Meal planning

Since I posted in my happy list about my Menu Plan I thought I would share my process.  I am new to menu planning, I really got started in August of last year when I bought the above planner.  I have my awesome iPhone, but I have yet to come up with a process that doesn't include paper.  I still love to write things down and see my handwriting...call me crazy!  I decided to plan my menu out for the week because we were in a serious rut (I wrote about it here).  I also wanted to save some money, and I was tired of finding things in my pantry that I either bought on sale, or because I thought I would cook it and I hadn't.  The $80ish I spent yesterday did not include one coupon.  I am not against coupons, and have had great success using them, but since it takes time to research, and when I was using coupons regularly I had to go to the store weekly to get my deals, and I wasn't menu planning so things were going to waste, I feel like I was losing money.  For example, I was saving 40% every week with my coupons and sales at Kroger, but I was spending $40-50 per week on groceries.  Yesterday I spent a little over $80 and it is my plan for 3 weeks and saved only 12% from sale items.  Granted I will have to go buy milk and bread, but I still don't think that will make up the $40.00 I feel I've saved.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I

Notice I fell off my wagon the first week in May, but this is our menu for the next couple weeks.  I try to jot down things that will interfere with dinner plans.  Leila always has dance Monday nights, so those nights are ffy (fend for yourself), Jeff has ball practice on Thursdays, T-ball is now in there too...crazy busy!  I don't plan out breakfasts, we always have cold cereal and oatmeal, bread for toast, and eggs in the house.  Lunches tend to be leftovers for me and Jeff, or a sandwich and the kids eat at school, Evan eats at daycare.  Yesterday I took this a step further and plugged the "plan" into my iPhone calendar along with reminders on when to take meat out to thaw.  Lets see how that works out.  After I make out my plan, I go through and make my list.  I make sure I have all the ingredients down for everything first, then I check my pantry to check things off I already have, then I make a grocery store list from that.  I used to skip the middle step, but I was frequently running into the problem of thinking I had an ingredient and it not being here, cue Jeff running out to the store last minute so I could finish dinner.  That was SOOOOOO frustrating!

.  

 

Tonight's Dinner:  Chicken Fajitas....mmmmmmmm!   Keep in mind, I buy my chicken frozen when it's on sale for $6.99.  I used about a half-bag of chicken, I used an onion, a green pepper, my homemade taco seasoning (recipe from Annies-eats.com), tortilla shells, cheese, and sour cream.

Totals:

Chicken: $3.50

Pepper: .85

Onion:.28

Tortilla Shells: .65 (we only used a half-package)

Cheese: .90 (again a half-package)

Sour Cream:  .20

Meal for 4 (Evan ate some of the chicken, but mostly leftovers from yeterday):

  $6.38

Um...that wouldn't pay for McDonalds for one of us!  (Well maybe a happy meal)

Crazy what a little planning can save me!