Menu Planning-Stay Out of the Store Edition

With some careful prorating of $24.50 of stock up deals into February, I am at $349.50 for the month of January with all household and grocery purchases. I cut myself some slack and used $8 worth of chips and pop in our travel budget because they were for the road trip. Still, prorating and category swapping aside, I am pleased with where I ended up. This was in spite of two DH rogue shops, one of nearly $94 and one of $47. We also did end up getting Papa Murphy's twice, and of course had meals out this weekend, but that really was it for suppers not made at home. I was at the mercy of the cafeteria for my training last week for lunch. In hind sight, I should have just gone over budget and bought some easy lunch items, but I didn't, so spent probably $23 over three days. Still, coming off spendy December, and a weekend away, our bank balance will get a little breather when the credit card comes in February. I could have succumbed to the over a week strain of the crud and cold, still feeling it somewhat. The fact that I didn't give up completely and just order take out more often was a minor victory as well.

Tonight, we have some pizza leftover from the Papa Murphy's we picked up  last night when we got into town plus the last of  Thursdays dinner. I included a loaf of bread and a package of buns in the $349.50, and will round out the refrigerator leftovers with some odds and ends in the freezer. Other meals options include:

Turkey meatloaf mixed veg, mashed potatoes from a packet
Mock lasagna using penne or rotini
Chow Mein and refried rice
leftovers
bean soup and homemade biscuits

I'll probably shop Thursday night on my way home from work, but this squeaks us out for meals until Sunday. It's another show choir weekend, of course, so I'll leave something for DH to heat up quick before he meets up with someone to drive over for finals. One or the other of us will ride with someone so we don't have two cars traveling two plus hours as I'll be there most of the afternoon and into the evening, hoping to meet up with DD2 for lunch before she stays to watch the prelims with me. I hope there is enough leftovers for my lunch as the cupboards were kind of bare for easy lunch items. I threw a can of Campbell's Chicken noodle, an apple, an orange, and the last of a sleeve of crackers into my lunch, so I won't starve, and sure I won't do like last week and buy tasteless pricey lunches. 

For February, I'm back to my $400 H&G budget-the $24.50, so a starting point of $375.50. It's a short month, but we are out of many household and cleaning items, so feels tight. I'd like to keep up with no eating out since we still have many show choir weekends that sort of force the issue. I can't say our quality of life was any less in January not eating out spur of the moment, so this should be easy. For those that did a January grocery challenge, how are you doing? Do you give yourself liberties with the rules as I have?