Pie Day, Frugality Week, and Budgeting

These subjects all collided today as I was so glad to have an excuse to bake a pie, but I had already over spent on my food budget for the month (yes, I realize I have quite a few days left in January). The National Creative Frugality Week idea saved the day, as I just decided to use what I had to bake a pie. I chose the one printed on the front of the Community section of our local newspaper, for no special reason other than that I already had all those ingredients on hand and I always enjoy trying out a new recipe! Here's a picture of our Coconut-Pineapple Pie.

I decided I'd make enough pie crust to throw together a Pot Pie for supper, using up leftover vegetables and meat. While the above pie was baking, I whipped up some gravy and added that along with some onions to the pie and baked it. I had a little bit of pie dough left over so I wrapped the dough around some Date Filling that I'd had sitting on my shelf for way too long. This is the picture of them baking as I was cleaning up the kitchen.

I am committed to sticking to our new budget for this year. I'm kind of an all or nothing kind of person and so can get discouraged when I realize I fall short, which obviously I did already this first month of the new year. But my husband tells me this is just a learning experience and we'll do fine and learn from this. :) I'll tell you what sent me over my limit. I bought a gallon of maple syrup at $45.89. Ouch! It will last me a long time which makes me feel better, you know, like buying it was a sort of investment. See, I'm thinking positively. The other set back of the month was spending a little over one hundred dollars on processing a side of beef. But, again, that was an investment. I really need to set aside between $50.00 and $100.00 a month for meat purchases that I'll make throughout this year from local farmers.

My food budget is $500.00 a month. I know there are many moms who feed their families for much less than this. And my hat's off to them! Food is very important to our family and there are some things we just aren't willing to give up. For example, we love honey, agave nectar, maple syrup and good chocolate. We use whole grains often and never use bleached flour. I try to purchase as much of my meat as possible from local farmers and we supplement our egg supply with local farm raised eggs. In the summer we support our local Farmer's Market. We love fresh vegetables and fruits and like for our diet to consist of as much of these fresh foods as possible!

We're off to enjoy our Pot Pie with a fresh mixed baby greens salad.