4 Dollar Dinner

The van doors slide open, everyone piles out grabbing a cell phone, their partner and their money. We line up agreeing that we will meet back in 15 minutes. Ready, Set, GO! It is a mad dash to the store doors with me yelling "WATCH FOR CARS!!!!!!" My partners are Malory and Hyrum, we dash through the fresh fruit and veggies to the meat looking for a cheep, tasty, beginning to our meal. We spy brats for $3.54. Deciding that will be the perfect start we dash down the frozen isle for veggies. Malory grabs one that looks "good and healthy" that is on sale for $1.40. Since we have 2 food groups we go looking for the most important DESSERT. On our way we pass Baylen and Tylen looking at the frozen dinners. Baylen is telling Ty that he could get a corn dog AND brownie if he wanted this one. We giggle and sneak by. Down the ice cream isle we saw all kinds of sugar free goodness but...they were all 4 dollars or more. Our budget wouldn't allow that but we could get cheese toast for $2.58. We decided that was a good choice then on to the fresh veggies. Mal spots the little tiny bags of carrots deciding that would be a really good choice for $1.68. Then we both decide we can have gum for dessert. As we are checking out we grab tic tacs for .97 cents and gum for .96 cents. With tax our total is $11.56. YEAH! We did it. With .44 cents and 7 minutes to spare. We dash to the car meeting everyone there. Comparing notes we all met the requirements. Everyone was able to get a meal for them and their partner for 4 dollars a person in 15 minutes or less. Brin and Cam spent $7.14, Baylen and Tylen spent $8.01 which they claim as fair because they found a penny on the ground. We gather around the table. Brin and Cam show us their dinner, Dinty Moore beef stew, spaghetti, 2 kiwis, a little jug of milk, and a tiny Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream. We commend them for the good choices they made then, Baylen and Ty pull theirs out. A Banquet TV dinner for Ty with corn dog and brownie, Marie Calenders country fried pork chops TV dinner, and Orange Juice. We commend them for the good choices they made. Then Mal and I show everyone what we got. Again good choices. It is a race for the microwave and dinner is cooked and eaten.
"This was the most fun" the kids say, "can we do it every Monday night?" "Well then it wouldn't be super fun, we will just do it whenever" I reply.

So the plans start for the next time... And who knew $4 could be so much fun!