50 Dollars a Week Grocery Challenge

Yesterday I used a total of 6.95 on meals and snacks for the day.  We started the day w/ scrambled eggs and ham and cheese mostly from leftover ingredients, some frozen muffins that no one ended up liking that I got on a great sale for 42 cents, and some orange juice.  The kids had free bagel bites, leftovers and oranges for lunch.  Marc and I used a gift card to go out to lunch for our weekly date.  Usually our date money comes from entertainment money and not food money, but we agreed not to spend any money on food if we go out this month.  We can use gift cards if we have them though since they don't cost us any out of pocket money.  Last night I made Todd Wilbur's Baked Ziti recipe but I cut it in half and used less cheese to fit it in the budget.  I am finding that I need to buy less because I buy more than we need.  Usually we will just eat more than we need to.  Now that I am monitoring what we spend more closely, I find that I just need to buy less.  We really don't need as much food whether we can afford it or not.  I want to have a bigger garden next year and freeze or can more things because they taste better and it is nice to have them in the middle of winter when they are out of season.