I have found several little tricks to help me feed my family and keep my sanity.
1. What does your family like to eat? Sounds simple, right? But I can't tell you how often I have made a meal plan based on what I want my family to eat or what was on sale. In the end, we don't eat it and that cost us money. Track your family meals for a couple weeks to a month. This includes fast food. Does your family like hamburgers? Great! Add that to your meal plan, just plan to make them at home, not purchasing them out.
2. What do you have time to make? In the perfect world I would make everything from scratch. You know, like those recipes for condensed soup of or the biscuit mixes. Someday I hope to save money with these but to be honest, right now I need to open up a can of biscuits to put on my turkey potpie because guess what? I will do this. I have time for this. If I had to worry about biscuits from scratch last night before church, the potpie wouldn't have been made!
So when I make out a menu plan, I also look at the activities for the night. Basketball practice at 6:30 pm? We will have Ravioli and Garlic Bread. Thursday night is free? We will have grilled chicken green bean casserole with mashed potatoes because I actually have time to peel the potatoes and cook the beans.
3. What is on sale? I always look at the ads for two stores. Unless both stores have some really awesome deals, I choose one (and Aldi) to buy groceries and then I make meals around those. Around here chicken breast always seem to be on sale. But we can get tired of chicken so I use my meat grinder to make ground chicken to add to chili or burritos. Be creative but always remember point #1. Will your family eat it?
While I do go for convenience often as point #2 stated, I stay away from all the junk from the ads. Most of the convenience food I buy is to go with something I am making homemade, as in the potpie. You can really eat up a budget (pun intended!) with the sale of junk.
The first time I even considered this was when I was using coupons. I had read through the ads and looked through my coupons. I spent a little more than $70 on things like cheese crackers, Capri Sun, BBQ sauce, granola bars and laundry soap. We eventually did use all of those things but I had spent $70 without actually having any meals. I then had to spend even more to purchase dairy, proteins and produce. Now if I use coupons, it is only on items we use regularly.
4. Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday I have heard many people will create theme nights and have great success. I have done this before but found that it didn't always work for me and my style. But I believe it was a great way for me to learn the concept of meal planning. I have organized it by theme and main meat ingredient.
For example:
Monday: Mexican
Tuesday: Chicken
Wednesday: Italian
Thursday: Beans
Friday: Homemade Pizza
After deciding the focus for the night, I would look at the sale ads and come up with meals to match. This does help me keep from a rut of chicken or spaghetti every night!
5. Rotate your meal plans This one is new for me and I find it is working. I am saving my meal plans and rotating them out. I may change a meal or two depending on the sale items, but making the meal plan is half the work! By keeping these on file, I can easily have my plan and grocery list in a flash!
Best of luck with the meal plans. Do not give up when you mess up! You are taking steps to a healthier family and saving a few bucks in the process!
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