Clever Fox Cash Envelope System

I was using plain, cheap white envelopes for cash purchases but I was tired of them tearing and getting all bent up in my purse!  I came across these from Clever Fox and I absolutely love them!  They're waterproof, tear proof and hold their shape very well and even come with budget sheets and a zippered bag to keep them in.

We just started going back to using a debit card and cash envelopes after I got tired of being a paycheck behind on paying bills.  Although we paid off our credit card twice a month, I just kept having stress about it not being money we actually had that 2 week period.  Some months I would spend more and be stressed if we would get enough to pay it off.  I never paid a dime of interest.  I also have received over $2,000 in cash rewards since having the credit card but at what cost?  I may get $50 back a month but it's so much easier to overspend when using a credit card - so it wasn't helping!

Now, we only spend what's in the bank and we only use cash for local purchases like food, gas, etc.  It is less stressful and I actually think it's fun to do the envelopes lol.  Even the kids take part by stuffing the envelopes.

Here are the categories I have cash envelopes for, although I only use the first 6 categories regularly.  The others are occasionally or hopefully one day categories.

Cash Envelope Categories

Offering

Food

Gas (Car)

Haircuts

Necessities

Misc.

Home Maintenance

Car Maintenance

Homeschool

Medical

Entertainment

Clothing
Gifts

My White Bread Recipe Using Bosch Mixer

The Frugal Addict's White Bread

• 1.5 Tablespoons active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup raw honey
• 2 3/4 cups warm water
• 6 cups unbleached flour
• 1.5 Teaspoons salt
• 1/4 cup Canola oil

In the Bosch mixer, put the yeast, water and honey and let sit for 5 minutes.

Add in 3 cups of flour evenly around on top of the water mixture.  Then, add oil and salt evenly around on top of the flour.

With lid on, turn the Bosch mixer on to the first setting and let it incorporate the flour into the water.  Continue adding flour until the dough licks the sides clean.

Turn up to highest setting of 3 and let knead for 4-5 minutes.

Remove dough from Bosch onto a floured surface and divide dough in half.  Place each half in a greased bread pan and press down.

Warm oven for a minute or 2 to just get it warm, then turn off.  Place both bread pans with dough in oven and let rise for 45 minutes or until the dough is 1/2 inch above the pans.  Then, bake for 30 minutes at 350.  Remove pans from oven and then bread from the pans and let cool.

Update On Food Costs; Baking Bread; Freezer

We did it for a week on $65 for groceries and it was so stressful and not fun at all, so we quickly reverted back to our $90 a week plan with a sigh of relief.  I'm still not giving up though on striving to spend less on groceries despite all the food sensitivities.  I started baking my own bread again after learning about Calcium Propionate.   They put propionate in most bread products to preserve it and scientists now believe it is possibly being the CAUSE of Autism.  Not only is it that they possibly found the cause of Autism but they already KNOW that this stuff damages our brain - so why in the world are they putting it in bread products!?  After reading the facts about it, I could no longer give it to my children, much less myself and my husband!  So, I started baking bread again like I used to years ago and you know what, it is really easy and tastes a lot better anyway.  We were spending about $16 a month on bread, now, after accounting for cost of ingredients, we are only spending somewhere in the ballpark of $8 a month.

We purchased a small freezer and stocked up to cut our Aldi shopping trips down to twice a month, instead of weekly.  Aldi is about 20-25 minutes away and going there, shopping and coming back is tedious every week.  Kroger is just down the road, so we decided to get our fresh vegetables there and other things and save Aldi for bi-monthly trips.  We stocked up the freezer with frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, kielbasa, beef and chicken, vegetables, fruit and some other misc. things.

$90 a Week Groceries for a Family of 4

Since I'm starting a $250 a month challenge for May, I decided to do a post showing how we have been feeding our family of 4 on $360 a month - $90 a week.  This is our most recent week, what we spent, purchased and what we ate.  I plan meals for Saturday through Friday, so we are actually in the middle of this week that I'm sharing.  We do stockpile as we can when there is a good sale and it all evens out because some weeks we don't spend the whole $90.

I made some homemade hummus, blueberry muffins and then will also be making boiled eggs for snacks, granola bars, health balls and a few other things.

Dinner Meals

Easter dinner at church (Free)
Chicken w/Noodles & Mixed Vegetables (Crockpot)
Pasta Fagioli (Instant Pot)
Beef & Bean Burrito Bowls (Instant Pot)
Coconut Chicken & Rice (Instant Pot)
Red Beans & Rice (Instant Pot)
Pizza

We utilized what we had in our pantry, some things like coconut milk in my fridge, I wanted to use up, so I found a recipe to use it in.  The Pizza is not a recipe - it's a cheap pizza from Aldi's frozen section and one I don't eat because I can't do heavy tomato meals like pizza often.  You can see that I LOVE to cook with my Instant Pot!  Not only is the food so delicious but it is so fast and easy clean-up as well.


Here's what we purchased from Aldi and Kroger for this week:
  
Aldi

At Aldi, we got frozen broccoli, turkey and beef uncured hot dogs, frozen pizza, whipped cream cheese, uncured turkey sandwich slices, uncured ham sandwich slices, frozen corndogs, yogurt, 1/2 gallon organic whole milk, pasta, egg noodles, head of cauliflower, organic apple juice, condensed cream of chicken (stockup), can diced tomatoes, pickles, cookies, granola bars, crushed red pepper flakes (stockup), Coconut cashew snack, ranch dressing, pretzels, bread and bagels.  We also purchased non-grocery items of zip bags and napkins.


Kroger

At Kroger, we got organic apples, bananas, organic onions, Dr. Pepper (My bad), Soymilk, Burritos and Cheezit's that my daughter begged for.  Because we did U-Scan and spent $35, we got $5 off - so basically the Cheezits were free and then some.  I don't normally spend that much for the Dr. Pepper but I had run out and it wasn't on sale.  I also don't normally buy organic onions but that is all they had and I was kicking myself for not getting the onions at Aldi for $1.49.  We stocked up on the burritos because we all have been having more of them for snacks.  I've tried to wean of us that but they are so convenient and quick and taste good.

So all together we spent $83.60 but we also purchased (not shown), 4 2-liters of soda for our Easter dinner at church, so right under $90 for this past week.

Is $250 a Month Groceries for a Family of 4 Possible in 2019?

We have been very loose with our grocery budgeting since moving to Ohio but we tightened it up last year and started saving money easily.  Now, we spend $360 a month to feed our family of 4 (no babies or toddlers - teenager and a hearty 6yr old snacker).  That is $90 a week and we eat good.  However, I heard that a lot of families, even families of 6 - are making it on $250 a month!  I'm wanting to see if this is possible for us.

Since I started not being able to eat tomato products a few years ago, it became very difficult to cut our grocery budget.  Up until my health problem with tomatoes, we were easily making it on $150-$200 a month groceries because tomato-based meals (spaghetti, etc.) are very cheap to make.  Most of the frugal meal plans across the internet that I came across always had tomato-based meals most days of the week.  So, it has been a process to find cheap meals minus most tomato products!  I do still make meals with some tomato products in them, if they are very minimal but most of the time, I don't eat them but my family does.

Having gave that caveat - let's find out in this month of May, if it is truly possible to for a family of 4 like us (with food/health issues) to eat on $250 a month!