i'm not gonna make it!!!!

i don't know folks. i don't know if i can make it on $60 a week for groceries. i had planned to get loads of chores done today, but there was a miss step with my milk, causing a slight delay in completing my morning errands. i had planed out my errands to encompass one big circle in order to save time and gas. first i dropped of my library book, stopped at the atm for some cash, walmart for candy for the trick-or-treaters, swing by the farmer's market to buy milk, stop at earthfare for groceries, and then home. when i got to the farmer's market they were out of my raw milk. ok that's twice!! JUNK! i called mr. white directly who said that he was milking the cows right then, milk was going fast, and if i wanted some, even though it was still warm, i should come get it right away. JUNK!!! that throws off my while circle and now i had to back track. i could have just got some happy cow milk, or the other brand of raw milk that they have at the market, but i don't know those other raw milk people or their cows, and i've never seen the milking facilities. and i wanted my raw milk. so i drove back towards the house and went to the dairy to get my milk. the good news was that it was 50 cents cheaper and it was still warm. that was good because i went directly home and proceeded to make yogurt and didn't have to wait for the milk to come to room temperature. but then i had to get back in the car and go to earthfare. here's where the $60 a week budget gets tricky. when we left off on sunday i had $36.60 left and $5.50 quickly went to buy the milk. so entering the earthfare i had $31.10 to play with. i made a list of things we needed before i left the house and i was determined to stick to it, which meant no cheese this week.

here's was my list:
tea
coffee
mushrooms
ice cream
almonds
tampons
soap
dog biscuits (not yet included in this experiment)

ok, now i can't figure out if the soap and tampons should be included into the budget. when i originally asked people what they spent at the grocery store, i didn't inquire into if they included toiletries in that estimate or whether they made separate trips to target, walmart, or such for those items. if i am to only include food items in the budget, i'm golden and $5.83 UNDER budget. if i include the soap and tampons, then i failed being $5.65 OVER budget. yeah i know i paid like 11 bucks for a box of tampons and a bar of soap. like i've said before, my uterus likes it's cotton o'natural. i say we call it even and call it a night. let's see why i bought mushrooms.

yummy lamb stroganoff.
baby portobellos, onion, gound lamb.

i finished the stroganoff off with some flour, a little bit of chicken stock, thyme, and the last of the happy cow sour cream. to the right we have homemade noodles.

fresh thyme (from the garden) and sour cream to garnish. delish!!!

i finished the day with making some granola bars, another loaf of bread, and a nice batch of yogurt. all while nursing the last pinkus organic beer.

now it is time for bed and time to bring the basil in overnight. i need to go ahead and harvest all of it and make a big batch of pesto to freeze. i am not going to try to keep it alive indoors all winter. last year we ended up with little buggies all over the place.

oh crap!!! i almost forgot!!! matt got me a deer!!! he shot it last night and took it to get processed for me. soon i will have an entire buck in my freezer. i don't even want to think about how that fits into the budget. but more on that in a few days when i go to pick it up.