How many meals can you get from a bag of Costco meatballs?!

As part of food budgeting I try to see what can take me farthest, as far as food prep goes and Costco meatballs (running 16$a bag) can get me a few meals, especially on my lazy days....

Tonight I created a meal my picky 2 year old ate... I grabbed what I had and bang!

So first on my meatball list:

Layered Alfredo lasagna macaroni.
        : macaroni noodles, jar Alfredo, half cup cheese (I only had cheddar) half cup cottage cheese, chopped summer squash and zucchini (boiled with the noodles), frozen peas and crushed Ritz in Tb melted butter. Mixed together tossed on oven at 375 for 20 minutes.

SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS

Pot pie

Tatertot casserole

Sweet and sour balls on rice

Meatball stroganoff on egg noodles.

I'm sure there are many other ideas, when I can't get a good deal on ground beef I will just chop meatballs for ground beef and use in tacos....

Feeding family on a tight budget

I feed my family of six on 250$ a month. That's right, now that I've moved to a bigger home I have more obligation to pinch my pennies.

The simple way I do it, though time consuming, I price match.

I don't coupon because I haven't gotten into it and maybe I'd save more... also we have wic which is helpful (you don't have to be dirty poor to qualify either people, you can make 62k a year with a family my size and still qualify)

Anyways I get the ad's and go through them only AFTER I've made my meal list and needs, after I write out my meals I write a list of those ingredients, then going through my ads i put the price from the ad next to the item on my list... I use a different color pen to write a approximate cost next to the items I'm not price matching, I then calculate the total cost of my trip rounded up and then estimated tax (Utah tax for food is 3 percent)

This way I know what I'm going to spend and if I aimed to high and Wal-Mart's prices are lower I get to buy a treat ;-)

See it's easy plan at least 3 hours shopping though. Sometimes I go to winco  for their bulk.

Moving

So, we were given the opportunity to buy my grandpa's house in Alpine. we knew we could not afford it, but it didn't feel good to pass up so we decided to put our faith forward and List our house on the MLS. that very week mike got a raise. that same week we got an offer on our house which we accepted.

next was knowing if we would qualify for financing for her house having faith to move forward has shown rewarding.

It's also been very exhausting.  The steps to moving aren't over yet though, we have the inspector coming Tuesday and then we have the appraiser and then they will get their loan started. It's all scary but I have faith everything will work out as it should.... and just to throw a little kink in the mix, Mike and I were called to the stake president's office, before he couldn't extend a call to Mike we told him we are selling our house. admittedly he looks a bit distraught. a bit torn to say the least. he told us to expect big things that the Lord new us. we are faithful and he was not going to put us on the spot. but for us to let him know if things work out or don't ASAP. so it's been heavy weighed on our minds what the calling was....

none the less I feel our time here in Kerns has come to an end