I’ve been gossiping in @iulia’s journal.
I will probably do a few more tonight
1 Like
Yes please a whole separate thread because I would love to read people live logging and thinking and pulling in other references and I just feel we could get a lot of mileage from this.
Whereas if we leave it here the handy meal planning and such will get lost amongst it.
4 Likes
OK I started a thread! Now I have to actually write up some more of my reactions 
4 Likes
Does anyone have a severe aversion to paying for shipping, so you end up ordering (and spending) more in the end so that you hit the free-shipping minimum?
Example. There’s a website I like to buy coffee from. It has a loyalty program; I have earned a $25 off coupon. Bags of coffee are $14.99, so the sane thing to do would be to get 2 bags, costing a little under $5.
But then they slap a $7 shipping charge on me and brain goes NOOOOO, just order more coffee to hit the free shipping threshold! (Which is either $50 or $60, I forget).
That’s dumb, right? Mental stuff around money is weird.
8 Likes
If you use the coffee and order less often that’s not dumb. That’s buying more of what you’ll use instead of paying shipping. If it’s something you don’t need, wouldn’t have ordered, don’t want, then it’s dumb.
8 Likes
I agree with @Bracken_Joy. Ordering extra of what you will use, of a product that you already know you like, is sensible.
BUT… if you have the kind of brain/this is the kind of product that you will use more just because you have more, then it might be more prudent to pay extra. My father is a lifelong smoker who never buys more than 1 pack at a time because otherwise he smokes them too fast, for instance.
4 Likes
Yeah, that’s why I am avoiding buying more tea online. I drink a SHITLOAD of herbal tea every day. But I keep to 1 (large) cup of coffee in the morning, both because of my high blood pressure, but also because it makes me pee excessively and my stomach can no longer handle a ton of caffeine.
What’s stopping me is that I don’t actually NEED more coffee right now, I got some at TJ’s. But, I don’t really want to let a $25 off coupon expire either. I will drink it eventually for sure!
4 Likes
I would order 4 bags of coffee. By applying the $25 coupon + getting free shipping you are saving $32, or over 50 percent. Great deal!
6 Likes
There is no money saving here, except maybe that we aren’t really inviting people to Christmas anymore?
$300 ish spent on groceries
Christmas meal plan
Adjacent to Christmas and spilling over to the day itself:
Smoked salmon
Shrimp ring
Roast beef deli slices
Fancy frozen butternut squash soup
Veggie tray
Fruit tray
Cheese tray
Nuts
Rice balls (frozen)
Hummus and nut and seed dips
Fake meat patties
Mince pies
Christmas cake
Pudding
Apple crumble
Cookies, chocolates, sweets (already started here)
Fresh salads
Cheesecake for the keto
The feasting!
Roast turkey breast
Roast or mashed potatoes
Gravy 2 ways
Cranberry sauce
Stuffing
Roast mushrooms, carrots, parsnips
Veggie sausages around the roasts
Roast tofu
A green
Maybe gf bread sauce?
Supplies on hand for
Veggie pate
Tacos
Pasta
Tinned fish (ew)
More baking
Salads
Sauteed cabbage
Stir fries
Roast chicken drumsticks
Ground beef
Pancakes
Fruit
Teas, coffees, apple cider, lemonade, soda stream
Breakfasts
Oatmeal
Pancakes
Hummus and rice cakes
Banana bread or muffins
Pies and crumbles
Lunches
Salads
Cheese and crackers or charcuterie (limited meats)
Fruit
Hummus and rice cakes
Emergency food
Larabars
Rice cake and hummus
Frozen burritos
The rice balls
We might go buy more meat and cheese at the local European store if we are healthy enough because yolo.
8 Likes
I meant to buy sweaters for MIL and BIL, otherwise I’m giving up on Christmas shopping. I don’t have everything I’d wanted to get, but there is enough.
6 Likes
Even though this is a weird week I’m trying to get back on track with planning out my spending.
Spending Plan 12/20
Monday: Making cookies. Should be a no spend day unless we run out of an ingredient unexpectedly
Tuesday: Might have to refill the gas tank of fiancé’s mom’s car. Bopping around the city to deliver cookies!
Wednesday: I think we’re finally signing up for the Criterion Channel streaming service! $90 for a year.
Thursday: Gas for sure if we didn’t get any Tuesday. It tends to be cheaper in the suburbs. Heading to grandma’s house, I hope. Traditional Culver’s lunch, $15ish? And I’ll try to pay for pizza for dinner for whoever is there but I’m sure my mom will fight me on it.
Friday: Christmas Eve! No spend day.
Saturday: Christmas Day! Top up gas before heading back to the city. Movie and Chinese food with fiancé’s family provided we all still feel safe doing that…once again we will attempt to pay but will probably be fought off.
Total expected spending: $175 (guessing on gas…)
5 Likes
I need two (2) pee pads for El Doggo whilst traveling. I had to buy a 50 pack, for $35, and I’m full of resentment. Cigarettes, diapers, and pee pads should all come in loosies, for just such occasions.
12 Likes
We are not buying any food and eating down what we bought a week ago and I think it’s going well? We are out of bread, again, but lots of fruit to eat so I guess it’s fruit and chicken for dinner. Tomorrow we go away for a week!
8 Likes
I went to work yesterday when the building was closed. See, we work Tuesday-Saturday but Friday is our paid holiday and we’re closed Saturday and just… don’t get paid. BUT I saved a day of PTO by coming ion and getting so much stuff done, yay us. So much decluttering and another lady and I broke down and cleaned the floor with Clorox wipes on our hands and knees (custodian shortage, and it was a tiny area of floor).
PTO is not the same as money but it sort of IS the same as money, you know? Especially since I hope to have an FMLA leave coming in 2022, the more PTO I have the better!
9 Likes
I spent $160 at Aldi, which makes it one of my biggest Aldi shops ever! I also spent about $30 at the produce store and $8 at the dollar store for boxes to put cookies in, paintbrushes, and Christmas cards. I’m happy with the price because I won’t go to a normal grocery store this coming weekend since it’s a holiday weekend (so I think of the Aldi bill as $80 for this week and $80 for next week). I may do a top off at the produce store but that will be inexpensive. The only other time I plan on going out is to deliver cookies and go for walks!
I feel a lot better about Christmas dinner now that I’m mid bake. The sheer quantity of the cookies is overwhelming in a good way and I think with all the little snacking extras I have planned this year won’t feel deprived at all! The sales on lunch meat and sliced cheese were so good I went ahead and switched my meal plan mid-shop. Sandwiches always feel like vacations or holidays to me because as a kid that’s almost the only time we had them. I used to love setting out the spread with all the women in my family, making sandwiches and passing them out, then helping the kids make their sandwiches, then making our sandwiches and having all these different spreads and pickles. It was also a way to have us in the kitchen a little less on vacations and I think deli meat and cheese is still fancy in my mind for that reason.
I should make a sandwich counter of how many I make this season because I’m already at 2, haha. If that wouldn’t totally offend people I would totally do it, lol. So the other thing I decided to do is make it all holiday food starting now and extending through Christmas. I’m making a farro and vegetable bowl for dinner so we don’t eat only junk, but sandwiches for lunch and eggs for breakfast are happening now. Cookies are going to be dug into tonight. I’ve been making really good spritzers too, 6 oz cranberry juice (100% juice) and the rest lime seltzer. It would be better with an orange slice but I like it as an alternative to the Welch’s sparkling drinks which I love but which are just a bit too sweet.
In addition to sandwiches I’ll have: crackers, pickles, deviled eggs, cranberry goat cheese bruschetta, olives, stuffed grape leaves, fancy cheese, zacusca, chips, pickles, and nuts. Then the main event dinner is really easy actually, which is why I’m blasting through cookies instead of doing prep. I’m making a giant ham since husband requested it (I’ll freeze the excess for future dinners) and Aldi had awesome deals for bone in butt portions, which are my favorite. I’ll probably do my usual honey mustard maple baste since it is well beloved, sprouts will be done crispy in a skillet, I’m surprised dh doesn’t want mashed potatoes (mind blown) but after like 13 years of requesting mashed potatoes he’s requested roasted red potatoes and I’m highly suspicious but up to the challenge. I think I’ll do herbs de provence seasoning and parmesan on those and leave the skin on. I’ll also roast a whole tray of garlic cloves which…is my business. Don’t worry about it. I won’t eat them whole all on my own…
The only appetizers I really have to make are the deviled eggs and the bruschetta which isn’t really bruschetta. We call anything on a piece of bread bruschetta for some reason, lol, but this red and green version is my very own invention and I’m super proud of it. It’s insanely easy to make and it’s absolutely delicious. You medium finely chop dried cranberries and chiffonade a bunch of fresh basil. Then you mix with goat’s cheese, add salt if needed, and that’s it. I toast bread first and then spread it on but it would be great for a cracker spread too. It looks so pretty with the fresh red and green and every time I take it somewhere it’s all gone super fast. The deviled eggs won’t be too bad to make, I’ll use a pastry bag for filling and I’ll steam the eggs because omg I will probably never boil an egg ever again it’s so much easier to steam.
On the baking front I am pretty smug with my strategy. This year I am prepping all the cookies first, so italian wedding cookies are made but they haven’t been coated in powdered sugar yet. Thumbprint cookies have been made but not filled yet, etc. So hopefully by tonight I will have those finished off AND have made a double batch of hershey bars and all of the sugar cookies, which will definitely take the longest. I use a kind of funny sugar cookie recipe that doesn’t take icing, instead you combine food coloring and evaporated milk and paint the cookies before baking. DH requested these but I don’t think he realizes how much work they are but he will because I’m going to use his rolling arms!
When all the cookies are done I’ll divide into home, office, friend boxes and that’ll be that for Christmas baking. I do still have to make normal dinner and breakfast though. Phew! Haha.
18 Likes
Ok so what time should I be over for Christmas dinner???
6 Likes
You can steam the eggs???!?! 
2 Likes
I do this in the Instant Pot. It is SO much easier to peel them. My husband made hard boiled eggs in a pot on the stove and no one would eat them because they were too hard to peel and we are spoiled now.
9 Likes
I love reading your writing on cooking, so calming.
4 Likes
We also do this and I will never cook hard boiled eggs any other way!
3 Likes