Angel Food Ministries

I am curious if anyone uses or has used the Angel Food Ministries for food? We use to, but in the nearly two and a half years we have been down here we have only done it once. I don't always like the food items offered, so I would have to play it month by month, but Junes menu is pretty decent.

For those that have never heard of Angel Food it is a nation wide, church based, non profit ministry. Its purpose is to "provide grocery relief and financial support." There are no income requirements or restrictions. I have been to churches where it is middle/upper class people picking up the food, and other churches where it is very poor people picking up the food, so both ends of the board use this!

They sell food by the "unit" - a medium sized box consisting of fresh and frozen foods. None of the foods are seconds, damaged or near expiry. One unit, at the cost of $30, is suppose to feed a family of four for about one week.
Like I said at the beginning, I don't always like the food they offer. Sometimes there is a lot of breaded meat. Or meats we don't eat. Or I can get all of the food cheaper at our grocery store. But I do love the concept of Angel Food, and am thinking of starting back at it.
The food, on average, retails for $60 if bought at the store.

The menu for June (which you can currently order) includes:

1.5 lb. Ribeye Steaks (4 x 6 oz.)

2 lb. Homestyle Lasagna Dinner Entrée

2 lb. Beef and Bean Burritos (8 x 4 oz.)

2 lb. Boneless/Skinless Chicken Breast Chunks

28 oz. Jumbo Beef Pattie Entrée with Gravy

1 lb. Lean Ground Beef

1 lb. All Meat Hotdog

10 oz. Individually Wrapped Sliced Cheese (16 slice)

20 oz. Shoestring Fries

1 lb. Broccoli Cuts

12 oz. Peanut Butter

1 lb. Rice

1 lb. Pinto Beans

1 lb. Margarine Tub
(Zero Grams Trans Fat)

32 oz. 2% Shelf Stable Milk

Dozen Eggs

Dessert

There are some items we wouldn't use, such as the sliced cheese, the margarine and possibly the dessert, depending on what it is. Desserts have varied from nice, large pies to gross pudding packets, so you never know what you'll get for dessert!

I would also have to add in salads, which we eat daily, and other hot vegetables to balance out the meals. I would also need to buy all our fruit and our breakfast items.

On top of the regular box for $30 they offer special boxes - either all meat boxes or, more recently, all fruit boxes. The all meat boxes consist of various steak cuts, or bacon wrapped meats. Generally they are nicer meats and the price of the 'special' boxes works out to anywhere from $2 - $5 per lb on average.
In the past we have ordered steak boxes and used them for date nights at a significant savings over a steak house or even from buying the same cut at a local grocery store.

I think we are going to order 2 regular boxes for a total of $60. I have worked out a 2 week menu plan with those items and the additional groceries needed to complete lunches and suppers and to make breakfast would cost right about $60, for a total of $120 for 2 weeks worth of meals.
If anyone is interested I will post the recipes and meal plan based around the Angel Food menu later this week.

Check out their website for more information, to find local host sites, and to see their May menu (which is too late to order!)

Money Matters

I think accountability is a great motivation to stay on track for anything. Paul and I spend several hours at the end of each month reviewing how our budget worked for the previous month and tweaking and detailing it for the next month.
We do all of our banking online and monitor our account almost daily just to make sure things are coming and going like they're suppose to :)

We keep an Excel sheet that encompasses what each of our monthly expenses should be, and then lists what each month actually comes out to. I love having it done this way as it motivates us to try to lower expenses if they end up being higher than the month before.

Like our Power Bill. It is $42 more this month than it was last month. $42!! That's insane. Seeing the huge jump between Aprils costs and Mays costs has inspired us to not make the AC quite so cold and to start using our ceiling fans. We'll see if there's a difference when we get next months bill... it is only going to get hotter so I am not too hopeful about the bill being lowered.

Having the Excel sheet is also encouraging. Our grocery/household expenses bill has dropped the last couple of months. We budgeted $350 a month for all groceries, diapers, toiletries and any other household item. In April we (saying "we" sounds better than saying "I"!) spent $400+ ... in May I spent $318! May is when we started pulling cash out of our bank account, so I only have the $350 cash to carry us through.
If I manage to keep it under budget through June then we'll lower the grocery budget and apply the extra money to Student Debt.

From reading all the other frugal blogs $350 a month is a lot of money to spend on the household budget. I think we could easily get ours down to $250 a month, but we are stockpiling our (new!) freezer right now and are learning along the way :)
Paul also likes to have meat at every supper - and not little bits of meat amongst other ingredients. He likes "real" meat, so we have it every day. It's not something that can be eliminated from our budget, so that expense will remain.
We also eat a ton of fresh fruit and veggies, which is another thing that we will not eliminate.
We probably eat $20-$30 of fruit and vegetables a week and $10-$20 of meat a week.
I buy some dairy, some canned beans and bread almost weekly and then occasionally oils, vinegars, jams, salad dressings etc.

I avoid the aisles in the grocery store as much as possible to avoid spending extra money :)
Between coupon-ing and CVS I have been able to get a stash of cereal, cookies, coke, Fuse, M&Ms and Chex Mix for pennies or free, and those are the items we pull out when we're feeling like junking out or have company over.

I also now keep a granola bar or two and a bottle of water in my purse to help ward off any hunger while shopping - I spend way more money when I am hungry :)

Oh, another trick I have started for "saving" money - our commissary has just opened a self checkout with a recommended maximum of 40 items. Not only is the self check out line WAY shorter and faster than regular checkout, but it is no fun with a baby and a ton of items to check out. So I use self checkout as a motivator to not buy items not already on my list :)

My goal for the month of June is to keep the grocery/household budget under $300.