Meal Plans

Meal planning is becoming increasingly popular. I recently jumped on the band wagon, and cannot believe I hadn't implemented this concept sooner! Before, I would wander aimlessly around the grocery store, adding whatever looked good to my cart. I would spend tons of money and still struggle with the daily question: What should I cook for dinner? Since I started meal planning a few months ago, we have saved an average of about $250 per month on our grocery bill. I definitely have room for improvement, and plan on implementing some different ideas/concepts once we get a deep freezer. I have found that I actually enjoy making our weekly menu and grocery list each week-- it's kind of a challenge to see how much I can save.

Many people plan every single meal. Since James works a rotating schedule, I plan one cooked meal per day (either lunch or dinner, depending on what shift he is on) and make sure we have easy food items for the other two (cereal, bread for toast and sandwiches, fruit, snack items, etc). He brings his lunch/dinner to work every day, and is either gone way before breakfast or is just getting home and to bed at breakfast time-- so we kind of do our own thing for the other meals.

Before I go grocery shopping each week, I look at the grocery sale ad (most major grocery stores have this available online). I look to see what meats we have in the freezer and what meats are on sale and plan meals around that. I try to get a variety of fruits and veggies, also sticking to what is on sale. If there are really good specials and we have room to store it, I will buy items to freeze and have later. (I also freeze left overs of foods like chili and soups, when we have enough for another meal). I try to stay away from boxed and processed food, although I will admit to the occasional purchase of foods like Hamburger Helper. But for the most part, our meals are meat and veggie based. I may switch days around or push days back if we have an abundance of leftovers or something comes up (such as unexpected dinner plans), but having a weekly menu sure does help me!

It can be easy to get in a rut when it comes to cooking, so I like to mix it up and try out new recipes. More often than not, it's healthier and cheaper to make things homemade. To give you some ideas on meals to implement into your menus, I will post our weekly meal plan here for quick reference. If you see a particular meal that you'd like the recipe for, shoot a quick email to me or comment below and I will post it.

Happy meal planning, y'all!

Week of March 24th - 30th
Week of March 30th - April 6th
Week of April 7th - 13th
Week of August 18th - 24th
Week of August 25th - 31st