Financial Tips Installment #3--Menu Plans

Hey there!  I'm Baaaack!  By which I mean to say that I survived the flu and have since passed it on to people more worthy of it's overwhelming affection.  Yay for communicable diseases.


Are you ready for my revolutionary idea that will save you tons of money, trim your thighs, and win you this devil child?

Two out of three ain't so bad.

So, the biggest budget buster in most budgets is groceries.  It's like your cart is a magnet that attracts food as you walk into the store and each time you go to "just pick up a few items" you throw $100 out the window, right?

Second to that, you're expected to come up with meals for your family of 3.14 (average American family size) every. single. week.  How many times do you get asked "What's for dinner, moooooom?"

A few years ago an acquaintance was showing some of us her shopping list.  So really, the idea came from her.  But I've expanded on it, like, 100% and really made it revolutionary, so I'm taking credit.  Anyways, she had a list of 6 meals at the top and then the list of all the ingredients they needed at the store.  Like this:

She said that she sat down with her kids (they're teenagers) and planned out the whole month of meals.  Then they split them into four weeks of six meals each (the assumption is that at least once a week, you'd eat out or eat leftovers, or something), comprised all the ingredients and they were done for the month.

So I stole the idea (minus sitting down with the kids, since you can't eat chocolate for EVERY dinner).  I did it her way for a few months, but realized I was in the same quandary starting the next month.  What to make for dinner?  And how to not just repeat last months lists.  Which gave me an idea.

I sat down and wrote down every recipe I could think of.  My goal was to come up with six weeks of recipes--about 36.  However, when I started writing them down, I came up with about 60(!) different dinner recipes.  Then I split them up into weeks so that I had a nice healthy balance of chicken meals (2 per week), beef meals (ground turkey fell under that) (1 per week), pasta/vegetarian (1), soup (1), and other, whether it was a different kind of meat or more chicken or another pasta dish (1).

From there I created 12 weeks of shopping lists where I listed the meals at the top, and then the ingredients underneath.  Since I'm strange, the ingredients are alphabetized based on Wal-mart's floor plan, so if I choose to do my shopping there, I just run through the store.  Most stores are loosely based on the same floor plan, so I don't find that I have to deviate that much from the layout if I go elsewhere.

Here's the cool part:  Every week, I pull out a new list of meals, and cross off the stuff I already have, so I'm not buying duplicates.  Also, I literally spend 3 minutes a week planning meals--which was the biggest wake up call for me about being married.  No more cereal for dinner, night after night.  And after a few years of eating the same rotation of 10 meals, it's a little tiring, but who wants to spend hours planning out meals for a week, right?

So, kinda sounds like the other lady's plan, what's so revolutionary about mine?

For starters, it's 3 MONTHS of meals. And then I just start over.  But, since I have ZERO duplicates, then we're eating each meal only 4 times a year.

Theoretically.  But more on that later.

You know my What's For Dinner Wednesday Posts?  Those are recipes that I have used to fill in the gaps on my list. I started out with 60 meals and as of a few weeks ago, I was officially at 72 different dinner ideas.

I've taken this a tad bit farther as well.  I have a recipe book:

These are ALL the recipes from my menu cards.  That way, it's all in one place.  At the bottom of each recipe card is the amount of time it takes ME (not some professional cooker at the cooking school) to prep each meal, cook the meal, and the total time so I have an approximate idea of when to start dinner for the evening. I have to run through the entire cycle one time so I get a feel for what the prepping and cooking times are, so they're blank on most of the cards since the recipe book is new as of this week.

Plus, if something were to happen to me, Wade and the kids wouldn't technically starve.  Since these are all the recipes and he can read.  However, I would totally appreciate the ward picking up the slack a little bit, you know, just in case.

Once I had all 12 weeks filled out, I had them laminated so that I can just take a marker to it, cross off the things I already have, and jot down the other things I need to pick up at the store:

The lamination is nice because the card sits on my kitchen counter all week and I can just wipe off anything that spills on it.  I also know at a glance what we have available to make for dinner.  Sometimes, to make Wade feel part of the action, I'll tell him three or four meals and ask what he wants out of those.  Then it's not technically all my responsibility.  I actually plan for seven meals a week because we hardly eat out (as a family--we're working our individual consumption), but I still do a new recipe once a week, so I find my recipe, note where I found it at so I can reference the recipe when I go to make it, and then jot down any ingredients I need to get.

When we've exhausted our list of meals, I scrub the card clean and put it in my recipe book for next time.

There is a movement going on right now that has you look at the store advertisements you get in the mail, and by coupling that with coupons you clip or print from the computer, you can plan your meals around the sale items.  It's a great idea if you have the inclination and time to do all that prep work.  I tried it for a little while, but found we were eating a lot of preprocessed food that I didn't like all that much.  Not enough to save a few dollars.  And it was SO time consuming.  So, while I know that my method isn't the cheapest method, it's the most healthy/least expensive method I have found for us and it's so fast, once the initial work is done.  Plus, since I like a lot of variety in my diet, it's great because I (theoretically) only eat each meal 4 times a year.

So where is the money saving in my idea:

(a) I was so surprised to learn that people go to the grocery store without a meal plan in mind.  I went shopping with a friend once and watched her try to formulate meals at the store for two or three days out because you just can't remember all the stuff you need for a full week.  We had to run back and forth from one end of the store to the other because she kept forgetting stuff. And two days later she had to go back because she didn't have anything for dinner again.   #1--whatever your shopping method is like--do not leave your home for your major weekly/biweekly shopping trip without a meal plan for the week/2 weeks.

(b) On occasion, we'll have a busy week where I'll throw a pot of spaghetti on the stove because I don't have time to make anything else, even though spaghetti isn't on the menu for that week.  Or we'll be gone from home a few nights unexpectedly.  Whatever the case, I have a few meals left over for the week and so I just carry them to the next week.  Sometimes, I can stretch my trips to the grocery store for up to two weeks.  That saves a bundle right there.

(c) By crossing off the stuff I already have, I'm not buying duplicates of things and I'm saving a bunch there.  Also, since I've been at this method for a year, I've rearranged some of the meals so that they use up ingredients in the fridge the same week so I'm not wasting as much.  I'm also starting to pare down the meals or freezing half, so that when it shows back up in the rotation or on one of those nights that we're busy or sick or late getting home from something, I already have something cooked up and it's not something we ate two nights ago.

Right now, I'm working on compiling all the ingredients and making a list of the total items I need of each non-perishable thing so I can stockpile when they go on sale.  This builds up our food storage as well.  My next task is to start thinking up side dishes, since that's where my weakness has shifted to.  That will come later.

Initially this was A LOT of work to compile.  But thanks to an excel spreadsheet and microsoft word, I was able to organize it.  I put in a few hours to save THOUSANDS of hours and it was time well invested.