My name is Allyson and I am bad at eating leftovers...

I have to admit, and my parents will back me up, growing up I was TERRIBLE at eating leftovers.  Even when I first moved out on my own I would find months old leftovers in my refrigerator and freezer.  I had great intentions, I was definitely planning on eating them, but on my way home I'd get a sushi craving or decide I'd rather meet a friend out rather than eat leftovers from a couple days before.  I mean, doesn't that sound more exciting to you?  Now that we're living on a tight budget, I'm learning to eat leftovers and actually enjoying it.

The hubs and I have become good at not just eating leftovers but using leftovers to sometimes create another dish.  The day after Christmas we weren't super hungry for dinner so Chris cooked up some of the roasted turkey we had leftover from Christmas Eve.  But he used a marinade my parents had left us which they had used on a pork dish a couple of nights before.  Chris chopped up the turkey, heated it with the marinade and wrapped it in a tortilla.  That way we didn't feel like we were eating Christmas Eve dinner again, but spent no extra money on dinner.

We've also started making a menu every Sunday for the following week.  We do our grocery shopping on Sundays so when we go to the store we know exactly what we need.  Because of that we've only had to do "big" shopping trips every 2 weeks.  Whatever we buy for one week we normally have leftovers for at least a week after.  And we always cook more than we need so we  know we'll have leftovers for lunches or dinner throughout the next week.

But don't get me wrong...there are plenty of times we have enough of leftovers and cooking all together.  That's why we always schedule one night out on the weekends to eat out.  I'm all about keeping things normal of course, so we couldn't go without a date night every now and then.  I'm looking forward to our dinner tomorrow night at Fire & Ice, a local restaurant I haven't been to yet!

And just a shout out to my fantastic husband who gave me the best leftovers ever the other day.  He had a work lunch at a restaurant we both love, so he brought home half of his meal for me to have for lunch the next day. Those are leftovers even I could get used to!