Enjoy a delicious dinner for under $5 with our 3 Day Sale!
I thought that was pretty cool that they were sending an email to help me out with a "delicious" meal for my family.
After I opened it and saw:
Frozen Pizza
Chips
Soda
A lame bag of iceburg lettuce mix
I was pissed off.
You see my thought was that "delicious" would also mean something healthy - and definitely NOT frozen pizza.
I cannot tell you the number of times I have checked out at this same store and seen what other people buy - and what I buy - and thought to myself, "You bought crap & ramen and I STILL SPENT LESS AND GOT MORE!"
Not that I hate ramen, but to all those people.
You're doing it wrong.
You see when I go to the store I spend time looking at the ad, looking at coupons online, checking the store website and getting texts and emails for further deals, THEN I make my list of the items my family will eat that I can get for a better price. Always keeping in mind the need for fruit and vegetables, and healthy protein.
In fact, the night before I received the email from this store I had visited it to get some pork chops for our dinner. I was going "off book" for how I cook and getting something thawed instead of using what I had, but....it had been a rough day.
To my delight pork chops (really NICE bone-in loin chops) were on sale for $1.99/lb.
Why would this store not email me something like this: Enjoy a delicious dinner for under $10 for your family of SIX with our 3 Day Sale!
Let's do the math: I got six thick bone-in chops for $6.23, I could add the lame 88 cent salad and some herb rice mix (Knorr pasta sides are usually a buck, let's say we use 2) and I would have spent $9.11 to feed the four adults and one child in my family - and how we eat there were TWO chops left over.
Hello lunch for me today with leftover potatoes and veggies from another meal.
EVEN if I broke down and used a $2.50 bag of frozen or fresh veggies I would have been at $10.73.
Basically what I am trying to say is this:
Every week there are sales on some fruit or veggie - BUY THAT.
Every week there are sales on proteins - BUY THOSE.
Every week there are healthier choices of convenient foods - or buy some rice and dried pasta on sale and add your own can of tomatoes - often ON SALE.
Let me give you an example: I bought two huge cans of enchilada sauce when it was on sale for $1.50 and I had a coupon for $1 off two - plus 5% cartwheel and 5% Target RedCard discount. They ended up at 85 cents each for me and I can use them to make enchiladas OR dump over onions and a roast for a TRULY delicious meal for my family at some later date. These cans of sauce are normally over two dollars each.
I am not against foods that make life easier. We eat frozen pizza on occasion (I got a NICE one for $1.99 from a text, White Chicken!) but as the place people look to for value and nutrition for their family why wouldn't grocery stores highlight deals on easy HEALTHY food for their customers that cost LESS?
Stores? Cub, Target, Byerly's??? Anyone?
Or maybe I just start grocery shopping for others for a living.
Why? Because I lost the last one and unlike some people - we both need to work. Plus, I like to work and am not sure I could totally be a stay at home mom. I really admire those who can do that - the mom's who do crafts all the time with their kids - take them tirelessly to the park - bake, cook, and play with their kids.
I have one and she sometimes exhausts me.
I have loved the last three months for the time to go to the zoo, the apple orchard, school field trips, cooking dinner, doing crafts, just LAYING there and reading books with @IamBooBooLaLa - but it has been very stressful to try and balance being here with her and looking for work.
Sometimes I feel like the online searching, the endless applications and the interviewing are not worth the fact I have to plop her in front of the television or the Wii, or haul my dad out of the house to get her on the bus.
So I have a few tips for those of you who have friends in my situation.
Do: Offer to help watch my daughter if I am in a bind - I may never ask, but its nice to hear.
Do: Send links to jobs or make suggestions. Even if they don't "quite" fit I know you are thinking of me.
Don't: Worry if I get teary or quiet. Its A LOT to think about every day.
And if I don't blog please know it's not because I don't have anything to say - it is because I am SICK of being online after all those applications that require you to; copy and paste your resume, fill in all the details of your resume over the next four pages, then upload your resume and edit all the details that didn't quite parse out correctly over the next three pages.
