Love Me Some Acorn Squash

As a stay at home mom, my job is to save us money. I'm a complete and utter cheap skate even in good times. It comes easy to me because my parents lived paycheck to paycheck and barely got by sometimes. I wouldn't say we were poor, but we weren't well off. I learned the value of a dollar and how to make it stretch from my mother.

Butternut and acorn squash has been on sale at Kroger for several weeks in a row now for a whopping 69 cents a pound! As such, it's been on our weekly rotation since it's been in season (I believe the sale began in October.) It is a tradition at our house every year around this time. It has become a wonderful comfort food in our house that reminds us of the season. We simply bake it with a little smart balance, splenda and a touch of cinnamon.
Our main course today was broiled parmesan tilapia. I can't say that it was the best paring with the acorn squash but I don't mix eat. I eat one thing and move to the next. I think it's a very left brain thing to do. I'm whole brained so I have both creative and logical tendencies. I like math as much as like art.

Anyway, the tilapia is an absolutely delicious dish that I discovered on SparkPeople. We get frozen tilapia when it's on sale and stock up. A nice size freezer is an essential component in saving money. Nick bought me a beautiful freezer in Albuquerque. He knows that the key to my heart is saving our money.

We never pay more then 3 bucks a pound for tilapia. If I'm lucky, I can get it for $2 a pound. That said, this meal cost us about 5 bucks total. I'm guessing we ate about a pound of tilapia, a couple pounds of squash, some lettuce, etc.

I generally don't clip coupons to save money, I shop circulars. Coupons generally make you buy the brand names on things and I find that even with the coupon AND it being on sale it is not less than the store brand. I know this may cause some of you to cringe, but I take ALL of those circulars that come in the mail each week and I go to super walmart. I use those circulars to get ALL the sales in one place. That's right, I stand at the cashier's desk and tell them all the prices I want from all the different circulars. Sometimes I have to show them the circular, sometimes I don't. It does take some time and I don't enjoy the fact that it leaves a larger carbon footprint than I would like, but I can tell you that my grocery bill went from $125 bucks to about $85 bucks a week, no kidding. Right now, we don't have that opportunity (they are building a super walmart), so I just shop one store and I pay close attention to the circulars. I do use my coupons but I'm paying around $125 a week again. :)

-M