Spending the g/c before it arrives

Another quarter has come and gone in the office, which means I have another $200 giftcard coming my way. Should get next week or thereafter. So I’m wondering what to do. What to buy. Usually, I buy something for the house. Like the ice cream maker. The blender. The food processor. And so on. Sometimes, I use it for surprise purchases, like new shoes for the kids (last years sneakers were $89 each). I’ve saved it for dinner out a few times. And I’ve used it for groceries. Really, it should be for fun stuff. Stuff that I WANT, not need. But as I’m trying to change that way of thinking, I’ve been doing a little shopping in my head. I’ve decided (for the most part) to take that $200 (really, $198) and buy meat. Chicken. Hamburger. Pork tenderloin. Pork Chops. Steaks. I would normally go to Costco to do this. But Costco does not take anything except American Express and Debit Cards. So, looks like I’ll be going to BJ’s. OR maybe I’ll venture to Sams and try a free day membership. Does anyone know if they still charge that non-member surcharge (percentage) on top of bill?? Will need to check that out. I figured that if I spent $200 wisely on meat, that should get me through this quarter and then some. It will also reduce my grocery bill quite a bit, I hope. I really really want to get to $70 a week cash. It’s just not happening yet, even with my coupons. I still need to look at wants vs needs. We all do, I suppose! Skip the soda, gatorade, propel, bottled water, etc. Granted, I’ve bought a lot lately just because I’ve had some good coupons, but still. Everyone in the household seems to think that with 10 bottles of gatorade, they can drink it like water. Blah. So here’s how I figured I could/would/should do this: 20 lbs ground beef (figure $2.50/lb = $50.00) 20 lbs b/s chicken breast (figure $2.79/lb which is NOT a good price = $55.80 - NOTE: I can probably get it for about $1 less a lb at the meat market if they have a sale going on) 10 lbs pork chops or pork tenderloin, depends on price ($2.50/lb = $25.00) 20 lbs b/s chicken thighs (figure $1.79/lb $35.80) That comes to $166 plus tax or whatever, so lets say $170. That leaves me with $28 for steaks or shrimp or whatever. I could buy 4 lbs of shrimp, or maybe some ribeyes, or whatnot. OR I could use that for flour, sugar & other baking stuff. Yeah, that’s what I should do. 20lbs flour approx. $10 20 lbs sugar approx $5 2 lbs yeast. Not sure about this. I still have 1 lb left in the freezer. Powdered sugar and brown sugar to fill the remainder of card.