This Week's Shopping and Meal Plan

Hi all! Wow, what amazingly beautiful weather God has given us in middle TN today! Very thankful for the sunshine! This has been a very busy day complete with laundry, workout, cooking these yummy bbq chicken pizzas on flatbread (from the Walmart day-old bread rack; $.99)for lunch (which totally negated my workout), shopping, delivering paintings, and now I am about to finish cooking this Chicken and Spinach Pasta Bake Casserole with roasted sweet potato chunks and broccoli. This is a great recipe, and I have a lot of pasta and onion and chive cream cheese to use, so this sounded perfect! I poached the chicken first thing this morning, so it could cool to make it easier to pull apart. I prefer poaching to boiling chicken because it is more tender. Here's what I do: I usually use frozen chicken, which is usually cheaper. I bring a large pot of water to boil with 2 chicken bullion cubes, garlic powder, onion (or freeze dried onion), carrots, celery stalks (which I save after cutting celery for snacking), a little salt and pepper. Once the pot is boiling, add the chicken and let the water come back to a boil. Then cover the pot, and reduce heat to low. Leave the chicken to poach for about 30 minutes if frozen. Tomorrow night, we will be having a roast with carrots, onions, and potatoes cooked in the crock pot. Wednesday night, we will either have a Wanchi Ferry meal (Love these; I'm not saying they are that healthy, but when you can get them on a great sale price, they are delicious, and they do the trick on a rushed church night) or we will go to Pizza Hut with friends as usual. Finally, Thursday night will be taco night (with Laura's lean ground beef) around here...yum.
Ok, enough about cooking and on to ingredients and savings. I did my Walgreens shopping yesterday because I have learned from my friend Amanda that if you want the good savings, you have to go on Sunday when the paper comes out! These are my finds for this week; I used my $5 in register rewards that I earned on my last shopping trip on my first order (the feminine products) plus I earned $4 more when I bought them. So I turned around and used that $4 on the rest of my purchase (the trick I learned last time.) All in all, I payed $35.30 for everything shown and saved $41.99. I definitely haven't mastered Walgreens yet, but it is good for stocking up on hygiene products, which can be very expensive, at a very reasonable price.
Today, I went on my weekly Monday shopping trip to Kroger, where I did pretty well. Last night, I used Southernsavers.com and planned my trip. Kroger is finishing up its March for Savings mega event, which has been awesome for stocking up on non-perishables like cereal, pasta, and cleaning products. I bought 20 items from this promotion (all with coupons of course) in addition to all of the staples (produce, milk, and bread) that we needed for the week. This week, I was able to pay $65.00 for $116.11 worth of groceries ( 46% savings). Another way I save a little money, besides with coupons, is checking in the produce/dairy sections for the orange clearance stickers. They put these on items that are nearing the "sale by" date. I always, of course, check the condition of the produce to make sure I can use it before it "expires." I hardly ever buy salad unless it has an orange sticker. I have found that there are always more of these on Mondays, which is another good reason to shop at the beginning of the week. Well, that's it for me today; I hope you have a blessed evening with your families, and I hope I have given you a little food inspiration for the week!