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I can’t believe this has been the first full week of May. Spoiler alert: we busted the budget already.

I know, I know. That seems to be our super power. Unfortunately a lot of bulk buying needed to happen this month, which totally sucked. Although I’m less-than-thrilled about the budget, I’m happy we were mostly good this week about eating out. Mostly…

Did you try a new recipe this week? Let us know in the comments!

P.S. Be sure to check out The Picky Pinchers Cookbook! 

Monday

Breakfast: American breakfast

I kept it nice ‘n’ simple today. I defrosted pre-cooked bacon and paired it with a sweet potato biscuit (recipe here) and a fluffy scrambled duck egg. Why yes, I did say duck egg. We went to the Asian market over the weekend, where I picked up a case of both duck and quail eggs. Mmmm.

Snack: Babybel cheese

Costco was running a big sale on Babybel cheese last week. I made sure to snag their mega-pack. It makes for a ~luxurious~ mid-morning snack.

Lunch: Leftover chicken taco soup

On Sunday evening I made my go-to easy dinner: chicken taco soup. I used this budget-friendly recipe. We didn’t have quite everything for it, but I made it work. I like to serve the soup with crumbled tortilla chips and sliced avocado. Yummo!

P.S. This is a Meal that’s super freezer-friendly.

Dinner: McDonald’s

Our big ‘oops’ of the week, ladies and gentlemen. But I can explain!

Our Corolla was on the fritz and setting off the alarm every 30 minutes on the dot. We took it to the auto shop on Sunday night and retrieved it today after work. What we thought would be a quick trip turned into an hour-and-a-half ordeal. I planned to cook dinner at home, but we were famished once it was said and done. I dreaded the thought of having to wait 30 minutes to eat, so I pulled into good ol’ Micky D’s.

I don’t really like McDonald’s but it was the closest and fastest thing. We inhaled a few chicken nugget meals and enjoyed getting out of dish duty. 

Tuesday

Breakfast: Breakfast cookies

More of the breakfast cookies, folks! I cooked these fellas a few weeks ago and froze them. They’re my go-to “Why am I awake” breakfast.

Snack: Chocolate peanut butter protein bars

More yum! I made these last weekend. They’re a good way to get your sugar and chocolate fix with a touch of protein. I wouldn’t wager to say they’re healthy, but at least they have protein, eh? Recipe here.

Lunch: Scrounge!

I … can’t remember what we ate for lunch today. I’m pretty sure I just scrounged around the house. I like these snacky meals from time to time. It’s the perfect excuse to eat odd-sized bits of cheese and call it a meal.

Dinner: Chicken bacon ranch flatbread with corn

This was the best meal we had all week! Here’s the recipe, although I followed it loosely. Instead of buying flatbread for this meal, I made my own last weekend. It wasn’t that bad, all things considered, and made more than enough flatbread to freeze for easy eating.

In hindsight this meal didn’t need the side of corn. The flatbread was marvelous and filling on its own. Mmmm.

Wednesday

Breakfast: Waffles

I was craving waffles big-time this morning, so I indulged. I didn’t do anything fancy here; just traditional waffles with butter and syrup. I cook waffles in one huge batch and freeze them, mostly because I HATE cleaning the waffle iron.

Snack: Boiled quail eggs

Quail eggs!! I’m not always a fan of hard boiled eggs, but quail eggs have an amazing, creamy texture once boiled. They also have the perfect yolk-to-white ratio.

Lunch: Leftover chicken flatbreads

PSA: These get floppy and greasy if you reheat them in the microwave. It’s an oven only kind of thing, I guess. Boo.

Dinner: Out!

We celebrated tonight, y’all! It was our third wedding anniversary (I also call it Mr. Picky Pincher’s “contract renewal date”).

Instead of going to our usual pricey Brazilian steakhouse, we opted for a more affordable $30 sushi dinner. Gotta love happy hour!

Afterwards we went to a beer tavern and treated ourselves to milk stout. In hindsight, the milk stout didn’t mix well with sushi, but oh well. I’m so proud that we found a way to eat a nice meal without going too nuts.

Thursday

Breakfast: Yogurt bowl

I kept it super simple today with a no-cooking-required breakfast of yogurt. I topped my homemade yogurt with blueberries, homemade granola, and honey.

Snack: SnaPeas

I bought these from Costco months ago. At first “two pounds of SnaPeas” doesn’t sound so bad. And then you have to actually eat two pounds of SnaPeas. They’re tasty, but damn!

Lunch: Freezer meal

I dug around in the freezer today and had corn dogs, the lunch of champions.

Dinner: DIY night! Chicken wings / Breakfast for dinner

This was our second DIY night of the month. If you missed last week’s What’s for Dinner? post, this is something new. Once a week Mr. Picky Pincher and I cook separate meals. It’s nice to eat whatever we want! It’s also less work for me, because I don’t have to hunt for recipes we’ll both enjoy.  That does mean there are literally two cooks in the kitchen, but it’s worth it.

Mr. Picky Pincher had homemade chicken wings with Ranch. I looove doing breakfast for dinner, so I whipped up waffles, bacon, and hard boiled quail eggs.

Friday

Breakfast: Depressing bowl of knockoff Cookie Crisps

I fully intended to make a Real Person breakfast today, but I woke up with a migraine. That meant I was a puddle of nothing until my medicine kicked in. It’s times like these that I’m grateful for my giant knockoff bag of Cookie Crisps.

Snack: Handful of almonds

Easy enough, right?

Lunch: Leftovers. Breakfast for lunnnnch!

Dinner: Posole

We’ll use this recipe.

It’s Mr. Picky Pincher’s turn in the kitchen today. He loves cooking meals with the Instant Pot and found an intriguing recipe for posole, a type of stew. The recipe called for pork shoulder, but we went with spicy Italian sausage to avoid buying a huge cut of meat.

I’m excited for this one! It should be a hearty, freezer-friendly meal.

Grocery Costs

Let’s see what we spent this week!

Costco: $191.20

HEB: $119.49

Smoothie supplies: $75.68

On sale: $0 (damn)

Coupons: $0 (double damn)

Total: $386.37 (triple damn)

Total budget remaining: $13.63

Goals for next week

Well shiz.

May ain’t looking too good for us, Picky peeps.

Actually, we may have already broken the budget. I forgot about a trip to the Asian grocery store and I’m not sure if it’s in the budget yet. Argh!!!!!!!!

I was ready to grab my Frugal Flog until I looked over the receipts. Fortunately our high total wasn’t the result of buying steak, caviar, or mountains of candy (fun as that would be). At HEB, our major culprits were smoothie ingredients: coconut water, chia seeds, and milled flax seeds. We also bought a mondo huge $14 pack of sausages, but these should last several months.

Costco is always a budget-buster. I love being able to buy in bulk here, but it’s tough for budgeting. We bought more organic chicken and beef, gum, bacon, smoothie powder (for me), Babybel cheese, and avocado oil. On top of this, we spent about $75 buying smoothie supplies for Mr. Picky Pincher (he drinks a smoothie every morning for breakfast). While it’s expensive, smoothie supplies last a few months.

It seems like bad stars aligned this month to royally screw over our budget. At the end of the day we’re responsible for the purchases we make. I only hope we can keep May charges as low as humanly possible.

Gotta love these five-week months, eh?

Also, If you’re interested in our grocery shopping system, I go over it in depth in this eBook.
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We want to know: How did you stay frugal this week?

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