Ugh, is it morning already?

So I had a dream last night that we were doing Christmas early for some reason. I didn't have anything more for the kids than I have right now- a couple of books each, a book bag each, and a movie for Raegan. The kids were all asking where the rest of their stuff was.

Christmas is on my mind lately, I guess. I'm trying to get to $150 here on Gather, but I've been slacking. Not posting, not viewing, just slacking. I'm at $111 in points right now. My goal is to have $50 to spend on each of the kids. Part of it will be broken up into 3 $25 Target gift cards to give them, and the other $25 is to spend on them.

Aside from that, we won't be spending much, if anything, on Christmas this year. Nick's company halted pay raises, quarterly bonuses, and there's a strong liklihood that the Christmas bonus won't happen this year as well. The company is doing well. In fact, they just announced yesterday that they are showing higher profits than last year. Yes, profits- higher than last year, which was labeled as one of the highest profit earning years in the company's history. But, they're nervous over the economy, so they halted the annual payraise back in January. They nixed the 4th quarter bonus for last year (which is usually given in February or March of the next year), and there hasn't been a raise or bonus since.

All in all, it means Nick's earning about $5-6k less on the year, even though his income is technically the same.

Ugh.

I did an actual meal plan. We got into some bad habits over the summer of picking up junk, and running to the store 3-4 times over a 2 week period. I wasn't ever getting meal type groceries for what ever reasons, and we blew a lot of money doing it that way.

When we went grocery shopping on Saturday, I had a meal plan down, so that we would get enough actual food for meals enough for dinner every day, plus easy lunches and breakfasts. Sunday, we made our first pot roast, plus a big breakfast. Last night, I made a pizza spaghetti bake. Well, we wound up with left overs from both, so tonight is left over night.

Heck, because we added garlic bread and a green bean/wax bean mix to the dinner last night, we wound up eating less than half of the bake. I make the bake using 1/3 of a 2 pound container of hamburger, half a package of sausage, and a full package of pepperoni for meat. I brown the burger & sausage together with some garlic & Italian seasonings.

Then, while that's browning, I boil up whatever noodles we have on hand. We haven't actually used spaghetti noodles for any type of spaghetti since Chris was a baby. It was far easier when the kids were little to use rotini noodles, because they didn't have to be cut up for the kids to be able to spear them.

Anyway, last night, we used a mix of bow tie & rotini noodles. For the sauce, I used 2 cans of Hunt's spaghetti sauce, 1 small can of tomato sauce, and 1 can of diced tomatoes. Then, once the noodles & meat were done, I layer the noodles & sauce, then sprinkle on the burger/sausage combo, then layer on pepperoni, then cheese. I get 2 layers from doing it that way, and then the meat & cheese are mixed in through out it. For the top layer, I put the pepperoni on top, instead of under the cheese.

All in all, though, it made 1 13x9 pan, and 1 9x9 pan's worth of Pizza spaghetti bake. Typically, we go through the 13 x 9, and use the 9x9 for lunches over the next couple of days. Last night, we didn't even touch the 13 x 9 pan, so I put the rubber lid on the dish, and stuck the whole thing right in the fridge. That's 1 whole dinner right there. We an make up some garlic bread out of regular bread yet, if we want. Add a can of veggies, and we're good!

Back to the meal plan, though- because I shopped a meal plan, we have enough stuff for meals every night over the rest of this week, and all of next.

To help lower costs, I've included some easier meals, too. For instance, two nights a week, we're going to have soup & sandwich night. I didn't shop our pantry first, because I knew we had the extra money to splurge on the groceries. As a result, even though we did the first soup/sandwich night on Saturday, we still have enough cans of soup for 9 & 1/2 nights of soup & sandwiches for dinner. I got cheese for grilled cheese sandwiches, and tuna for tuna fish sandwiches. That way, we can change up what we're doing, but it's still a nice cheap meal.

We also picked up 10 pounds of potatoes to do for various nights- they went in the pot roast, we fried some up with breakfast, we can boil & mash some, etc. It was $.50/pound, though, so nice and cheap filler.

This week is supposed to be yucky and rainy and cold. Saturday, it's supposed to clear up and be sunny- with a freaking high of 45 is all. If it's not raining, though, I think we'll try to do the pumpkin patch this weekend, since we'll have the money to do it this weekend, and we can get it out of the way. We'll just bundle up with hats, mittens, and warm jackets first.

It's nice and quiet right now. I love that about mornings, once Chris & Rae are out the door. Gilly was already up and dressed, and had her breakfast by then, so she's just playing with the cats.