Menu Planning the Lu Way

I have been meal planning since going all "gung- ho" with Dave Ramsey in January 2006.  It always helped me stay on budget.  We had a tiny TINY TINY bit of money to use.  I dare say the amount.  It was tiny!  But we made it through without the use of government handouts.  Thankfully Bubbie was still on a same amount of table food, formula (sarcastic yeah, that was cheap!!) and baby food.  It always helped me to know meals I needed to cook.  I knew what nights I didn't have to worry about meals because of leftovers.  I worked outside the home from the time Bubbie was born(January 2005) until October 2007, so the majority of our days, we left around 7:30-8am and came home anywhere between 5 and 7:30pm. Menu planning made long days a little easier when I knew what was for dinner after an exhausting and emotional day.

A few local moms have asked me, how do I meal plan?  How do I avoid running to the store for the missing ingredient in dinners?  Well, I am far from an expert, BUT since I have been doing this for 4 years, I am not new to the menu plan excitement.

1. First off, I always print off a calendar.  I use gmail mail and LOVE IT.  In the left hand side of the screen, there are a few tabs and one of them is a "calendar" tab.  I choose a "month" long calendar and print it off.  That way I have the whole month to look at.  Even if I don't "menu plan" for the whole month, I still like to go ahead and have events on this calendar- birthday dinners, family over, activities that will keep us out late and MNO so that when that week does roll around, I know how to plan for that week ahead.  It also helps so that if I didn't get to that meal one week and I need to fill a day or two on the following week, I know what ingredients I have to make certain things.

2. Go through my pantry and freezer.  Lately, after hitting a grocery store or two, every week, for several weeks, we will have a period of a week or two that we can live out of our cabinets/fridge/freezer.  Its always a nice thing and the more "stock-piling" I do, the more often this happens.  The best thing is that I am still staying within our alloted food budget for each month!

Speaking of stock-piling,  I only stock pile things that we use on a weekly basis... detergent, crackers, juice, spaghetti sauce/noodles, tomatoes, granola bars, chicken, hot dogs- you get the point.  Our house isn't huge.  Our kitchen is about 3x the size of our last one and we actually have a pantry (its really a Godsend even though I complain!) and we do not have a chest freezer (but plan on purchasing one with the very generous gift from my in laws!) so I can only buy what we can hold.  If juice is on sale, I'll buy the money amount of what I would if juice weren't on sale... does that make sense?  If I had to purchase apple juice for $2 a bottle at Target and it was on sale at Kroger for $1 and we usually use about 4-5 bottles a month, so I usually spent about $8-10 a month on juice, so I would buy anywhere from 6-10 bottles of juice.  It'll come out so that we don't have to buy juice for over 2 months AND I saved us $$ for the next month.  I'm not a stock piler, to just stock pile.  I will not empty the shelves.  I am going to leave a few for others out there.  I just can't take complete advantage of a good deal.  I can afford to pay "full price" for something.  Others may not be able to.

4. A local friend recently asked me if I made a trip to the store the day that I plan on using meat in something... I was astonished that ANYONE did this.  I guess I just wasn't raised with that grocery shopping mentality.  I had two brothers.  I was smack-dab in the middle and my mother didn't go to the store very often.  She usually purchased what she was going to purchase and then we ate out of the kitchen for however long we had food.  HA!  It may sound kinda mean, but it was her way of budgeting, etc.  She'd buy chicken, meat, whatever she needed to feed the family of 5 for however long and that was it.  So, to answer the question, no, I do not wait until the day I need meat, to buy it.  I go ahead and buy meat at the store, usually at the beginning of the week or menu planning period.  And I keep it simple.  Yes, I may not have a TON of variety in my meals, but that is the FPU Dave Ramsey "beans and rice, rice and beans" in me.  I think of my meals at simple.  I don't think you necessarily need a new meat every night of the week.  I also think a meatless meal every week like Sharon does it, is a good idea!  It saves a ton of money!  But, anyway, back to the meat, when I buy meat or chicken from the store, I divide it into meals.  I know everyone in the WORLD has heard me, but I'll say it again, for those local and new readers, I buy 3lbs of "market ground" meat from Publix, divide it into thirds and put in a ziploc freezer bag.  Same thing is chicken.  Depending on the best deal when I need chicken, usually I buy the bags of frozen chicken breasts.  It comes up to be cheaper than the store packaged chicken breasts in the meat section and its easy to use in casseroles.

5.  Save yourself some effort- Use leftovers.  I don't like cooking every night of the week.   My daughter in laws are going to LOVE me for training their future husbands to love leftovers!  Ha!  Or maybe the boys will hate them!?  Better add that to the prayer list for future daughter in laws that are thrifty and use leftovers!  It makes my days more stressful than they need to be.  Why spend time during the "be-witching" hour, when the kids are cranky, etc, cooking a whole new meal?!  I just don't want to do it.  I'd rather spend a little extra time tonight so that I can have LEFTOVERS tomorrow!  But I really don't spend any extra time on my meals....It may mean you have to double something, so far, for our family, we can usually get a few meals off of a casserole or dinner.  I also give small portions, go back for seconds if you want/ need and fill up on the cheap and good stuff- veggies and bread!

A few other tips that I have learned.... soups and stews are cheap and inexpensive way to feed your family.  If I buy a roast, on sale, I make sure I can feed the family on it for about 3 or 4 meals.  Definitely makes buying that "extra" piece of meat affordable and it also saves a ton of time if you dump the ingredients in to the crockpot before work or heading out on your day as "taxi-Momma".

So, there you have it.  My frugal ways to save yourself time and money while menu planning.  If you are looking for more of my snobbish penny pinching blog posts about saving money, go here!

Also, do you have any meal planning tips or money saving ways at the grocery store?  If so, comment and share your knowledge!

I'm sure Dave Ramsey would be proud!  Maybe one day I'll be a co-host!   ;o)