1 day/$30

i completely stole this idea from my friend, tisha.

i gave rebekah and joshua $30 to feed our family for a day. i told them about it a couple days before we went to the store. they spent an adorable amount of time coming up with the menu.

{so that you don't have to do the math. that's $900/month. that is our grocery budget for our family of 8. it includes EVERYthing...toilet paper, shampoo, laundry detergent, all food, vitamins, medicine. i can usually stick to it pretty closely...until the last couple months with paleo and i've definitely gone over. but i feel fine about it, and pat is on board so we're trying to figure out what our "new" budget will be.}

ANYways. i did my weekly shopping while they did their shopping.

they were under by a dollar or so :-) NOT over. thanks to joshua!

{i went over their menu/list with them before we went. and, i have to say, that they definitely tried to feed me along with them all - had cucumbers and lettuce and things i would "need" to eat when they ate chicken nuggets and pizza :-) it was so sweet. i told them they didn't have to feed me...}

this past friday was their day to feed our family for a day.

breakfast was cinnamon toast and strawberries.

it was a hit!

lunch was chicken nuggets, bananas and chips. the older 3 were going to be at tennis camp, and the younger 3 were going to be grocery shopping with me, so rebekah and joshua had to make AND pack everyone's lunches to go right after breakfast!

during rest time in the afternoon, rebekah learned how to make pizza dough...(i donated the ingredients for this...since we had them all and are hardly using flour anymore!)

while joshua cooked the sausage and bacon to go ON the pizza.

then they made smoothies for snack!

we went to the farm for the afternoon, and when we got home, they made the pizza's

it was cute. they didn't want the toppings cooked on the pizza (??) they wanted people to be able to put their own toppings on as they served themselves. the toppings were: pepperoni, bacon and sausage :-)

dinner while we watched The Cosby Show.

dinner: pizza, chips, peaches

they EVEN had enough money to buy ice cream cones! i donated the sherbet (we had this HUGE tub of it in our freezer since december!)

i was proud of them. i think it was a GREAT lesson in lots of things...how to make a grocery list, plan a menu, become aware of how much things cost, realize the work it takes to feed a family of 8 for a day...and i'm sure there's more.

the cool thing? they want to do it again. AND the other kids want them to do it again! (i guess nuggets and pizza are better than squash and baked chicken ;-))