I'm trying to slowly ease back into cooking after taking the last few weeks off because we were blessed with so many delicious meals after the birth of Silas. (Can you believe our church friends and family brought us almost a month's worth of meals? How incredible is that?!)
However, as many of you know, I cooked up a bunch of food before Silas was born so our freezer is still rather stuffed with casseroles, breads, and so forth. I'm planning to use a few meals from the freezer each week over the next few weeks and then make some simple meals from scratch the rest of the days. By then, it should be about three months after Silas' birth and things should be pretty back to normal around here.
I can't even begin to express how much of a help the meals we were given were or how nice it is to know our freezer is still packed with meals! If you have the chance to cook up food for your freezer before a big event like the birth of a baby, definitely take the opportunity. You won't regret it! Not only has it saved us time to have food already made up, it has also saved us a lot of money since we're not tempted to order carryout or buy convenience foods.
I'm especially excited about our menu this week because our little container garden is finally starting to produce lettuce. I'm looking forward to lots of fresh tossed salad this week as a result. Hopefully, our tomatoes will start ripening soon as well. There's just nothing as good as a fresh-from-the-garden tomato, is there?!
Here's this week's menu plan:
Breakfasts
Cereal, juice
Granola over yogurt with peaches
Toast, scrambled eggs with hashbrowns and cheese, strawberries
Oatmeal with brown sugar and peaches
Strawberry smoothies, toast
Pumpkin waffles, peaches
Cranberry muffins, yogurt, strawberries
Lunches
PB&J, carrot sticks, cheese, fruit
Tossed salad with hard-boiled eggs, whole-wheat toast
Baked potatoes with steamed veggies and cheese
Crackers, cheese, fruit, carrot sticks
Homemade mac and cheese, steamed veggies
Leftovers x 2
Dinners
Grilled Salmon, baked potatoes, tossed salad, corn on the cob, homemade bread, strawberry shortcake
Turkey sub sandwiches, fruit salad, cucumber and tomato salad
Marinated steak, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, homemade bread, fruit salad
Lasagna casserole, green beans, fruit salad, french bread
Beef hot dogs, corn on the cob, fruit salad, twice-baked potatoes
BBQ Chicken Pizza, fruit salad, tossed salad, ice cream
Dinner out
Snacks
Cereal
Fruit
Veggies
Muffins
Crackers/cheese
By the way, we spent $41 on groceries this week. You can see the groceries we purchased this week here, in case you missed it.
Check out more menu plans for this week over at Organizing Junkie.
Allison left the following comment on my picture of this week's $30 shopping trip:
I've
enjoyed reading this blog the past month or so since I've discovered
it, and you've really helped me snag some good deals. And I think it's
neat when you come home from the store with a pile of groceries for
only a few dollars.
But every time I see the picture of your groceries, I wonder
something like, "What is she going to cook for dinner with easy mac,
salad dressing, and jello?"
Is this all the grocery shopping you do? Do you have a garden? Or
raise your own beef? How do you round out your bargain purchases to get
a meal on the table?
One of my biggest secrets for grocery saving success is that I practice the Buy Ahead Principle. What's that, you ask?
Well, basically, other than dairy products and produce, I aim to never pay full price for anything. Instead, I stock up when an item is on sale to tide me over until the next sale.
For instance, in this shopping trip picture, you'll see that I mainly stocked up on cereal. In fact, I bought 16 boxes of cereal–enough to last us for at least 6 weeks, likely longer. Did we only eat cereal that week? No way! We ate a few boxes of cereal that week and the rest of what we ate mostly came from items I'd stocked up on during previous sales.
You see, because I stock up on items when they are on sale at my target price (providing I can afford it in our budget), my grocery shopping trips will usually look quite strange and will certainly not be the basis for a balanced menu. But you can check out some of our menus here to see that we do eat a fairly balanced diet. Well, at least we're certainly not subsisting on Easy Mac and Jell-O every meal!
How is it that we can eat a fairly balanced diet when I buy such an odd assortment of groceries each week? It's because the bulk of our meals are based upon what we already have in our refrigerator, pantry, and freezer.
To give you an idea of how this works, here's a rundown of our menu this week:
Breakfasts: Cereal or Kashi waffles and fruit (The cereal was from our big stock-up mentioned above, the waffles were purchased two weeks ago at Target for $0.29/box, and the fruit is from what we purchased this week and leftovers from last week.)
Lunches: Sandwiches or leftovers and carrots or fruit (I had lots of bread in the freezer I'd gotten for $0.50/loaf from Aldi last month and the peanut butter was from our pantry. My mom also gave us some extra lunch meat she had leftover from a lunch they served so we've used that, too. The carrots and fruit were purchased this week or leftover from last week's purchases.)
Dinners: We're eating meals from our After-The-Baby Freezer Stash paired with homemade bread from the freezer and frozen veggies from the freezer. All of the items in our After-The-Baby Freezer Stash were purchased within our usual grocery budget over the course of a few weeks' time as I had a little extra wiggle room in the budget or items were on sale.
Snacks: Fruit, cheese, crackers, granola bars, yogurt (The fruit, cheese, crackers, and yogurt were all purchased this week. The granola bars were from the pantry.)
When I plan the menu for the week, I first check out what we already have on hand. This gives me the inspiration for the majority of the menu. I then consult the sales fliers and my coupon box to decide what items are on sale and in-budget that I want (or need) to stock up on. I also add in any specific ingredients I need to round out a recipe or meal I've planned from the freezer and pantry ingredients.
For many people who are used to buying only what groceries you'll use in the next week, the concept of buying ahead can be mind-boggling. However, I highly recommend you at least give it a try as it can save you a great deal of money. In fact, I would estimate that we routinely save at least $30-$50 each week by doing so.
If this is a new concept for you, don't go out and spend $500 tomorrow trying to build up a stockpile. Instead, just designate a small percentage of your grocery budget each week to buying extra of those heavily-discounted items which you know you will use sometime in the next few months.
Slowly
start to build up a stockpile of items you regularly use as you find
them discounted by 50% or more with a sale and coupon. Over time, your
stockpile will grow until you come to a point where you can begin to
pretty much only buy items which are at rock-bottom prices, in addition to produce and perishable items.
Just by adopting the Buy Ahead Principle, you will see a significant savings in your grocery bill. And you'll likely be shopping less and eating better than ever before!