Saving Money: Menu Planning

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an overly organized person.  I do go through my pantry every 6 weeks or so and look for things that will expire in the next 2 months and move them upstairs so I can plan meals around them. Otherwise I'm not real great anymore at knowing exactly what I have in my pantry and how many of them I have.

In an effort to save money on groceries, I decided it was time to get to work on meal planning.  This ensures that I use the things that are close to expiration, and also helps me to know exactly what I need for the next two weeks, instead of just winging it every day, and possibly sending my husband to the commissary for the one ingredient I'm missing.  An added bonus is that if I know what I'm supposed to be cooking, it makes me less likely to say "I'm not in the mood to decide on dinner and cook, so let's get something from the cafe," or "Why don't you stop at the food court on the way home and pick something up?"

A Night Out: Spy Kids 4:All the Time in the World

My family rarely goes to a movie theater to see a movie, because it's just too expensive.  In June I bought a Living Social deal that included 2 movie tickets, though, and had planned on using them to see Cars 2.  Stuff came up and we didn't end up seeing it after all.  The promo code was set to expire on September 9, so we decided we better choose a movie and see it this weekend.

Unfortunately there weren't very many choices for movies playing this weekend that my family wanted to see.  My five year old is easily scared, so that ruled out pretty much all of them except The Help and Spy Kids 4.  So of course, he chose Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World.  It was only playing in 3D at a time that would work for us, so we bought the tickets on fandango (using the promo code and a giftcard I had won last summer), and off we went.