A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned

It's so weird blogging so far in the past, because so much has changed in just a few months. I have been trying really hard to find ways to save money. I'm clipping coupons, stocking up on good sales, and planning my weekly menu to prevent wasting food and saving time. Anyway, this infatuation all started when I was shopping at Vons. I saw a big slab of meat was on sale for $1.81/pound. After talking to the butcher a bit, I realized that this meat was the equivalent to ground beef, but was cheaper. I immediately thought of the meat grinder, kitchen aid attachment that my mom had bought for me. So, I bought a couple slabs of meat and brought it home to grind. Let me tell you, grinding meat is a messy job. Of course, it was on a Tuesday, which means the kitchen had JUST been freshly cleaned (by my bi-monthly house keeper...don't tell my mother-in-law). Meat was flying all over the place. It was insane. I sealed up the meat and froze it and decided that saving a couple of bucks on meat was not worth it. Here are the pictures:


And this was just the table. Just imagine little bits of meat all over the floor and my shirt as well. The major irony to this story... a couple of days later, I found ground beef on sale for $1.27/pound. Live and learn!


Apparently I was feeling really domestic that day, because I also made "sand-dollar cookies" that Abby had been bugging me about. I guess her teacher in primary had talked about them. The kids were all asking for the recipe. She started writing it down, but realized it would take too long. So, she just put her name & number on a sheet of paper. Abby kept insisting that we needed to make them. So I called Lindsey. SAhe said it was a recipe from The Friend, a church magazine, and I could just look them up on-line. So here they are. They were a lot like Snickerdoodles, but not as good, and with almond slivers to look like sand-dollars.