Meal planning

One of the easiest ways to save money is to watch your food budget. With a little planning, you can avoid the tired search for a meal at the end of the work day that will usually end up with a trip through the drive thru. Or at least, that's how it worked for us. We'd eat out at least 3 times per week, adding up to more than $30 or $40 per week for just three meals. And let's not even talk about how many calories and grams of fat that was!

So, however low tech, I've got a meal planner now taped to my fridge with a week's worth of meals already thought out. The idea is that I'll plan in advance what we'll be eating for a week by going through what we already have on hand, then put together a shopping list to buy the things we need to fill in the gaps. Now we're doing ok on groceries this week, but there's going to be at least a few things I'll need to pick up at the store. Nothing major, and not a very long list, but I'll go none the less.

I've already started some of the meals, which will help when it comes time to actually cooking them. Wanna see? I've only got one picture because I'm about to call it a night, but here you go.

As easy as it was to throw some chicken and BBQ sauce into a pan and cover it to marinate overnight, that little bit of effort will pay off tomorrow when it comes time to make dinner. All I have to do is call hubs on my way home from work, instruct him to turn on the oven and throw the chicken in while I run to the grocery store and pick up our few items for groceries. By the time I get home, the chicken should be almost done, I'll slice some french bread, slather some butter on it, sprinkle a little garlic salt over it, and it'll be ready to broil for 5 minutes while I throw together a garden salad. Easy! And, I already made lemonade tonight to go with it all. No take out, and it's healthy and balanced.

Now, the rest of the week, I've got lunches and dinners planned out as well. The tricky thing to this week is that we're going camping on Thursday night and won't be home until Saturday evening or first thing Sunday morning so I can be at work Sunday by noon. This creates a situation where I need to be able to plan for at least 2 full days worth of meals that can be cooked either over a fire or with the use of a Coleman propane stove, and very basic cooking utensils. I'll bring some things already done, like soup, but we like to really get into camping, so most of our meals will be cooked on sight. Here's what I've got planned for the week.

Yikes, that's hard to see. Well, the first line is this week, of which we just had Thursday. Chicken fettuccine. Tomorrow will be BBQ chicken, Saturday is my sister's wedding so I'm off the hook for that day, and Sunday starts the new week. Here's what I've got planned:

Sunday - dinner roll sandwiches for lunch, roasted turkey for dinner

Monday - turkey sandwiches for lunch, turkey spaghetti for dinner

Tuesday - turkey sandwiches for lunch, chicken tacos for dinner

Wednesday - leftovers for lunch, homemade pizza for dinner

Thursday - leftovers for lunch, hot dogs for dinner (we're camping by dinner time)

Friday - scrambled eggs & bacon for breakfast, beans & rolls for lunch, soup for dinner

Saturday - scrambled eggs & sausage for breakfast, ham & cheese sandwiches for lunch, hamburgers for dinner.

I've got breakfast planned while we're camping because that's usually the only time we eat that meal together. We'll sometimes eat it together on the weekends before I head to work, but during the week, we get up hours apart and usually just have cereal, fruit, or some sort of bread item (waffles, toast, cinnamon rolls). In the future, I'll try to plan out breakfasts on the weekends. Hubs complains that I never make a hot breakfast anymore, so I'll see if I can fix that for him.

Ok, so there's my meal plan. The things that I'll need to buy are buns for the hot dogs and hamburgers, beef for the burgers, eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, veggies and fruit. Everything else, I already have on hand. Oh, nope, scratch that. I'll need to buy toppings for home made pizza as well. I'd say we're doing fairly well on the food budget this week. I hope to be able to keep this up for a while. Wish me luck!