Monday- T-Bones, Smashed Baby Red Potatoes, Green Beans in Olive Oil/Garlic/Tarragon and Strapplesauce (applesauce with fresh pureed strawberries)

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Tuesday- Whole Wheat French Toast and Orange Juice

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Wednesday- Mexican Pizzas, Grilled Zucchini and Fresh Pineapple

(recipe calls for meat, we will omit meat)

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Thursday- Herb Roasted Chicken, Jasmine Rice, Fried Zucchini and Red Grapes

(I roast 2 chickens, we eat one for supper, make sandwiches with leftovers and shred the other chicken for weekend meals)

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Friday- Homemade Pizza and Ice Cream Cones for dessert!

(dessert not homemade lol)

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Saturday- Garlic & Herb White Bean Soup, Fresh Bread w/butter and a Veg

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Sunday- Chicken Sandwiches on Whole Wheat, Carrot Sticks, and Cantaloupe

Kids will opt for Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches

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We try to have sandwiches on Sundays. Easy on mom and little clean up. I now make all our beans in the pressure cooker. You get the most delectable beans from the pressure cooker. Perfect creamy texture, intact skins and the skins are never chewy. So wonderful! Refried beans-I like to cook pinto beans in the pressure cooker with some onion, garlic and cumin- then drain and mash adding some chicken broth  to thin for my desired consistency and salt for taste. Crazy good - and cheap!

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 I have also found that I like to cook  2 roaster chickens at once in my roaster oven (not my regular oven too hot for that and the roaster makes them so succulent almost like rotisserie). Sometimes I just freeze the other cooked chicken. My family seems to never tire just eating off the bird along with some bread and a veg and they are happy! And it's the cheapest way to buy chicken (.99/lb). I get thighs, wings, breasts...and all the dark meat my little heart desires. *wink* If I need to make a recipe that calls for parts I just hack it up myself- but like I said my family seems to prefer to just eat roasted chicken as it is.

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I also have a small garden going on and it's giving me tons of tomatoes and zucchini. So I haven't been buying much in the way of veggies. Just mostly eating the organic carrots from Costco (enormous bag for $5) and the zucchini. I buy salad fixin's still- well lettuce mostly. Fruit is our big expense I would say, right now. Summer fruit is our dessert- we partake a lot! hehe Watermelon, peaches....plums...pluots and altho it's not really a summer fruit (as it's imprted) we loveeeeee fresh pineapple. We eat it at least 2 times a month! And I have my pineapple and watermelon pickin' skills down to an art! Yum!

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Some non-food ways I have been using to save money are I bought a HUGE bucket of Charlie's Laundry Soap (the best detergent I have ever used), stopped buying fabric softener (don't need it), use baking soda and/or vinegar for nearly ALL my cleaning needs, use microfiber towels around the house to cut down on paper towel usage (I bought mine from Costco in the auto section- they are yellow and awesome and cheap and you can beat them up crazy- do not use fabric softener on them!), use damp  clean microfiber cloth to dust with, use cloth diapers (still have throw aways too!), use bar soap instead of gel (we use natural soap too), we don't go anywhere unless we have to (lol) to save on gas, we have been playing puzzles/tinker toys/wooden blocks/mega bloks/play doh/games/reading books/surfing the net and looking up random bug or animal factoids/lincoln logs/matchbox cars....and seriously...yes I mean WE. We play with the kids and we all have a great time even though we went....no where. Who knew! We also budget $20 monthly for a Blockbuster membership. We get our money's worth there! We rent 3 movies at a time (lotsa family friendly flicks!), walk them into the store and trade them in for 3 movie/game rentals (FREE) and bring them back when done and they send us next 3 movies on our queue. It's the one luxury we 'afford' because all of us going to the movies...is impossible. We can't afford it! So popcorn and movie nights are a good time here!

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(pssst....we'd go outside more but we live in Northern California and the smoke from all the hundreds of fires are so bad here that it is not healthy for lots of outdoor activities with little kids and an already out of breath pregnant woman so please know we do things outside when we can!)

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Many of these things most people already do. But these are things that are working for us. Cost of living is going up but my husband's wages haven't moved in 2 years. And we aren't holding our breath for a raise and we are adding on a new little person. LOL So I might get even more daring with my cutbacks as time goes on! Who knows?! =0)

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Hope everyone is having a fun summer!