Saving During Bad Sales Weeks, Menu Plans and More

Here's to a lot of finallys!

• I am finally feeling well again. 
• I am finally feeling some energy come back into my life. 
• And, I'm finally getting into the mood to get back to some 'normal routine.'  

Well, kind of a normal routine.  You guys know me, I've turned into this girl who really enjoys shopping.  I like seeing what kind of good deals I can get.  It doesn't matter if it's in the grocery store, shopping for clothes, home stuff, or whatever!  If I can get it cheap, and it's something we'll use, I'm all for it.
And I had a big shopping trip to do this week after being gone all week last week.  As it turned out I needed to meal plan for 8 days, and really only had everything I needed for one day off food in the house.  So I researched my pantry, and then I researched our Kroger ad.   Ugh, totally not a good 'need to shop' week.  Normally I have enough stockpiled that I could make it until Sunday (when the sales change), but this week was a 'no-go'.  I had to go to the store.
So I researched those cabinets and the freezer again, started putting together some 'sound good' meals, (if there is a time to do whatever I want for dinner, this is it), and made my grocery list according to what I had to have to get us through breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next week.  (Well, 8 days.)
Here's what I came up with as a menu plan:

Dinners:

• Chicken and Andouille Sausage Jambalaya and Honey Cornbread
• Chili (tonight's supper, yum!), peanut butter sandwiches?
• World's Best Chicken (chicken breast wrapped in aluminum foil with your fave ingredients and chopped potatoes), potatoes, corn
• Pork Chops in the oven with cream of mushroom, mashed potatoes
• Meatloaf, potatoes, peas
• Contessa frozen meal (for an easy night)
• Chicken Casserole, peas

I also have enough for hamburger melts and fries if we decide to do that one night!

Lunch: (with chips, fruit, etc)

• Homemade Chicken Salad
• PB & J
• Turkey sandwiches
• Chicken patty on bun
• Leftovers ;) 

Breakfast:

• Cereal
• Fruit
• Homemade Banana Nut Bread (that I made today)

To get all I needed for all of the above meals I actually only spent $53 at the grocery store, not bad considering I only used 2 coupons, none off my card, and only saved 14%!  It just goes to show you that sometimes planning in and of itself can totally cut back your grocery bill!
-a