It's the cheesiest!

For the first year of our marriage Ben and I were both students and working part-time. Thus, we were always low on cash. (But high on love!) Our monthly budget was $1000, which now seems impossible but back then just meant that we had to be creative. This is where my love for coupons and deal-finding was born. If you don't know me that well you might not realize how serious this love is. I have yet to find a drawing or survey that I will not enter (I have also yet to win any of those drawings - but my time's coming, baby!), and every Sunday you can find me gleefully flipping through the coupon circulars. A friend introduced me to couponmom.com a few months ago and this site has only served to increase my obsession. You can look up your local grocery stores and find out which products are on sale and have a coupon - I just bought deodorant for 50 cents! Can you feel that?! That's the thrill of victory!

Anyway, the point of this post is not to celebrate my coupon clipping abilities, but to give a nod to that old faithful standby Ben and I ingested on a weekly basis in that first year of our marriage. Yes, folks, I'm talking about Mac&Cheese. This was a staple in our diet back then, beginning on our honeymoon when we packed some boxes in our suite case (we spent all of our money getting to Maui and had very little left over for food!). But since we moved out to California two years ago, it has been, more often than not, missing from our cupboards. There's a couple of reasons for this: 1) more money = better planned dinners and 2) have you seen the price of Mac&Cheese out here?! It's a matter of principle (!) that I refuse to spend $1 on a box of Kraft dinner. Highway robbery, I tell you!

Yet, there have been multiple nights these last few weeks that both Ben and I have craved that processed cheese meal. So, finally on Saturday we drove down to Sam's and bought two huge crates of Mac&Cheese to satiate that desire. And in the last 36 hours it's been our one-dish meal twice. I know, I know - it's not exactly a balanced meal. But keep your nutrition values to yourself! I'm reminiscing. Ahhh...reminds me of those good old days.