The End of the Month

Ben and I have a pretty strict budget that we try to adhere to and yesterday, the last day of March, we were running out of funds. We had $3 left in our grocery budget and not much left in our cupboards. We had a can of beets (yuck), cannelloni beans, oatmeal, wild rice, Kraft Mac'N Cheese packets, one egg, fresh mushrooms...pretty much nothing to make a meal of. I had to pick up a prescription at Target and while I was musing over our dinner options I found that Target had canned tomatoes, canned tomato sauce, and noodles all on sale for less than $2 combined! At home I found one 'good' onion and we had some garlic.

However, I was still feeling so uninspired. Ben is such a creative chef and because he was playing tennis last night I was in charge of "creating" so I was feeling kind of sulky about our meal. And then I remembered...my elephant bank! I dumped her out on the bed and counted my blessings: about $7. I then headed to Trader Joe's to do some trading. I was a little concerned about paying in change because TJ's always has long lines and nobody pays in cash anymore and definitely nobody pays in nickels and dimes. So I walked there and took my canvas bag so that at least TJ's would think I was green--that I was on their side and then they wouldn't mind the coins.


(Please disregard my unmade bed)

And look at my success: spicy Italian (chicken) sausage and a bottle of wine! Not bad for a 31st of the month!


(And so sad, I forgot to take a picture of our meal which turned out really well.)