I've been browsing the menu planning Monday links on Org. Junkie's blog for a few weeks now. I'm running a little late as we've been sick but I really wanted to partake this week. We so need to menu plan. We've been trying to cut our budget and have really cut out everything we can. We have also cut a ton out of our grocery bills so I am hoping by menu planning we can cut back even more to give us a little extra leeway in our budget.
A few things that we do to cut back on our grocery bill:
1. We belong to a local food coop. So we buy in bulk, which cuts our costs WAY down.
2. Garden (not now! But we save our produce by freezing or canning).
3. Raise our own poultry (turkeys & chickens and hopefully some Ducks and maybe a few pigs this year).
4. We also buy a lot of produce that we don't grown and save that (i.e. I have a hard time growning carrots and she sells her carrots for only $20 for 25 lbs).
This all really helps to cut down our grocery bill quite a bit.
There is a great article over at Heart of Wisdom about why you should meal plan. It was a great article! So...do you menu plan. If so let me know and feel free to blog about it and share your link over at Org Junkie's blog.
Here's our menu:
- Tuesday - Sausage & Spaghetti Pie (recipe found here but I plan to make some substitutions cottage cheese for ricotta, WW spaghetti, onions and peppers tossed in also, etc.)
Wednesday - Turkey Soup (using up the TON of leftover turkey breast from Monday night) and a nice homemade crusty bread.
Thursday - Valentine's Day!! Heart shaped pizza's (we usually put onions & spinach on our pizza's...and sometime sausage) and maybe some home made ice cream sandwich cookies for desert.
Friday - Turkey Fajita's (using up that Turkey breast again)
Saturday - Breakfast for dinner! Probably pancakes or maybe waffles! (I usually add pureed carrots or squash to any pancakes or waffles I make for added vegi's)
Sunday - Leftovers
Monday - Meatloaf, Baked Potatoes and Corn
Nothing all that interesting. We have laying hens so breakfast is usually eggs & wheat toast (or they can have yogurt and occassionally pancakes). We are planning to make some granola and muffins to have on hand for snacks along with cut carrots, apples, bananas and pretzels. We also just do a "plate of stuff" (a mismosh of stuff on a plate for them to pick and choose from) for lunch most days with an occassional PB&J or grilled cheese thrown in.
I'm off to grocery shop in just a bit so even though I was supposed to have this done yesterday at least it is done BEFORE the grocery shopping trip! :)
Have a great day!
2 comments:
How fabulous - you really are inspirational with your home organizational posts. :) I think I'll go through our cupboards this weekend and try a meal plan for next week.
Here is how we meal plan for the non planners. Janelle actually came up with it...
Mondays - pick a recipe from Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals.
Tuesday - Left over night. Cleans out the refrigerator so we aren't throwing things out when we are going to the dump. Not that a lot gets thrown out because most goes out to the chickens.
Wednesday - Make a meal from what we have. Go through those cubboards and use up the boxes or cans of things that have been sitting in there for ever! Once we get rid of all the stuff we somehow have, I plan on actually planning Wednesday nights!
Thursdays - family favorites. We have a list of about 20 easy meals we love. It makes it easy.
Friday nite is PIZZA night. In the summer we do it on the grill - its fabulous!
Saturday - soups and or sandwhiches.
Sunday - Traditional Sunday meal that will make left overs for lunches and Tuesday night.
We have found that by reducing the what to make for dinner to a category, it is easier to decide. And we seem to have reduced the amount of stuff going bad in the refrigerator.
Mary Ann
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