Meal Planning

When I'm on top of my life, I meal plan. I sit down with a calendar for the upcoming month and plan our entire month's dinners, weeknights only. As any personal finance blogger will tell you, one of a family's biggest budget lines is food; mine is no exception. We budget $500 a month for food, but probably spend closer to $800 - $900 with eating out, food delivery, and quick trips to the grocery store.  We need to get better about this!

When we meal plan we save money, our life is easier, we have a plan for dinner for all the busy nights, and we have all the ingredients needed for said meal.

We are no different from any other family. Every night, 5:00 rolls around and The Kids start saying they are hungry and asking what's for dinner, and I wander over to stare blankly in the freezer. When I meal plan, we don't have those problems. We just check the schedule the night before and pull out whatever needs to come out of the freezer, and boom, dinner is so much easier!

We also save a ton of money by meal planning and planning ahead! I sit down with a blank calendar page for the upcoming month, 5 or so cookbooks, and several pieces of binder paper. Then I just start picking out recipes. I try to mix it up. I'm not a big meat eater (not against it, it's just not my favorite) but my family is. Each week I try to include one beef recipe, one pork recipe, one vegetarian dinner, and then I usually fill in with chicken.

As I plan, I pay attention to what is going on in our life each day. For example, The Girl had dance on Mondays and The Boy has football on Tuesdays, etc. We plan meals accordingly. Maybe on those days, we do slow cooker meals to make life easier.

As I plan, I make our shopping list at the same time. I try to list ingredients with like ingredients: meat with meat, dairy with dairy, and canned goods with canned goods. This helps me transverse the store without having to crisscross is 100 times... hopefully. I also keep a separate list that is broken down by the perishables we need each week, and I'm not talking about our staple perishables like milk and bread, but about what vegetables we need for each meal each week or if a recipe calls for sour cream. I will only buy the sour cream on the week starting when we need it. For example, if sour cream isn't needed until the end of August, then I will wait until the last week of August to buy it as opposed to buying it when I do my main shopping trip at the beginning of the month. (I have no idea if this makes sense, but at least I know what I'm trying to say, right?!?)

We don't prep any of the food, we just plan it and grocery shop, but it makes our life so much easier! And it is so much cheaper! Between two days ago and today, I did all of our grocery shopping for the month of August, minus any perishables we will need each week, and I only spend $307. In addition to the food for dinners, I bought 5 dozen eggs, 8 gallons of milk, 4 loaves of break, fruit for this week and snacks for lunches for the coming school year. I look at that number: $327 and I wonder why I don't meal plan every month!

We are lucky enough to have a Winco where we live. It is so cheap. I shop there and at Costco when I meal plan. I usually do all the shopping in one fell swoop just to get it over with. Then all we have to do is check our calendar each night, or in the morning before school, and we are good to go.

Meal planning is time consuming for sure! It takes about 3 hours to plan all the meals, make my lists, and check our pantry and freezer. Then there is another 2 - 3 hours grocery shopping and putting groceries away, but the time it saves in the long run is so worth it!

The cost savings is the number one benefit of meal planning. We paid just over $325 for nearly a months worth of food, and that includes meat. We eat a lot of meat. Included in that $325, I bought a 10 pound bag of chicken, another 5 pound package of "picnic" chicken (thighs and drumsticks),  a 10 pound pork loin, 2 pounds of shrimp, a 3.5 pound beef roast, 2 pounds of beef stewing meat, 4 pounds of breakfast sausage, 4 pounds of turkey burger, a pound of pancetta, and a one pound package of beef sirloin steak. I only point this out because so often, in order to create a cost savings, many people cut down on meat in their diets and we didn't do that, but we still only spent $325... for a months worth of dinners! I can't believe it!

Besides the cost savings, the next biggest benefit of meal planning for us is the convenience. Now, for a month, we won't need to worry about what's for dinner. We just need to check the calendar the night before or in the morning before school and pull out whatever meat we need, and then we are good to go. Peace of mind is worth a million bucks!