Meal Planning

I decided to try something a little different this month with meal planning.  For years I have planned a weekly menu and usually get groceries for the next week on Saturday.  This month I decided to be even more crazy organized and plan our menu for the whole month.  I posted what we would eat on the bulletin board in the laundry room and then made a grocery list based on that.  I went to the store and purchased all of the things I would need for every meal (minus produce for a whole month).  My hope is that eventually the only thing I will need to go to the store for, after my initial big purchase, is produce.  And I'm also hoping that shopping this way will save money in the long run.  We shall see. 

 

So far it has been nice to know exactly what we are going to have and to get things ready the night before, especially if I am making something in the crock pot.  There is really no reason we should have to eat out (unless something really unexpected comes up), nor should we have to eat a lot of processed foods.  I am off work at 2:30 every day which is plenty of time to make a healthy, home cooked meal.  And that is exactly what I plan on doing. 

 

Eventually my goal is to also make all of our bread items from English muffins to bread to sandwich rolls.  Friday night homemade pizza was on the menu with crust made from scratch.  I think we could save quite a bit of money that way too.  Now if I could just learn how to coupon a little better, we'd be all set!

My menu board