The school calendar for this week had more events on it than days: field day, a class picnic, Wyatt's fifth-grade send-off, two sets of teacher gifts and the last day on Thursday. My calendar had payroll. Dinner wasn't going to get much of my attention, so I let the pantry have it.
I do this every year. The last week of school is chaos, our grocery bill always climbs once three kids are home for lunch all summer, and the reach-in pantry by the back door fills up over the spring with half-used bags and things I bought for a reason I've forgotten. So the plan was simple: cook from what we already had, buy only what we couldn't skip, and see what the receipt looked like.
What the pantry looked like on Sunday
- An opened bag of dried red beans, about a pound left
- Three cans of black beans, two cans of diced tomatoes with green chiles and a can of corn
- A box of lasagna noodles from Christmas week, never opened
- Two jars of pasta sauce
- Half a bag of Fritos and most of a bag of tortilla chips
- A lot of rice, and a 32-ounce box of chicken broth
- Two boxes of cornbread mix, one of them expired since February
- In the chest freezer: smoked sausage, chicken thighs, one bag of chili and the burger patties I froze last week
The dinners
- Sunday: red beans and rice with smoked sausage in the Instant Pot. New money: $1.18 for green onions and a lemon.
- Monday, Memorial Day: Matt grilled the patties from the freezer on the kettle, with a hot dog for Eli. Baked beans from the pantry, chips, and a watermelon. New money: $11.42 for buns, the watermelon and cheese slices.
- Tuesday (office day): chicken tortilla soup in the Crock-Pot, with four frozen thighs, the black beans, the tomatoes, the corn and the broth. Tortilla strips from the end of a bag of tortillas, crisped in the cast iron. New money: $2.10 for an onion and limes.
- Wednesday: skillet lasagna. The Christmas noodles, broken into pieces and simmered in both jars of sauce with a pound of the bulk ground beef, with mozzarella melted on top. Eli had buttered noodles from the same box. New money: $4.48 for mozzarella.
- Thursday (office day, last day of school): Frito pie, by request, from the bag of chili and the half bag of Fritos, with cornbread from the good box. New money: $2.25 for cheddar.
That's $21.43 in new money for five dinners. It's a little flattering, since the beef, sausage, chicken and chili were all paid for in earlier weeks, but that's the point of a week like this: it lets those earlier weeks finish paying off.
What I bought anyway
Three gallons of milk, because milk doesn't care what week it is. Eggs, bread, bananas, apples and strawberries. A canister of coffee at $10.99. Lunch supplies for the last four school days, juice pouches for Eli's class picnic, paper towels and dish soap. The teacher gifts were gift cards this year, and they go on their own line, not the grocery one.
- Aldi on Saturday, moved up because of the holiday: $142.36
- Walmart+ delivery on Tuesday: $47.46
- Kroger pickup on Wednesday: $31.18
What went sideways
The lasagna noodles. I broke them into pieces and dumped them into the sauce all at once, and about a third of them stuck together into a clump with a hard center that Wyatt fished out and held up like a trophy. He called it a noodle brick. Next time they go in a handful at a time, with a good stir every minute or so for the first five minutes. The rest of the skillet was fine, and Matt had seconds.
The expired cornbread mix went in the trash, which is $1.29 and a small lesson. At work I rotate the preschool's supply closet first in, first out without thinking about it. At home, apparently, the new box goes right in front of the old one.
The send-off was Wednesday morning. The fifth graders walked the halls one last time while parents and teachers lined the walls and clapped, and I made it about halfway down the hall before I needed my sunglasses. Indoors. Wyatt pretended not to see me, which is exactly right for eleven.
Receipt check: $221.00 for the week, $44 under our $265 budget and our lowest week since January.
Next week the bill goes back up, and I'm ready for it. Summer always costs more. The pantry has one empty shelf now, and Wyatt has informed me that it's for snacks.
