Grocery Shopping and cooking, Part 2

So the whole point to shopping with coupons and saving money and buying all these groceries is to actually make something with them.  We've recently been trying out new recipes, and we're going to continue to do that.  This post is going to be about a new program we're going to try.  Once a Month Mom is an awesome site that looks like it will fit just about any eating program you want.  Even making your own baby food.  Go check it out (after you finish reading this, of course!).  They aren't doing another monthly menu until January, so I'm kind of on my own for December.  They have a great series on their site about making your own menu, so I'm following that.  I've  looked all over the Internet for recipe ideas to cook during the month.  I still want to only cook one time, or at least only two times and be done for the month.  So, I've picked a few "starter" recipes to get me going.  Now I just have to make out my grocery list, check the coupon site, and go shopping... Here's what we're eating in December... Click on any of the recipe names to go view that recipe, I followed the advice of the Once a Month Mom site, and decided to make double of each recipe to have enough to eat in December.  Here we go:
Bubble Pizza
Chicken & Dumplings*
BBQ Sandwiches -  (just a roast and a package of onion soup mix with water in my crock pot til it falls apart, then shred it and freeze it.  When you're ready to eat, thaw, warm up, and put barbecue sauce on it and eat!)
Pizza Pasta Casserole
Taco Soup
Hashbrown Casserole (my mother-in-law's GREAT recipe)
Mini Meatloafs

Check out some of these and let me know if you try them... I'll keep you updated on what we thought of each of them.

I've spent the last three days cooking when I've had spare time.  We've eaten the Bubble Pizza (a HUGE hit), the Chicken & Dumplings (another hit), and the BBQ Sandwiches (this wasn't new to us)

*I made double the recipe for this, and froze the extra before adding the biscuits.  My "dumplings" weren't nearly as good as my mother-in-law's, but the rest of the dish made up for it.  It's almost as good as hers.  Also, I put some small cups of the chicken mixture aside for lunches over rice.  I'm eating that today, and I can't wait!!

101 Things mini-update:
The Chicken & Dumplings and Bubble Pizza are two new recipes I've never made... check that off!

Groceries... Groceries... Groceries... Part 1

**Not any pictures in this one... sorry, Momma! ;)
Okay... I'm not going to say that I don't grocery shop, because that would be crazy.  Of course, I've been grocery shopping, and I go grocery shopping once a week (usually Saturdays).  I just don't know how to grocery shop effectively.
I've always hated coupons because I felt like I was buying things that I wouldn't normally buy just because I could save a couple of cents on it.  So I've mostly ignored them.
I'm not super organized when it comes to getting them all cut up and arranged in "department" order, and there are just so many that I don't EVER use.  So I've mostly ignored them.
I never know what it means to "wait for double days" or any of those other things that couponers say.  So I've mostly ignore them.
BUT I'm finding that there are LOTS of things that I want to go and do and LOTS of things that I want to experience, and I want my kids to experience, and almost all of those things costs money.  In addition to the fact that we believe God is calling us into adoption, something else that costs money.  SO the time has come to look through every option I have, and no longer can I "ignore the coupons".  So I'm starting a series about how I'm going from a grocery shopper to a GROCERY shopper! :)
I've done a few things so far to get this going.

1. Found two phenomenal websites that I've devoured every bit of information from in the last two days.... houses cleaning... what house cleaning??
Anyway, here they are:   Once a Month Mom, where you can get a specific menu almost every month and pick and choose your recipes and then get to cooking!  There are so many different ways you can use this website, and they are all fantastic!  I'll be talking more specifically about this as I start the actual cooking.
The other site is: The Grocery Game, where they have some kind of database that searches out the stores closest to you and gives you lists of the best deals for each week of the year.  They use the coupon inserts in the Sunday newspaper to get the best deals, and there are even some items that are FREE each week.  I'm blown away by this.  Things that I actually USE that are FREE!  Not things that I wouldn't normally buy, but I buy them because I have a coupon... NO, they are useful, and FREE!  Okay... did I say I'm blown away?? This one actually costs money, but if it does what I think it's going to do for us, then it will still save us WAY more than it will cost.  It also has a 4 week free trial, which I'm taking advantage of right now, so there will be more posts about this coming up.

2. I scoured... umm... scowered... umm... skowered... umm... searched my house for coupons, and didn't find many.  I did find a 25% off a food processor (just what I had first on my wishlist), so I used that today and came home with my dream machine!), and I found a couple of trash bags (which we needed) and one for ziploc bags (which I'll need for the Once a Month Cooking)... all-in-all, I saved $18.50 on things I would've bought anyway without the coupons!

3. I searched online to find out WHERE all these people are getting their coupons.  It turns out that they still get a NEWSPAPER... IN PAPER... NOT ELECTRONICALLY!??!  I couldn't believe this was the real way that people got coupons.  So I searched for the best Sunday paper to get coupons from.  I ended up with a lot of choices, but because I live where I do, I decided to go with just the Sunday edition of the Washington Post.  I might get a little smarter while I'm using my coupons also!  My subscription for the paper was $30 for the year. Not bad, but I am keeping up with all these things I'm buying to get started saving to make sure I'm getting my money's worth out of it all.  I know this isn't the only way to get coupons, and I did find LOTS of coupons online, and I'm using some of those as well.  The inserts in the papers just fit better with The Grocery Game lists, so that's what I chose to primarily use.

That's what I've done so far, but I feel much smarter and much more motivated to see how much money we can save on groceries.  As I learn more, and become a GROCERY shopper, I'll bring y'all along to watch.  It should be interesting... Our first stop... a grocery store named Harris Teeter (yes, those of you in Arkansas, that is actually the name of a grocery store).  I'm going in a couple of days to "scout it out"... I know, crazy... I'm intimidated by big grocery stores that use big words I don't understand.  I'm going to get one of their "VIC" cards and just walk through the store and absorb... definite comments coming after that trip!  Stay tuned!