I'm finally getting back into regular menu-planning after taking a few weeks off to have a baby. And it feels so good! I'm sticking to simple meals since it's our first week of our official
homeschool year and the goal of this week is to be consistent with our
new schedule. I can quickly get side-tracked in the kitchen so I made the menu really easy to try and deter myself from losing focus!
We're mostly eating from the pantry and freezer as these are rather full and in need of a little pairing down. We did spend $33 at the store buying produce and dairy products, but the main staples for these meals we already had on hand (which is the beauty of stocking up on sales!).
Here's the plan:
Breakfasts
Kashi waffles, strawberries, yogurt
Strawberry smoothies, muffins
Banana bread, oranges, yogurt
Cereal, juice or fruit x 2
Oatmeal, grapefruit
Pumpkin waffles, strawberries
Lunches
Spinach Rice and Cheese Casserole, fruit
Tossed salad (using fresh-from-the-container-garden lettuce!) with hard-boiled eggs and cheese, bread
Baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese, peaches
Pot roast, corn, toast, tossed salad
PB&J, carrots, applesauce
Leftovers x 2
Dinners
Ham and Cheese Stromboli, broccoli
French Toast with strawberries and freshly-whipped cream, hashbrowns
Chicken BBQ Pizza, corn on the cob, fruit salad
Turkey sub sandwiches, chips, veggies
Mini Meatloaves, mixed steamed veggies, bread, sweet potatoes
Steak, corn on the cob, grapefruit, cucumber and tomato salad, bread
Dinner out
Snacks
Yogurt
Fruit
Granola bars
Muffins
Cereal
Cheese/crackers
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!