So tax season kind of got me in the mood to start having a bigger involvement in the finances. When Neal and I first started dating, I made it very clear I hated managing money and everything relating to it.

Neal, bless his heart, has done a great job dealing with all the finances, bills, etc. At one point. I tried to keep abreast of our account, but I couldn’t remember our password for our online banking and typed the incorrect one in so many times that it locked us out. Neal had to make some calls or something to regain access. He wasn’t amused, and I was banned from our bank website, HAHA.

But recently, he started using mint.com, which is a really great, easy to use and FREE website to manage our accounts. It’s awesome, and I love it.

Well, Neal and I both agreed we spend a lot on food. I would eat out for lunch about two times a week, and I made new dinners just about every night. I know the making dinners every night thing is great and all, but Neal and I both agreed it would be a better use of money to make dinners that produced leftovers for our lunches and later weeknight dinners.

So, Sunday, I made a large pan of baked pasta. Essentially it was “baked ziti” but I didn’t have any ziti pasta, so I used rotini instead. For the sauce, I used the sauce I made for lasagna a little while ago. I threw in some mozzerella and baked her up. Next time, I’ll definitely use a tubed pasta that holds up better, but this was still very, very scrumptious.

I served it up with two awesome cheat side dishes. Garlic bread (frozen and baked until golden in the oven) and Caesar salad (the bag mix). If you haven’t yet experienced the wonder that is the bagged salads, then you are missing out. The best is when they are buy one, get one half off (or free) which is a deal Giant runs a lot.

And the best thing is this made A TON of pasta. We are still eating it for leftovers, and I haven’t made dinner since. Pretty cool, huh? In fact, Neal is sitting beside me right now scarfing down some leftovers. And it was all really very cheap.

So, my goal is to make dinners that make good leftovers – tacos, chicken quesadillas, pasta, meatloaf, etc. Hopefully that will help us shave down the grocery bill a little. Oh yeah, and we’re trying to keep ME out of the grocery store. Seriously. I bet we spend an average of $50 less when Neal goes to the store rather than me. You can see who has the stronger will power….