Picture of the day, Menu Planning

Today's picture of the day is from way earlier in the season when we actually got excited about Auburn football around our house. Don't get me wrong, we are no fair-weather fans- we just used to be alot more pumped up when we had a good team. Anyways, this weekend is an off weekend and I have 2 baby showers to go to, so football is not in the forecast. On another note, I have placed the Olis household on a spending freeze. We have just spent WAY too much money lately on stuff we would have done just fine without- so in an effort to tighten the belt, we are only paying the bills and buying gas and groceries. No extras until we can start tithing like we need to be, and putting money away on a monthly basis into savings... and with daycare, formula and diapers and Wyatt's college savings, (not to mention Christmas) that is not going to be an easy task. Our first item on the agenda is to plan our meals and only buy what we have to have for that week. My $213 trip to Sam's last month to stock up on paper products, diapers, formula, and household items put us way over budget, but we will not have to purchase most of those things for a LONG time, so I am hoping to re-coop that money in our weekly Wal-Mart trips. Here is this week's meun plan, along with a grocery list:

Friday- frozen pizza
Saturday- Cheesy Vegetable Chowder (Thanks, LB!!)
Sunday- Baby Shower- we will be eating dinner there
Monday- Leftover chowder
Tuesday- Chicken Fingers, broccoli
Wednesday- Chicken Bruschetta Bake, salad
Thursday- Tacos

Shopping List:
Milk
eggs
Raisin Bran Chrunch
flour
bread
lunchmeat
chicken broth (4 cups)
4 carrots
2 potatoes
2 cups sharp grated cheddar cheese
2 cups frozen kernal corn
chex mix
apples
diapers
formula

This is it! Everything else we already have, so I am hoping this will be a cheap grocery week for us.
Our second item of business is to start shopping for new car insurance. We pay a whopping $177 per month for car insurance for 3 older cars. I think this is ridiculous. I do have 1 speeding ticket still hanging on to my record, but Mark's record is perfect. I am hoping that I can shave $50 per month off of our monthly budget by going with a different company. I did call Direct TV last week and manged to get our $68 bill down to $42, without losing any channels. Anoyone intrested in doing this, let me know- and I will tell you how I got them to drop $26 off of our monthly bill. Have a great weekend everyone!