not saying that you should open a butcher shop in your house or raise and slaughter cows in your backyard.  I’m explaining that there are certain things that you can do yourself to help cut down on the expense of the meat.  Because I know every other trip, I’m spending a LOT more money because I’m trying to replenish my meat supply.  Buy split chicken breasts.  With a good knife, you can turn them into boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  I bought a pack of five today (roughly 4.5 pounds) and paid $1.57 per pound.  They were selling the already cut boneless, skinless breasts for $2.99 a pound and you could only buy them in packs of 2.5 to 3 pounds or so.  I also bought two sirloins steaks, roughly two pounds a piece, and with a good cut, turned them into four meals.  I then freeze them all and just pull them out when we are going to make each meal.
• Don’t be afraid of marked down meat.  I’m not talking about the stuff that is past the expiration date or the really discounted stuff.  I’m talking about the stuff that might expire tomorrow and they need to get it off the shelf.  I saved three dollars on each pack of split chicken breasts today because they needed to be moved tomorrow.  I brought them home, cut them and placed them in the freezer.  The key is to inspect them first in the store.  If beef is dark all over, probably not good to buy.  If chicken is really runny and smells a bit, not good to buy.  Just know what you’re comfortable with.
• Know your store.  I know the general layout of the common stores that I visit in my head and when I make my list, I separate everything I need into sections of the store.  That way I’m not running all over hell and creation trying to get what I need and in turn, am not passing the temptations of end-caps and sales and such.

I’m sure there’s more but those are the ones I can think of the top of my head.  I’ve tried to do the coupon thing but I always forget to buy a paper and I’m just not that dedicated.  Mostly, I stick to buying the generics when I can, splitting large purchases of meat over quite a few meals and having our common, cheap, go-to recipes that I can add to the mix when we really need to budget crunch.

Of course, I buy all the food and we haven’t even eaten dinner.  Steve played hours upon hours of video games and I read a little bit of the new book I’ve started (in the sidebar, Love The One You’re With by Emily Giffen – I can truly say that I am 36 pages in and I’m am enchanted!).  I also casted on for my first actual knitting project: a basketweave scarf in a cheap, but really soft pine yarn that may or not be succesful as I’ve already ripped the stitches like five times and am now only three rows in.  Knitting and perfectionism: probably not the best combination.

Also, it doesn’t help that when I pulled the new skein out of the bag, Sammy went a bit crazy sniffing it and Steve egged him on, saying “Get it, Sam!”.  So the dog ended up trying to grab the skein and when he finally got a hold of it, he zoomed off the couch and whipped it around like he does the five million other ACTUAL toys that he has.  Because you know, my yarn is a toy now!  And in doing so, he unraveled a good half of it so now I have to manually keep unraveling it as I’m knitting.  Lesson learned: will keep the yarn away from the dog from now on.

Then, we pretty much lazed around.  Steve made me watch The Monster Squad. Now I’m catching up on some TiVo.  My house is still a wreck and I don’t know if I will get around to cleaning it tomorrow.  I should because it’s supposed to be a rainy day but I really just want to hang out, watch more TiVo, knit and read some more.

I guess we shall see tomorrow.  It’s a shame Chick-Fil-A isn’t open.  Their Chick-N-Minis would be a great way to start it off!

For now, it’s off to torture Steve with reality TV and maybe fill up on one of the few splurges I allowed myself today: Oreos or Ben & Jerry’s!