September is almost over

We picked up a few things from QFC yesterday. Ginger sesame salad dressing for $2.44 (on sale with coupon), a container of mild salsa for $1.99 (reduced for quick sale), a cucumber for $.99 and three bananas for $.99.

We have $5.99 left to get us through this Tuesday, but I'm not concerned at all. Compared to the last few months we actually have a lot of food left in the house. So much so that rather than worrying about making those last few dollars stretch until the end of the month, we are actually stocking up on a few things in preparation for next month,

I have been thinking about how we will do our budget for October, which will be different from usual since I will be in San Diego for six days for a prenatal massage certification class, and then the following weekend we are all going to Texas to visit my mom's side of the family. I have decided to budget only based on the number of days each of us is home, and out of town meals will not be counted against the food budget. We will do what we can to reasonably minimize how much we spend while out of town, but sticking to a budget of $5 per person per day while not at home would be extremely difficult. I'd like for us to able to fully enjoy our time away from home, and not worry too much about what we are spending.

So that means next month we will be budgeting $390. I am leaving early in the morning Oct 1st, so Winter and Jeremy will need to do some shopping while I am gone. We have lots of leftover soup in the freezer, and a pretty good stock of frozen chicken breast, frozen fruit, rice, pasta, and quinoa to help them out as well.

Yesterday I got up early and made pasta sauce in the crock pot. I used two 14 oz cans of diced tomatoes, two 7.4 oz boxes of tomato sauce, one finely grated zucchini (Winter doesn't like the texture), two turkey and pepper jack sausages, granulated garlic, Italian seasoning, two tablespoons of olive oil, and 1/3 cup of red wine. I love making pasta sauce in the crock pot because the flavors get really rich after slow cooking all day, and boiling pasta when you get home is very fast. The zucchini cooked down completely, and I couldn't really tell it was there. I was concerned the turkey sausage would be weird, like having hot dog slices in spaghetti sauce, but it turned out great.

Breakfast: apple spice flavored Greek yogurt
Lunch: turkey sandwich with dijon and lettuce, last of the pinto beans with shredded hot pepper jack cheese, nectarine
Dinner: spaghetti with turkey sausage spaghetti sauce
Snacks/desserts: oatmeal cookies, cashews
Beverages: coffee with vanilla coconut milk creamer, water