Well I made it to March 1st.  How it happened I have no idea. Turns out I had a lot more food than I planned. In fact I am so inspired that we are going to continue eating out of the freezer before I go on a really big shopping trip.  I do need to shop a little bit for fruits and veggies and milk,  but I am going to stretch this out so I am forced to eat what's in my freezer.  Here's what happened.

2/18 - leftovers dumplings

2/19 - bolognese/puttanesa 

2/20 - beef wellington 

2/21 - pulled pork

2/22 - sandwiches and pulled pork left over dinner

2/23 - lemongrass salmon soup

2/24-Dumplings and fried rice

2/25 - penne vodka sauce

2/26 - leftovers

2/27 - Tacos - ate outside with neighbors and smoked 4 lbs of ground beef and made a taco bar.  We fed 6 adults and 5 kids.  We still had leftovers.  Not doing too bad.  We still have fried rice, penne vodka sauce, and taco meat.

2/28 - smoked the other pork shoulder from costco.

The new plan?  Everyone is suggesting a walmart run. So the nearest walmart is 15 miles and 25 minutes away.  I'm going to try it.  I'm also going to try regular grocery stores but looking at flyers for deals. I always shop for coke in flyers and I used to wait for chicken to go on sale.  Now the same thing.  I'm going to do a costco run and price out common items i buy and sort of keep a price book.  

We spent a grand total of $1056.29 for the month for groceries and $45.56 eating out for 1 costco hot dogs & fruit smoothies, kids had burgers 1x, and DH had 1 coffee out.   My goal for March 2021 is $950 or 90% of our February spending.  I also want to keep eating out to under $100.  I figure like dieting I should try small reductions until it hurts, which it hurt this month because of poor planning.

We still had a good month overall up $24k for the month.  Next month even better.   Fingers crossed. I'm debating adding in toiletries and non-perishables to my $950 budget at some point. I did not add in batteries and stuff to it.