Vegetarian Chilli

Pre soaking kidney beans for the chili.

 It does not look to attractice right now, but it smelt amazing. :-) I put no celery in this time.

 This is the last leftover from last week, I put it in the freezer and defrosted it today. Its meant to be a bean soup but I think the beans overtook the water. Woops... So this should make around 5 lunches for Nick and I.

 So firstly we decant some of the soup in to two Rubbermaid containers that are microwavable. This soup is REALLY filling.

 I also pack Nick and I some almonds for a 10AM snack

Our breakfast is a PB Sandwich, they actually keep good overnight too. So you can make this the night before.

In the morning we pour some coffee in to our travel mugs, and put some filtered water in to our bottles for the day.

Its easy when you know what you are doing.

Time to get next weeks shopping done :)

Here is the copy of our shopping list for this week, the red checks beside the item means its something we have in our fridge. Or we can substitute it.

Check out the size of that :). Hopefully we should be spending a lot less than $20 this week, due to the huge amount of leftover barley soup we have, as well as the one with beans in.

We are having a feast tonight as its Nicks cousins last night before he leaves for Army boot camp.... We shall take plenty of photos and get back to updating later today.

Tonights dinner.....$20 a week officially begins tomorrow!

Today we spent $40 on the necessaries at a local wholesale store. We needed beans, and other condiments to last us over the next 6 months. :-) on top of the $20 a week.

As for tonight, we are baking some Italian herb bread. To have along with chicken pasta sauce over basil fettuccine which is being slow cooked/baked/mixed and chilled as we speak.

The total cost of this meal to feed 6.... $4.

We are using some frozen chicken breasts, some oldish flour, and some pasta sauce which is about to expire.

I cant wait to start back college soon, and I am hoping to actually get some solid followers on this blog. Hopefully, some people will start their own $20 a week blogs. :-).

Nick and I couldent post pics of the bread we made... Its not very attractive right now. However, we will set the table for dinner tonight and then take some amazing photos (hopefully!)

Ta-ta for now!

Think this would be any good for a Friday or Saturday on the diet plan?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/12874797/Original-Kentucky-Fried-Chicken-Coating-Secret-Ingredients

We love a small amount of fried chicken as a treat after a race... What do you all think? It looks like it would taste good.

$20 a week on gas, $20 a week on food...

The part that we are personally struggling with right now is the gas. We both work in opposite directions of each other, and currently have one chevy cobalt, and one trail blazer...
The trail blazer is a huge gas guzzler. Often taking $40 every other week.

On way we are reducing our gas bill is by walking and cycling places. If Nick happens to get this new job, we will be able to cut our gas a lot. This is when we are in the new house of course...

He is able to walk to work and college, and I would be the only one using the car. Also a lot of my classes are online this term, as it was just so expensive to drive to college and back every day. Online classes are a great option for the gas cash strapped.

Another way to reduce our gas bill would be to invest in a Chevy Volt...But being the $40,000 car they are right now I don't think that will happen anytime soon... Still looking for a way to win one of them!

I am hoping in the new year I can get some scholarships to help me through college. Its been such a struggle these past few months with trying to figure out a way to afford that one extra class. Ack!

Will update again later!