Well, it’s day four of the Food Stamp Challenge, and I still haven’t made it to the grocery store. I have no plans to go tomorrow as we have a busy day ahead of us. However, we are by no means out of food, and we ate three fairly well-rounded and inexpensive meals today.
My hubby took the day off work since he’s been working long hours and we had several projects around the house that he needed to work on. I thought a breakfast a little more hearty than more Cheerios would keep him going longer so I put some baked oatmeal in the oven. We topped it with milk, brown sugar and blueberries. Anna ate three bowls. 
I know oats sell for 3.7 cents an ounce at Aldi’s, but I’ve never tried to figure out how much a cup of oats costs. I’m fairly sure breakfast for the three of us still came to $1.50 or so considering that we still have most of the pan left for breakfast later this week. The blueberries were free because our semi-local Kroger chain sent me a coupon in the mail for a free package of frozen fruit. I wish we still had a Kroger in Kansas City! As it is, the closest one to me is about 35 minutes away, but I often head that direction to visit family so sometimes I plan a trip to Kroger as well.
After breakfast, Anna headed over to a friend’s house to play and I packed a lunch to send with her. She ate yogurt (cost $0, the last one from my Fiber One shopping trip), string cheese (cost $0.25) and more blueberries (cost $0). She didn’t want her Kashi cereal bar, but she did eat an oatmeal cookie that my friend made for her so I guess she got her dose of carbs. That’s what I’ll tell myself anyway. I ate leftovers and my hubby had some Kraft Deluxe mac n cheese bought on rollback at Walmart with a coupon last week (cost $0.50).
Throughout the day we also drank some of the free Powerades I bought at CVS a while back. We have quite a stockpile of free drinks including several Vitamin Waters that have been on sale at several places for $1 recently or free if you use the $1 coupon from the Sunday paper.
For dinner, I had planned to make chicken nuggets, but I had to pick up Anna and our car after getting the oil changed so I ran out of time. I’ll make that dinner on Monday instead since we’re eating at my parents’ house tomorrow night and I’m taking dinner to a friend on Sunday so my plan then is to make a double batch for us to split. Instead of chicken nuggets, tonight we had a frozen California Pizza Kitchen pizza purchased last week at Hen House for $3.99 after a sale and coupon. On the side we had a corn and tomato salad. I sliced the corn off a cob of corn (cost $0.20) and added two chopped tomatoes (cost $0.75) and then let it marinate in Italian dressing (cost $0) overnight.
Approximate daily food expenses: $7.19
Running total: $19.09
Tomorrow we shouldn’t have a problem keeping our food expenses low since we have plenty of leftovers, a birthday party over lunch and dinner at my parents’ house. I kind of feel like we’re cheating on the Challenge by eating away from home so frequently, but keeping track of how often others provide food for us has really made me thankful for the support that we have and those who provide it. We’re so blessed to be surrounded by so many friends and our families.
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