Food finds

So, today was the first time I actually broke down and cried over money. I've watched our savings fall for the last three months, and thankfully we'll be getting a nice tax return that will keep us afloat for the next few months. Today, our entire mortgage payment used the overdraft protection. We were two months away from completely sinking. Our family still has one more nest egg, but we're house poor. We can't refinance because I don't work anymore, and we probably wouldn't be approved for the loan we have. I had been freelancing for a while after I quit, and we were just fine, until my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and couldn't babysit while I worked. I thought we'd continue to be fine, but I didn't realize how much I really made while freelancing.

So, I went to the store today, looking for more food solutions. Hubby and I decided that food would now only be purchased with cash. Credit card would be for gasoline only. Our budget for food for our family of four is $100 a week. One solution I found this week was our pizza friday. Long ago back when money was easy, we used to order pizza/or chinese on fridays. Almost every weekend, silly I know. Then we knew we had to cut back on take outs, so we would buy frozen pizzas, or walmarts pizza. Was a good move, because it took $30 friday night dinners to $10 dollars to make it ourselves at home. But now that our budget is 100% a week, I can't think that one dinner can be 10% of our budget. So I stumbled on something that will help.

While looking for a premade pizza crust to try to make our own pizza, I found a box of Jiffy pizza crust mix. My jaw hit the floor, I have had their muffin mixes in a pinch, but I had never seen the pizza crust. It was only 48 cents. What a tremendous savings. So now I was on a mission, I had to get cheese, which was a splurge at $2.50 for two cups of shredded mozzerella. I don't know yet if that will last for two pizzas or not, I'll be sure to share.

 

For pizza sauce, you can buy little cans of tomato paste, even organic for less then a dollar. This little can was 69 cents, and the jar of organic speghetti sauce is about $2.50 if you are choosy, and I think it would make great pizza sauce. That jar would go quite a ways.

 

So all in all, the pizza crust being .49 cents, paste .69, cheese 1.75 comes to 3.69 for a family pizza dinner. Being a vegetarian I would probably toss some vegetables that I have laying around the house to make it interesting, but what a difference in price. Maybe we'll be ok after all.