Becoming My Budget's Friend

I am really trying to be better about our food budget and how I use it. We are saving up for a house, and I can easily have food money left over at the end of the month to put towards the house if I just plan a little and spend some time cooking. I would say that I have normally been "money conscious" with my food budget. Much because it was SO easy considering all the really great, inexpensive options we had in our old town. But after moving out here to this one-horse-town.... I pretty much only have one option for grocery shopping. And it is Safeway. That, or sending the Hubs by Walmart,Target, or Costco on the way home from work. I am sure the are other options out there (we do have a Dollar General and a Discount Grocery Store), but I have yet to have time to explore them. All that to say--- Both of those reasons (saving for a house and Safeway, which I think is expensive) encourage and challenge me to get more creative, stretch our foods, and not waste. 

Today I made corn chowder for lunch, as opposed to yesterdays PBJ's. And surprise surprise, we will be having it for dinner, as well. 

I took this recipe from Near to Nothing's blog and revamped it using what we had and made it so that I could eat it. 

I used leftover ham rather than chicken, and 3c. almond milk/ 3c. water. It turned out very tasty, but really runny. So, I added probably 1/4c corn starch and let it simmer for a few more minutes. After it thickened, it was PERFECT!! 

And for dessert tonight, we had a bag of marshmallows that needed to be used up, so I stove-popped some popcorn and made a pan (rather than balls) of marshmallow popcorn. YUM! 

And the best part? I had all the ingredients to both= free meal. Well, kind of. If you ignore the fact that I bought them to begin with... but I was using leftovers completely to make the meal. So, again- Hurrah!