Thursday night was F's winter concert at school - it was beautiful! The 5th and 6th graders did a S. African song as a tribute to Nelson Mandela. At the end, they sang Light a Little Candle, Say a Prayer for Peace in the World, and they all had these battery-operated candles, the lights were out - it was beautiful!

Afterward, we collected the kids from their classrooms. Then we went into the class below, where F's closest friend is, and asked her parents, who are our closest friends, if they wanted to go out for dinner. When we got to the restaurant (where you pay up at the counter, and then sit down) there were four other families there from school, so we all sat together and the kids had a table of their own.

So, that was our dining budget for the week.

But... we went over to friends' last night for dinner. F and their son are in the same class; he's her closest boy friend (not boyfriend!). We brought some sparkling waters (grocery budget).

And... tonight other friends are taking us out for dinner as a thank you to D who took photos of the house they're selling.

Three dinners out in three nights, and we only paid for one!

This is actually very welcome right now. D has had pretty bad vertigo, so I've been doing everything around the house. This means I don't have to cook dinner and fewer dishes.

So here is the photo of the lumberjack I promised; I think the Vietnamese place I go to used to be a hardware store or lumber yard or something? Anyway, it's pretty reasonable. My lunch was $7.50. I don't eat out a lot, and I really love Vietnames food.



More lunch-related news: I went home for lunch today. It's so cold here, I felt like eating something warm. Had two fried eggs, and spent the rest of lunch making this pair of pajama bottoms for F. If you look closely the pattern is cute little pigs! F LOVES pigs. So this is one of her xmas gifts!

We've been eating leftovers for the past few days (I'm sure a lot of people have!).

This is my favorite recipe for leftover turkey: Rachael Ray's Quick Turkey Croquettes.
http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=168&r=534,170,537,78,804,168,166,162,161,163,164

Except more carrots and celery. And I don't like nutmeg, so I put in a little thyme.

I already had leftover celery and carrots. I had to buy green onions and some potatoes (less than $2 total).

That's what we had tonight (after watching the old stop-animation Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer).

This week's meal plan:
- chickeny/turkeyish: croquettes
- eggy - mexican eggs with salad and toast
- bready/cheesy - toasted cheese sandwiches and asparagus
- pasta-ish - spaghetti and turkey balls
- fishy - sushi (with cucumber, avocado and shrimp)
- something from the freezer with salad

I've worked out the Thanksgiving menu, and believe me, it wasn't easy! I can't eat gluten (celiac genes) and my brother and his wife are vegetarian and my dad is pescaterian. My brother won't come if I cook a turkey in the house. Here is the menu that accommodates everyone (and my pocketbook; they are coming from out of state, so I provide all the food).

- Hungarian Mushroom Soup (from the Moosewood cookbook)
- Wild Rice Stuffing with cranberries and pecans
- D's roast potatoes (his roasties are the BEST!)
- French beans with a vinaigrette
- Asparagus with Brown Butter
- Cranberry Sauce
- Precooked turkey breast from Trader Joe's for the four of us who want a little bit of turkey (this was $12.30)

- Salted caramel and chocolate tart
- Pumpkin chiffon cake (a Rachael Ray recipe that I adapted to be GF)

I've bought all the ingredients except the fresh veggies (mushrooms, potatoes, beans, asparagus). So far I've spent $27.94. I had a lot of the staples already (flour, sugar, mustard, butter).

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

We are way below our food budget for the month (both dining out and groceries). This is a good thing, but I also can't help thinking that it would be nice to go out to lunch for my birthday on Thursday... except I can't! Argh!

Here is what Thursday looks like:
- work in the morning (I have two proposals to do)
- go home and make peanut butter brownies (this will be my birthday "cake") to bring to potluck dinner (may have to scrounge up something else, too - salad?
- teach noon spinning class (that is lunchtime!)
- head up to school to get kids ready for Halloween procession (eat in the car)
- take my daughter to horseback riding (I usually play with the instructor's preschooler)
- head back into town to our friends' house - they live in a good trick-or-treating area (we don't!)
- potluck dinner
- trick-or-treating
- collapse!

It's a good birthday plan, though. I get to be with my husband and daughter, and I get to exercise and hang out with friends, and, seriously, is there anything sweeter than watching your eight year old trick-or-treat? And it's certainly frugal.

My lunches usually consist of:
- things F did not eat from her lunch on the previous day (sometimes a few carrots or snap peas, some fruit)
- piece of fruit
- chips or crisps or something like that
- leftovers or an avocado or a piece of sliced turkey (a protein thing)
- a square of chocolate or a few chocolate chips with pecans

I realize this is not a very exciting lunch.

I eat it at the conference table while the dog sits next to me and eats her lunch. It takes about 10 minutes to eat lunch, which is not very long.

So... the solution to having a good, relaxing lunch is the walk that I take with the dog afterward. This is the real lunch solution: the after-lunch fresh air!

I work downtown, and there are lots of nice walks, but I like to walk through the nearby residential area. I took a picture for you of one of my favorite little houses.

What do you do at lunch?

I was really scared to contact anyone about a living room cabinet because I thought I couldn't afford it. (I already exhausted ready-made options - I have a fixed width since it's between our wall and fireplace and nothing off the shelf fits in there. And I found "budget" cabinets online for - gasp! - over $500 - not even good materials!).

Some friends gave me recommendations for cabinet makers who are all super-high-end, but I somehow remembered that my friend's husband has a custom cabinet business. I see them mostly at parties since we met through mutual friends who no longer live here. And she and I both are volunteer chairs for the Folk Art Market. We don't hang out, and our kids are different ages, but she's so sweet. But Matt does high-end cabinets, too, and I figured I couldn't afford him.

Well he's giving me a deal in exchange for helping hang it and for referring some work to him if I'm happy with the result. So nice! It'll be $300, custom, all wood! Can't wait to get our living room fixed up - it looks a bit like a college dorm right now.

And I've discovered my new candy fix for my 3 pm energy dip - handful of pecans with a few chocolate chips mixed in. Yum!

This month compared to the same month last year:

- earnings up 38%
- expenses down 12% (and seriously, our lifestyle is the same)
- savings up 346% - yay!

Also - it's Zero Waste Week! http://www.therubbishdiet.org.uk/
My wonderful friend B and I decided to do it together (we've been emailing all day). Today for breakfast I had: leftover rice and the rest of F's juice (which usually goes into the fridge and later is often sent down the drain). For lunch I had an avocado that was on its way out, some leftover fruit from our picnic on Sunday and other stuff that was not going to waste.

I also froze some cilantro in water (cilantro cubes!) to be unfrozen later for guacamole or whatever.

For dinner we're having fish with salad, and on the side the leftover potatoes from last night, but I'll smash them slightly and put in the oven with olive oil to re-brown. Yum! And it uses up the potatoes.

This week we're having:
- polenta and salad (bready/cheesy)
- crustless quiche (eggy)
- something from the freezer - posole - with salad (freezery)
- pasta with goat cheese/turkey bacon/peas (pasta-ish)
- tacos with guacamole (chickeny)
- cod and leeks with turkey bacon (fishy)

It totally wiped me out just to go to the store today. I am not good at being sick, and I'm not really sick (but shingles can make you feel so tired).

So we haven't done much this weekend. F had a friend over yesterday, then we met another friend to play soccer up at a local high school. They were playing a game, so we watched that for a while, then went over to our school to play (or rather D played and I listened to podcasts and relaxed).

Today F went to a friend's house to play. I'm doing housework. Then later we'll head up to the park to meet some other families for soccer.

I'd really like to cross something off my house to-do list, but with my energy level I think all I can manage is the regular housework (already cleaned the bathrooms, did laundry and vacuumed).

Now, here's the Tale of the Chocolate Bars... I was at the store and they had a big sign under some chocolate bars that said they were discontinued an on sale for 99c. I have a square of chocolate after each meal, so I thought a few of these would be great for the next few weeks. But at the checkout they were $3.79 each! Eeek! Of course I didn't discover this until I got to the car (I always go through my receipt in the car just to make sure). So I had to go back into the store. The checkout woman went back to the chocolate aisle and said the 99c sign was referring to a different chocolate bar (which was nowhere near the sign). I just had her return the chocolate bars. It felt kind of manipulative, even though I'm sure it wasn't. Next time I'll read the fine print more carefully to avoid wasting my time!

I'm sure I wasted some energy on this, but who cares - $3.79 for a chocolate bar!

This is the remainder of my inexpensive meals for three, but these have chicken or turkey so they tend to be a little more expensive.

We eat chicken and fish, but we don’t eat red meat or pork or other mammals (personal choice). We eat fish once a week because it's not inexpensive; we usually have 3-4 vegetarian meals and 3-4 chicken or fish meals.

General tso’s chicken, rice and chinese cabbage - $8.25 (this is Chinese Food night - I can't eat in a Chinese restaurant due to gluten in the soy sauce, and this is a lot cheaper anyway and results in leftovers for lunch the next day!)

Sausage pasta (chicken sausage, lemon, a little white wine, pecorino romano) - $8.00

Chicken tacos with guacamole, lettuce, cheese - $7.73

Crustless quiche with turkey/sundried tomatoes/broccoli/goat cheese - $7.60

Summer pasta with turkey bacon and goat cheese - $7.50

Salsa chicken and black bean soup - $18.85 - makes four meals ($4.71 each) - add some bread! = $5.71

Chipotle chicken stew with potatoes - $18.50 - makes four meals ($4.63 each) - add a salad! = $5.63

THE STAR! - Posole (new mexico hominy with chicken thighs and green chile) - $12.75 - makes four meals = $3.19

If you haven't had posole, you should! Once the weather starts to get cooler it's the perfect time for a hearty stew like this. The green chile makes you feel warm, and it cooks in the crockpot all day so it's super easy!

A list of my most frugal meals (each of these feed a family of three). These are all vegetarian (and all gluten free - so the pricing would be less for someone who can eat regular bread and pasta) and all $5.50 and under to feed three people. We aren’t light eaters, either! (I eat a ton!)

8. Fagiole soup with garlic bread - $16 - makes four meals (freeze three) - $4.00 each plus $1.50 for garlic bread = $5.50
7. Potato pancakes with applesauce and a salad - $5.50
6. Pasta with courgettes/zucchini and goat cheese - $5.16
5. Crash potatoes and a vegetable with a slice of cheese on the side - $5.00
4. Socca (chickpea flour pancake with courgettes/zucchini) with a side vegetable or salad - $4.95
3. Mexican scrambled eggs (with homemade tortilla slivers, salsa, green onion) and a salad/side vegetable - $4.79
2. Baked potatoes with cheese and broccoli - $4.43
1. Polenta with marinara and a vegetable - $3.20 - a savings STAR!

Later I will post our meals with chicken or turkey (starting at $8.25 for three, the least expensive is $5.63).

I would love to hear what your go-to meals are!

Well, Folk Art Market is over. Phew! It was great, though. On Saturday alone 7,000 people attended and the artists made $1.37 million. My 26 volunteers were amazing; I'm so proud!

I worked so hard. My legs were sore, and then I had to sub for a friend's exercise class today (even more sore!).

The downside was that the spending was erratic and not what we'd normally do on a weekend. I bought a few things at Folk Art Market (within my budget) on Friday night, but then spent another $20 on these gorgeous crane-shaped scissors from Uzbekistan for my knitting.

We knew we'd have at least some food/dining out expenses because I was at Market most of the day on Saturday and all day Sunday. All in all we spent probably $30 total on lunch, a big juice and a snow-cone.

Our tickets were free, and we took advantage of the free entertainment, taking F to do the kids' passport program (where kids go to the artists to get flag stickers from each country) and listening to the music.

And as a Chair of a volunteer group, I got to attend the big dinner last night (free dinner!) and both D and I got dinner on Friday night at Market.

Our weekend spending was balanced out by an unusually low grocery bill. We leave on vacation on Sunday, so I'm keeping the meals simple and cheap!! Here's the plan:
- socca (chickpea flour pancake with courgettes and basil from the garden)
- Mexican scrambled eggs and salad
- hot dogs at the pool with corn on the cob
- general tso's chicken and chinese cabbage
- homemade pizza (sauce and mozzarella are in the freezer)
- stuff (picnic style! mish-mash! whatever!) to take Music on the Hill

The tooth fairy came last night and F woke me up at 5:50 am to see what she brought! Our tooth fairy always leaves a certificate (that I designed on Pages and print out as needed with the relevant date) and a toy (I keep a stash of little toys because you never know when a tooth is going to fall out).

The plan for today:
- house stuff: vaccuum, clean our bathroom, load of laundry
- take F to her friend's house for a playdate
- while F is at her freind's, go to the fire station I'll be renovating and measure (D said he'd help me)
- pick up F and we'll meet my high school English teacher (who is visiting) at the Teahouse. They have gf pastries, $5 each, and I will ask F share with me; I only want a few small bites (trying to cut down on sugar).

The Teahouse is good in that you order at a counter so you don't have to split the bill. I'm not a fan of splitting the bill. Almost everyone I know is financially better off (this is one of the facts of life when your daughter attends an expensive private school), and we usually just split the bill in half. This almost always means I pay more than if I'd just paid for my portion.

I hate asking if we could separate checks or divide according to what we ordered, but if the disparity is too great, I'll do it. Have you noticed that I'm not very assertive? (I guess I am about some things, but not so much about money; I don't want people to think I'm cheap and I don't like to make a big deal out of things). I think what a lot of people don't realize is that while $20 to them isn't that big of a deal, it is to us and our budget.

Anyway, Teahouse has a counter, so no worries about that today, and F is really looking forward to meeting my 11th grade English teacher!

The meal plan this week:
- chickeny - tacos with guacamole
- bready/cheesy - toasted cheese sandwiches, broccoli
- pasta-ish - sausage pasta with lemon
- potato-y - potato pancakes with applesauce, salad
- fishy - teriyaki salmon over rice, bok choy and yellow pepper
- freezer - no idea what is in that tupperware! we're having it with corn on the cob

We had an amazing (and yet frugal!) weekend:
- Friday we went to the pool, and met friends there which was fun

- Saturday F and I went downtown and had a great time! (we took a photo with the new dragon sculpture that is hanging over an art gallery, then stopped at the cathedral to listen the mariachis that were playing for a wedding, went to our two favorite toy stores, then stopped to get made-from-scratch lemonades). Then we met F's friend in the park and played kids v. adults soccer.

In the other part of the same park, our minor league baseball team were playing so we watched the baseball ($6 each adult, kids free). We brought our picnic dinner from home. It was warm and the moon was huge, and we were so close we could hear the ball hitting the players gloves! I have decided that going all the way into the Big City to pay tons of money to watch a not-even-major league team play where your seats are not that great isn't worth it. If you have a minor league team in your town, you should go!

- Today we cleaned the house (not that fun), went the pool and then went back to the park for a little soccer reunion of F's team from last Fall and Spring.

Did my weekly shopping today in order to buy some things for F's birthday party. We did pretty well considering we had to feed some adults tonight as well.

We came out under this year's birthday budget!

I had a $5 coupon from Sprouts as well.

As I was driving around, I turned off the air conditioning in the car (my gas mileage has been lower the past few weeks, and it's probably the AC) - opening the window works just as well a lot of the time.

So the meal plan this week is:
- fishy: hake with curry powder and paprika, coleslaw
- chickeny: general tso's chicken, rice, chinese cabbage
- pasta-y: veggie stirfry with mangetout/carrots/courgettes/mint/cilantro with rice (a Jamie Oliver recipe - ok, this is not pasta, but still - yum)
- eggy: crustless quiche with sundried tomatoes/turkey/goat cheese/broccoli and toast
- bready: socca with courgettes and caramelized red onions
- freezer: something from the freezer with garlic bread

We usually eat out once a week, but this week we were out both Sunday night (friend's birthday) and Monday (F's birthday).

On Sunday our friends provided the pizza (but I bought a small gluten free one for myself). So we didn't need to feed all three of us - deal!

I had heard that a restaurant downtown has a Monday/Tuesday special where one kid eats free for every adult entree. I suggested the restaurant to F (without mentioning the deal) and since it's one of her favorites, she decided that was where she wanted to go on her birthday. (I'm sly, right?) F and I went with a another mom and her daughter. F and I ate for $10 - another deal!

So, we didn't blow the dining out budget for the week, even though we ate out twice.

The other day, D accused me of being overly-frugal when I mentioned that instead of using a paper towel (those are for EMERGENCIES like cat puke) he should have used one of the cloths that I keep in the kitchen. (I apologized for being so controlling and he apologized for being sensitive; and he even said that he knows that all of my scrimping has allowed us to spend money on the things we WANT to spend it on - or save it - rather than on paper towels).

I was just watching a tv show (my favorite show: Cash and Cari on HGTV) on the internet (we don't have tv or cable and therefore no cable bill).

And I am about to leave to go to the library to pick up a book I reserved (I usually just order them online rather than browsing). This one is for F. I need to figure out what book I want to read next.

OK, enough scrimpiness for today.

Weekly shopping bill was high this week for a few reasons:
- D bought coffee (which he buys once every two months, so technically this is spread out over several weeks)- $9.99
- D bought beer (also lasts more than a month)- $11.49
- I bought a million popsicles to bring to camp on Monday for F's birthday (not sure how many kids will be there) - $13.47

Anyway, the meal plan is:
- something pasta-ish - pasta with goat cheese/turkey bacon/basil/peas
- something chickeny - kebabs (chicken, courgettes, red pepper) and corn on the cob
- something eggy/potato-ish - crash potatoes and green beans
- something bready/cheesy - polenta with marinara, salad
- something fishy - very sweet salmon, broccoli, rice

We are skipping "something from the freezer" and going out twice! Tonight we go to our favorite pizza place for a birthday dinner for one of F's friends. And Monday is F's birthday, so out to dinner again!