Guest post from Carrie of Wholesome Womanhood
Menu planning and figuring out the best grocery deal scenarios has always been one of my favorite things to do. On Tuesdays, my grocery ads come in the mail and my husband always comes in, holding the ads, with a smile on his face, knowing that I’m about to do one of my favorite weekly activities: peruse the ads looking for good deals.
Last October, I posted one of my weekly meal plans on our blog and a friend commented asking some questions, including how much I spent on groceries. We emailed back and forth a couple of times and during the conversation, something she said sparked an idea in my mind.
Why did I have to plan so much variety in my menus?
We already had weekly pizza night. Sunday mornings we make pancakes and Fridays are waffle mornings. My family loved knowing they would be eating their favorite meals every week. I realized that the variety wasn’t for my family–it was for me. And when I really stopped to think about it, I realized that making a different meal every single night was actually adding a lot of stress in my life. So in November I decided to try an experiment.
We spend $250 a month on groceries, but in the month of November, I focused on planning meals that were meatless or used chicken, since chicken is regularly on sale for $0.99/pound or less. I planned one week’s worth of meals and repeated those same seven meals throughout the month.
My goal? Spend $100 on our monthly meal plan. That left me $150 for our Thanksgiving meal and some wiggle room to stock up on any good deals that might come up during the month.
November was a tough month! My family isn’t big on meatless meals and they do like an occasional dinner with ground beef; but we stuck with it. I kept our monthly expenses around $100, spent $75 on our Thanksgiving dinner and stocked up on good deals with the rest. I was able to stock up on ground beef when it was $1.99 a pound, alfredo sauce when it was $1a jar, and canned beans.
In December I decided to do it again, only this time I was able to actually plan meals I knew my family would enjoy, using the items I had stocked up on in November. Ground beef and pasta. Chili, Pork Loin and Chicken Alfredo. I was able to once again keep the cost of our monthly meals down and pay for our Christmas dinner and stock up on items for our January meals all while staying within our $250 budget.
It worked out so well, that I decided to do it again in January, although at the beginning of the month I realized my freezer and pantry were full! So I’m planning simple meals using what I have in the cupboard.
A weekly rotating menu simplifies my life and allows me to buy good deals each week, which will in turn give us some variety in next’s month rotating meal plan.
Carrie is a stay at home wife and mother. She loves to learn new ways to take care of her family while spending less money. She blogs with her twin sister at Wholesome Womanhood.
These are great comments and a great post. Thanks to all who posted links. I think one thing to keep in mind is that the Plan lives for you, not.the other way around. I used to stress so much abou planning out all our meals and then stress over the shopping, the cost, and then if my family.would even like it. I soon gave up on that plan but have recently found a better way. I came up with a list of 14-15 dinner ecipes my family loves and greatly reduced complexity by adding simple sides, one starch and one vegetable or fruit. I am also completely okay with using canned or.frozen stuff. We rotate between a few simple breakfats (oatmeal, toast and eggs) and lunches too, which simplifies even more and are made ingredients we *always* have in our pantry/fridge. We always keep bananas and apples on hand for snacks. Also,.we know thay just.by the nature of his job, (cop-school resource officer) that my husband will *have* to.work late 2-3 times a week. When this happens, he can usually let me know about 4 pm, so I can just heat up some leftovers and scratch that night’s plan and save it for another night. But planning out at least 1 week’s worth dinners has reduced so much stress for me and it allows me to use.up what we already have on hand. I love my new plan – but I’m not married to it! 🙂
What an amazingly low food budget! I hope that as soon as I finish Dukan (20 pounds down, 26 to go!) we will be able to make some progress on lowering the food budget.
What works for us on the meal planning is to center the week around several family favorites (we have 4 kids under 6, so I try to focus on nutritional meals that don’t instigate whining), and usually 1-2 new recipes a week. We are kind of foodies (I even did a bit of cooking school), so doing the same 7 dinners week after week would eliminate one of my favorite activities–trying out new recipes!
I don’t manage to get my spending as low as some folks on here, but I do have a few suggestions. I often find that it doesn’t hurt recipes to leave out a few ingredients or substitute something if you don’t want to run out and buy an ingredient. Usually it still turns out tasty! Also I think morning meal prep or night before, can be a big help for getting dinner ready. That way if the baby or children are cranky, dinner prep isn’t such a big deal.
I’d love to hear suggestions on how folks deal with the cost of fresh veggies and fruit — that we are suppose to be eating more of! 🙂 I just can’t imagine how to only spend $100 a month on groceries for a family of 4 when you consider just the cost of fresh fruit and veggies alone (especially here in Michigan – and that’s buying the things that are on sale each week). Thank you for ideas!
I just pretend that they’re a good price! Okay, I’m sort of kidding.
But I do remind myself how pricey it really is to buy chips, crackers, etc., if you look at the per pound price on those items. Ounce per ounce a bag of potatoes is WAY cheaper than potato chips. Lately, I have almost completely stopped buying crackers. Kids eat fruit, cheese, etc. for snacks. I have come to the realization that kids do not need Goldfish to survive. One daughter doesn’t like fruit, but she is learning. She often won’t eat any snack at all, and I heard a lot of whining at first, but now she is eating her veggies better at meal time, so it’s a win-win.
Then I remind myself how cold medicine isn’t cheap, and how much it costs us to go to the doctor on our high deductible insurance plan.
I buy whatever is on sale that week. I’ve also discovered that Ralphs marks their produce down on Sunday mornings so we always stop by on the way to church. I pick up bananas for $0.29 a pound. Last week I was able to get a bag of 10 mixed squash for $0.99.
It is hard to find good deals on fresh produce! 🙂
Try stocking up on more than a week’s worth! When apples are .50 a pound, buy a 20-40 pounds. They will keep for months in your fridge, or in a cool spot through the winter (do have a basement area that is around 40º). The same goes for oranges that are on sale for .25 a pound of less. We have had oranges last 3 months, or 4 in the fridge.
I buy carrots in bulk at Sam’s Club for .39 a pound (in a 5lb bag). Carrots last a very long time in the fridge as well.
I feed my famiy of 8 for $100 a month; it can be done!
Planning meals is not “only” good for reducing one’s budget to the lowest level, but also for maximizing the value of higher expenditures. Right now in my freezer I have a roaster – about 4.5 lbs. – for which I paid about $22. Yep, you read that right. And that was my choice and I’m o.k. with it. I bought the chicken from a woman whose name I know, whose farm I’ve visited and who brings her wares less than 75 miles to my nearest farm market. But to make this expenditure worth the value I put on it, I need to make every ounce of that chicken count. And I will, when the time comes, with roasting first, then burritos, then Buffalo chicken salad, then quiche, and finally gallons of nourishing broth.
Meal planning surely can “reduce” waste – of food, money, and time – but it can also “increase” the value of all of the inputs that go into our food. Cheaper isn’t always the goal, but value certainly is.
Gallons of broth from one chicken?
Yes – it’s true! I have an enormous, restaurant-sized stock pot and that one chicken carcass simmered nice and slow for hours with lots of veggies* makes more broth than I ever thought possible. I have yet to add too much water to the pot and, yes, have made gallons of broth. I have a pressure canner but have not yet canned broth to be shelf-stable, although that’s a goal for this year. Frozen broth takes up a lot of freezer room.
* I keep freezer bags or containers for onion ends, garlic bits, celery trimming and carrot peels and whatever other vegetable bits and pieces I end up with. When I’m ready to make broth, these are the “veggies” that I use. Two or three bags’ worth in that large stockpot and a nice long, slow simmer is all that’s needed for a beautiful golden broth.
I love meal planning and I also keep the meals simple and quick and somewhat repetitive from week to week based on what is on sale. We don’t eat pasta or rice though, so we still find it difficult to make really cheap meals.
I definetly am a meal planner, and see the many money saving benefits of doing this. I also place a high premium on enjoyment and excitement in our family’s meals. I want not only meals that are cost effective and nutritious, but also contribute to our sense of adventure and fun in our home. Mealtime here is a time of celebration — every single day, and it is a great way that our family recharges together. It is important to our family not only to stay within the budget, but also to make the celebration and excitement of mealtime a priority. I think it is often easy to skip this important step in planning meals in favor of the cheapest and/or easiest, which I’ve done many times.
Ok. I have to say I am baffled at the grocery budget of people on here. My family is trying to a whole foods diet, I do menu plan, don’t waste food and don’t see how I could possibly get under $400 a month! I don’t buy processed food except yogurt, which I only buy organic and Greek. We do meatless Monday’s and 2 other meatless nights a week. How can I possibly get there? I prefer to feed my family on fresh not frozen. I loom fowArd to spring summer and my own garden cutting the bill, but until then any suggestions ?
Do you read http://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com? She’s doing a series right now on whole foods on a budget.
However, the main consensus was that you will pay more for a whole real food organic menu.
Me too Teresa. My grocery budget for 4 of us is $600/month, and we live in Ohio…..it’s not like the cost of living is high here. I buy mostly organic produce and milk, grass-fed beef, and local humanely raised chicken or organic chicken (when my budget allows and it’s on a good sale). I do purchase all of our whole wheat bread products, as I don’t bake my own, so I know that takes up a good bit of our food budget, and I also purchase certain convenience foods (such as Earthbound Farms prepackaged organic apple slices) because I work full-time outside of the home and they make packing lunches much quicker. I know if I did just about everything from scratch, I’d save a lot, but I’d never be able to get it lower than $400/month or so for 4 of us……and that’s just groceries. Household products, cleaning supplies, health and beauty things come out of a different budget category.
We also eat fresh, whole foods. I’m okay with spending more on groceries, though I can’t afford to just walk into Whole Foods and buy whatever I want.
Buying meat in bulk directly from the farmer helps with costs. I think if you could plant a garden this spring, that could be a big money saver.
I’m baffled, too, bu the other direction! If I spent one person’s suggestion of $100 a month per person, I would spend $800 a month for my family of 8! Instead, I spend $100 a month for all 8 of us.
Have you considered making your own yogurt in the crockpot? You can use an organic yogurt as a starter & organic milk. If you want it to be greek all you’d need to do is strain some of the whey. It’s surprisingly simple & is a huge money saver for our family.
http://thegreengoddessblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/beauty-thy-name-is-yogurt.html
I also buy extra produce when it’s in season & freeze it for winter months. It’s not quite as good as fresh, but it is nice to process it myself & know exactly where it originated. Hope this helps!
Awesome post and a reminder to me that I must get on the ball with meal planning 🙂
I don’t currently do this, but for several years, I planned my meals and included three things that my family NEVER gets tired of. For us, it was spaghetti night, taco/burrito night and pizza night. Then we always had one leftover night as well. This allowed me to only have to plan three meals per week instead of 7. And since I knew of some ingredients that I always had to have, I just stocked up on them when they were on sale.
My family would love it if we had tacos, burritos, spaghetti and pizza every week, too!
One thing that jumped out at me reading your post is that you said you bought a jar of alfredo sauce. There is a great, easy recipe on allrecipes.com for alfredo sauce that’s made with cream cheese! It tastes so good and is made with good (well as good as alfredo sauce can get) ingredients. My kids beg for this all the time:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/quick-and-easy-alfredo-sauce/detail.aspx
Thank you for this recipe. I have been wanting to try a homemade Alfredo recipe!
It’s very simple: cream (or undiluted evaporated milk, if that’s what you have on hand), garlic (I use powdered), parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. If you want it a litle thicker you can start with a little cornstarch in the beginning.
I love to menu plan. I used to do a lot of variety,but the baby came along and put that on halt ha! We eat a lot of chicken. I do buy ground beef and I don’t think my husband can live without it lol It’s really the only thing he likes besides steak. We spend a lot on groceries every month. A lot of it goes to diapers,wipes,formula,baby food,and pull ups. That right there is $100 or a little more. I thought doing the same meals over would get boring,not sure if it has yet with me,but I think it has with my boys… Any tips?
We don’t eat a lot of meat here. It really saves money. I cook a lot of the same meals but, still with variety. For example I cook pasta once a week it could be fettucini alfredo broccoli (last week) or shells and pepper jack cheese with morning star crumbles (last night). I also do this with breakfast food for supper. One week it could be eggs, pancakes and fruit. The next week eggs cooked differently, hashbrowns and a different fruit.
I love menu-planning, but I also love variety. So, the same meals every week wouldn’t appeal to me.
What does appeal to me is the same common ingredients. I shop every two weeks and I buy in bulk at Sam’s Club. I have lots of flour, oats, tomato sauce, pasta, etc. I also buy $20 worth of whatever meat is on sale that week, then repackage it into meal sized portions and freeze. So, I usually have an assortment of basic items to choose from.
Then, I go through and pick twelve to fourteen meals that all share those common ingredients, but that all completely different meals!
For example, if I have a whole chicken in the freezer, then I will make a meal of Sticky Chicken with mashed potatoes, veggies and rolls. Then I will take all of the meat off of the chicken and freeze it in 1/2 cup to 1 cup portions. I can then pull out a package and make 33 different kinds of soup or 187 different casseroles that have cooked chicken in it. It doesn’t have to be the same meal every time.
I enjoy looking at Food.com and old Taste of Home magazines for ideas (I do find that newer Taste of Home magazines tend to have more odd ingredients so I avoid those). They help me come up with new ways to make the same thing.
Also, when we do love a recipe, it goes into my “favorite recipes” binder. Then, when I do want to remake the meal, or don’t have the time or care to look at new recipes, I can turn to that binder for tried and true favorites.
I think it’s important to remember that just because you are using the same common ingredients, like rice and beans, that doesn’t mean that you have to make it the same way every time.
While I love having alot of variety, there have been times where I’ve needed to simplify. Right now I’m dealing with an impatient toddler and crabby, teething baby. So, in the short term, I’ve been planning simpler meals and repeating them more often. It helps me keep my sanity and the 5-6pm chaos to a minimum.
I tend to think in broad terms when first sitting down to plan a menu, like chinese food or pasta. That might be stirfry or homemade fried rice with eggrolls, spaghetti with meat sauce, or penne with broccoli, but thinking of it in broader terms helps me narrow things down and make it more manageable. I confess that I can be a bit of a recipe hoarder and can get easily overwhelmed if I don’t pare it down a bit.
I think that’s true; whatever works for the season you are in.
The key is planning, however that works for you!
That is so funny I just did this 2 weeks ago, making Sun-Saturday the same thing every week with the same “kind” of food. Like Sundays will be waffles or pancakes or french toast with turkey bacon or eggs. Wednesday will be a homemade pizza of some sort. Monday is Meatless Mexican night so rice, beans, veggies as burritos taco salad or quesadilla’s. It is only week two of this and I have already seen a drastic price drop on groceries! Also reduced stress around dinner time =)
This is something I’ve been thinking about, too…why can’t I just repeat a week’s worth of meals for a month? We eat spaghetti nearly every week, so why not four Tuesdays of tacos or four Thursdays of scalloped potatoes and ham?
Meatless is a no-go with my carnivorous husband, but my toddler and I do meatless for lunch most days, so it balances out.
March will be a 4-weeks-of-weekly-menus month for us…we’ll see how it goes!
I do this, but I use a 2 week plan. I think it’s a great way to plan your meals. This also allows you to build a food pantry with items that you like to cook with. The best part for me is if I’m not home or sick, my older kids can look at the menu and make it themselves. We do stray a bit, if tacos are on tuesday but we feel like cajun chicken pasta I’ll just make that and pull it off the menu for the week.
i have about 45 meals that my crew enjoys that i rotate around according to whats on sale and the season.
Once or twice a month Ill make something new but even then, its something simple. living in a house full of carnivores I wish i could do more meatless meals, but they get a bit upset!
We started menu planning with just dinners several years ago, when my husband finally (after 9 years of marraige!) got on board with eating dinner together at the table each night. With our schedule we have right now, I currently plan everything – including snacks. It just makes our life easier. I try to do one chicken, one fish/seafood, one pork, one beef, one vegetarian and one soup meal each week – allowing for variety with meals and picking easy things (soup from the freezer or a stir fry) on nights we need that. It took about a year to find what worked for us and in a less busy season I’ll go back to just planning dinners.
We usually do really easy stuff – crock-pot soups, baked meat with starch-veggie-and-fruit, or a salad topped with shredded meat. I rarely do casseroles or pot pies or things like that – only if I know I have a night at home without interruption to actually spend the time cooking. It makes life less stressful!
Love reading the comments! Isn’t it fun how everyone is so different?
Lea
Meal planning for variety along with saving money is a must in our home. Rotating 7 meals not so good here. I save old menus from year to year because we like to eat seasonally with lots of choices to choose from. We also like to try new recipes and make meal time a happy event and a time to reconnect with each other. I share the responsibility of cooking with my husband who also likes to cook. I do very little freezer cooking but we will double up on meatballs or freeze leftovers for quick meals. We also like vegetables preferably fresh and eat meatless meals at least twice a week. We do not live in a third world country why would I feed my family like we do? Nutrition, wise food choies, learning by example and portion control will make healthy adults.
Meal planning ensures that we have on hand what we need for our favorite recipes and helps us to waste less food by incorporating the leftovers into our menus.
Pam,
What do you make for meatless meals? I would like to add more meatless meals, but I am limited to due to allergies in the family (milk, eggs, soy, peanut, gluten).
Soups and beans are great inexpensive meatless meals. I have several meatless meals on my site that might help you, including those that can work with your allergies.
I like a plan, I just have very limited time to make one!
We have certain nights that are set because they involve items that are on sale consistently: Tuesday is spaghetti night, Wednesday is soup or chili, Saturday is breakfast for dinner. Sunday and Thursday dinners revolve around items on-hand or on sale. Monday and Friday are typically left over nights. Only planning for two nights a week is pretty easy!
I also like to have a couple of meals in the freezer for those nights that things break down!
Since I’ve been meal planning, we haven’t had as much temptation to eat out since I know there’s a meal that just needs to be whipped up at home. We also have a shopping routine that helps us save money and remember to meal plan. I posted about it here:
http://www.peachesandcheese.com/2012/02/money-saving-series-ways-to-save/
I was doing the same thing! Then we had tacos or something else easy and I was like, why did we stop having this all the time. I was making life way too hard trying to make it easier! AND spending more money buying all different ingredients. Now we have our set nights of what we eat (burritos, tacos, curry, soup, etc) with a couple that change each week.
I would love to see everyone’s examples of their weekly meal plan to get some ideas!! Our budget is supertight but I do seem to like variety!!
Check out http://www.theprudenthomemaker.com
She has menu plans for each season and that uses pantry items only. She feeds her family for less than $3 a day, yet has lots of variety.
I post my menu plans each week on my blog. I stick to simple meals with basic ingredients, but we like variety, too! 🙂
http://ourfrugalhappylife.blogspot.com/search/label/Menu%20Plan
We meal plan each week. I admit we like variety and I try to slide in 1 new recipe a week to change things up. It has helped us to meal plan, we are saving on our grocery bill and not eating out because we did not plan for dinner. We lay the meat (if there is any) out the night before. I try to fit in at least 1 vegetarian meal each week. I also keep a running pantry and freezer list posted on the freezer and the pantry door and do freezer cooking sessions on the weekends to help ease the stress during the week.
I think that I learned from my husband and my husband’s family that you can have variety and simplicity in the same place! My husband was born in Russia and when they did not have money, food was very, very simple. We were fairly poor as well for many of the first years of our marriage and I learned that a pot of soup can go a long way and last for three days in a small family or more. When you are hungry, food is good if you have it. Simple food fills you up and you are thankful.
I think here in the USA, we have gotten spoiled. We focus on health because we have the money to, but I have heard families who say “We are a meat eating family. We can’t cut the budget.” or “We only eat organic.” or other comments as they are racking up debt on credit cards. I don’t think that is how God intended us to feed our families. You can be healthier on a simple diet of cabbage, carrots, bread and potatoes with small amounts of meat, if you eat less of it. I know people cry about starch, but you can afford organic, if you stick to simple, you can make do with less if you eat basic foods. Food is meant for nourishment, not always pleasure. I think we lose sight of that goal.
Amen. And on a similar note, I wonder if poor parents in impoverished countries have problems with their kids being picky eaters.
This is a good idea! I am not a very good cook and coming up with meal plans is extremely difficult for me. I felt like I had to have variety to be a good wife I guess- but truthfully, when my husband cooks he quite often cooks the same things over and over anyways. I am going to try this as I can’t really cook more than 7 things all that well anyways. I think it will go quite well!
I do a compromise version of variety vs simplicity. Each night of the week is a category and then each week based on what I have and what is on sale, I fill in the specifics. For example, Sun is fish/seafood (broiled salmon, shrimp tacos, shrimp stir fry), Mon is hot sandwich night (pulled BBQ, meatball subs, sloppy joes), Tues is grilled hamburgers, Wed is soup and bread, Thurs is homemade pizza, Fri is chicken (roast chicken, stir fry, fajitas, chick Parmesan) and Sat is free night to try new recipes. Usually this particular order accommodates our busy nights vs. nights at home, but I switch the nights based on our schedule if needed. I also keep a few quick meals on hand to prevent eating out – stir fry veggies and rice, spaghetti sauce and pasta, homemade bean burritos in the freezer, etc.
What a great post! We used to have the main dish and a number of side items on the table for every meal but have simplified our meals by only having 1 or 2 items. I only go all out when we have company or a holiday dinner. That has been a huge money saver for us.
I never thought about rotating the same meals each week. That’s a great idea! That could be a really big money saver. I will definitely be trying this idea.
Meal Planning can sound like such a big task, but you can make it as simple or as complicated as you like. Just by writing out what we plan to eat each week has saved a lot of money. Before meal planning, I would spend more money on spontaneous purchases. Now, that has stopped (or at least significantly decreased).
Meals listed in my meal plan can sometimes be as simple as Hot Dogs with Apples. (exciting I know) Just making sure I have what I need for a week of meals keeps me from extra trips to the store.
Thanks again for the post. Great ideas!
simplifying meal planning works for us too! i really learned a lot this summer because we participated in a CSA where we got a box of fresh veggies once a week. since i never knew exactly what was in the box i learned how easy it was to have staples on hand (rice, tortillas, pasta, sauce, beans, meat that was on sale etc.) and whip up easy, nutritious, inexpensive meals. we got plenty of built in variety by having the fresh veggies delivered to us, some of it was stuff we had never eaten before but ended up liking.
for us, sticking to mostly whole foods naturally keeps meal planning simple and saves us money since i rarely buy processed food.
I just joined a CSA for this growing season and can’t wait!! This seems like a fun to way to try some new veggies…especially since we can go to the farm and help harvest! My kids are excited. 🙂
it has been great for us. our friends are farmers and just started their CSA last year so we were on their learning curve. but it was a good experience. we got 20 weeks worth of boxes starting in the spring and going through until the fall. hope you enjoy all your good, fresh veggies!
That sounds like quite the success, a $100 per month for a family of 4+ isn’t an easy feat!
I have started doing something very similar. I plan a 2 week menu for dinners and lunches and we reuse that same menu until we get tired of it and then change out some of the meals. I always leave room for one “surprise” meal for a change of pace. One way it saves is on spices or other items that I don’t use all of for one recipe– that spice or item will be used again in 2 weeks. It is so nice to just hit print and have most of my grocery list already done.
Great idea! I’ll have to ponder doing something like that…
When I force myself to meal plan, life goes so much better! However, we do like more variety – and actually, meal planning helps me cook with more variety, instead of just falling back on spaghetti or tossing chicken in the oven because I don’t have any ideas at hand.
I think a really great part of this post, though, is how they sacrificed a bit in November, and as a result ended up eating better in the long run. The extra money they saved by eating plainly helped her to stock on for future use. I think this is a key principle for getting out of the paycheck to paycheck mentality. If a family has $75 bucks to spend each week, and spends just that on groceries that only last one week, that leaves no room for buying more interesting ingredients, or for stocking up at low prices.
But take one week and eat on $60 of food, and then you have $15 to buy ahead on some staples. Then the next week, it’s easier to eat on $60 because you have a few extra items from the week before. Keep doing that until your cupboards are well-stocked, and you can go back to $75 if you want to eat more gourmet – or just save the difference. A short term sacrifice in the beginning and you end up better off.
This is probably obvious to most people who read this blog, but it is not to an awful lot of folks out there. Makes me sad.
Great recap!
First of all, congratulations on the impressive grocery budget. Go you!
I’m if two mindsets when it comes to meal planning. On one hand it seems like a no brainer. In general I believe in Having A Plan. But I’m not one of those Moms who can plan out a month’s worth of breakfast, lunches, and dinners. I admire it but it’s not for me.
I have more of a system than a specific plan. I know which days in a week we need a crock pot meal, days we need leftovers, and days I’ll be home to cook right before we eat. I also have certain foods I prepare only one weekends, just like my Dad did. I try to keep certain foods in stock at all times and scan the grocery add for meat sales. Rarely do I prepare meat the same week I buy it. My confession is half the time I don’t even meal plan before I shop. I’d I stumble across a recipe I want to try I’ll add those ingredients to my list even if I won’t make it for a few weeks.
I like having one night a week, or more, I don’t plan more than a day or two ahead of time. When I’ve tried to be more elaborate in my planning I end up feeling frustrated when I come across a recipe I want to try but already have the week planned. That said. I very rarely wake up in the morning not knowing what’s for dinner that night. Even if it’s just throwing together a few things from the pantry I like having that freedom. But no way could I do that every day.
I’m a huge fan of meal planning! With three hungry boys to feed, I don’t know what I would do without my “plan.”
Planning nourishing meals with balanced nutrition is a big benefit of meal planning. I can look at my week and know that we’re eating a balanced diet.
Saving money is good, but not my ultimate goal in meal planning. I see food as an investment in our health and spend more for quality ingredients that will be nourishing for all of us.
How do you determine how much to start your budget at? We are a family of 6 so how much per person do you try and stay within?
Depends on what you like to eat, ages of kids, and where in the country you live, and personal. There’s no rule out there. Do whatever you want as long as you can afford it, and it fits into your family’s over budget/financial plan. Keep all your receipts for a month to determine what you are already spending, and go from there.
Here in VA, I spend about $500 a month for our family of 6 (4 kids 2 to 9). But some months I only spend in the low $300s. It varies greatly. I have grocery outlet to go to, as well as others stores, cook a lot from scratch, and use a few coupons. We eat a lot of produce and a low to moderate amount of meat. I could spend less, but we don’t need to, and we like eating well. If I don’t keep the food good enough, my husband wants to go out to eat more often, and that’s much more pricey! Not that he complains at all, but I noticed a correlation between boring meals and more “let’s go eat at ____”.
I live in MA and we are a family of 5. We have 2 boys ages 16 & 4 and a daughter 7. We spend 540 a month. We also pay for cat food and kitty litter for 3 cats with this budget. I try to make a lot of things from scratch which helps a lot. I also menu plan only for dinners because we usually eat the same things for breakfast and lunch. I used to spend 800 a month and I cringe just thinking about it. I would try shaving off a little bit every month until you get to a number that works for your family.
Of course it depends on your circumstances, but I think for an average middle-class American family, I would try to keep it below $100 per month per person to start. And then try to improve from there if you need to. Of course it varies widely based on your tastes, restrictions (allergies), preferences (organic), age of kids, your financial situation, etc. Some people can make do on $50 per month per person, but if your finances don’t dictate that you need to go that low, you might not want to.
You’re the only person who can safely answer this question because you can’t spend what you don’t have. So the first step would be to analyze your budget and see how much you can afford to spend on food.
Then go from there and determine how much of the money that you do have do you NEED to spend on food. For example, you may have a surplus of $1000 a month that you might could spend on food, but you find out that you only need $800 a month to feed everyone quite well. You can do this by meal-planning, shopping, etc, then keep your receipts and do a tally of how much you are spending.
Then, if you want to continue to cut from there, you can find ways to do it.
For us, my husband gets paid every two weeks and I get $235 to spend on the house. This includes food as well as all toiletries, paper products, diapers, any eating out not paid for by hubby like a playdate, clothing which is bought at Goodwill, etc. So, I usually try to put aside $10-35 for miscellaneous and spend the rest on food, toiletries, diapers, and paper products.
We live in Phoenix, have a family of 6, ages 11, 10, almost 4 and almost 2. I also use WIC.
My personal rule of thumb is $20-25 per person per week. Some people spend more, some people spend less. But, a budget is only as good as the person sticking to it. Having a low grocery budget on paper only to go over every month does you no good. I would suggest that you keep all your receipts for grocery shopping in a month and total it up. Start from there.
I will say that our grocery budget varies throughout the year. It is significantly less in the summer than the winter because so many fruits and vegetables (the majority of my spending) are in season and on sale. Plus, you can get away with serving a simple pasta salad or smoothie for dinner in August better than you can in January 🙂
I have found that simplifying meals has taken away SO much stress I didn’t even know I was experiencing! I gave myself a challenge to not use any recipes for a month to see what happened (well, I did have to refer to a recipe here & there to check on oven temps and baking time). I was surprised at what I gravitated towards making, and how much more fun & less stressful cooking dinner became. I was able to see what was on hand and add that on a whim to whatever I was cooking or use what was on hand as an inspiration on what to make. By doing this & seeing what I was gravitating towards, I also was able to develop a standard grocery list that I now use (yes, I kind of had a small standard list before this experiment, but since I had been making different recipes every day, the list wasn’t too standard). And since I have an expanded standard list, I keep a closer eye on the prices of these items and am much more observant about when the sales are good and when to stock up. I might use a recipe on the weekend when I have more time to spend in the kitchen but, bottom line, simplifying meals has saved us money, LOTS of time, and (most importantly) stress!
Ha, I think I was doing this by default, because there are just some meals that are family favorites and easy to do (waffle night and homemade pizza night are big hits around here). I also do soup, salad and bread nights (soups are great ways to use up odds and ends) and a lot of crockpot meals. There are only 3 of us, but with weeknight activities and both of us working full-time, menu planning and freezer cooking saves us money and sanity.
I’ll put in a plug for Stephanie O’Dea’s method of precooking and freezing dried beans in can-size portions (stephanieodea.com). We’re trying to cut down even more on sodium for hubby’s heart health, so avoiding the canned beans is one help. We also use Crystal’s do-your-own-oatmeal packets instead of the instant ones.
Why are the simple solutions always the hardest to see? LOL Thanks so much for input. I too am guilty of thinking I have to come up with something new every night. The sad truth is my kids always ask for the same things over and over so why not give it to them. As long as their getting healthy foods, why make my life hard. Thanks again for pointing out the obvious.
I think simplifying what you eat is great, but It’s okay to like variety too – God is a highly creative being who has made us in his image, and He created such an amazing variety of plants and creatures even though He could have stopped at a lot less. It’s true that trying different things all the time could lead to spoiled kids who don’t want boring food, but eating the same few meals all the time could also lead to a refusal to try new things.
Well said!
I think this is very true. I feel like it’s really important to have a variety of foods. It’s good for our health, and important for our children to be introduced to new things so they’ll eat them and enjoy them.
I love the topic of meal planning. I used to think that meal planning meant you had to pick a meal for every day of the week and marry that plan. It didn’t work for me — someone who has an extremely busy life and might have one or two nights with very little time to cook a more time consuming meal, etc. I now know that there are many ways to meal plan and none of them are really more right than the other. Meal planning is such a personal thing and you have to tweak it for what works for you and your family.
For us, I like to pick about 5 meals for a week that I KNOW I have the ingredients for. The meals picked are generally based on what I have in stock and what is on sale that week. I don’t assign days and sometimes I don’t even make one or two of those meals in that specific week. The beauty of it is that I KNOW I have entire meals on hand and I’m not tempted to order take out, run by the store for an ingredient not on sale, etc.
One of the big ways I save is to buy just 1 or 2 types of meat for the week (whatever is on sale) and then build my meals around those meats. For example, this week, bone-in ham was $1.19 per pound. I bought an $11 ham. We had regular ham, potato and ham soup, and another ham dish this week. We also used it on our sandwiches for lunch throughout the week. (BTW, when Martha Stewert said for taste you should always do bone-in ham, she wasn’t lying!) That was $11 worth of meat for 3 dinners and a couple of lunches! Sure, that’s a lot of ham in one week but next week it won’t be ham again. In fact, I already know what it is is and it is turkey. Straight turkey, turkey casserole, turkey potpie, turkey and biscuits, turkey tacos, etc… the possibilities are endless.
My husband would eat ham sandwiches every day for dinner if I would let him. I love the idea though of using it in multiple meals in one week and may have to pick one up for him this week as a surprise.
I might only cook three large meals each week. The other nights, we eat leftovers and add a salad or fresh veggies/fruit and bread to make it stretch.
I (we) could not just have the same 7 meals over and over. We really like variety! But if it works for anyone, they should do it. I do meal plan every week and highly recommend it no matter what your meal preferences are. It definitely saves money and sanity:)
Us, too!
The key is that I make meals with common ingredients, just in a new and exciting way! I love food.com and old Taste of Home magazines for new ideas.
Our problem is that we don’t like a lot of foods, myself included, so we ended up getting sick of eating the same stuff. I know it’s up to us to change that….
Look at websites like Food.com, allrecipes.com, or tasteofhome.com for new recipes using the same types of foods.
Just because you only like chicken, for example, doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be made the exact same way each time (unless, of course, that’s the only way that you like it. I have an autistic child, so I do understand that)
My family is very hesitant about vegetables. It’s hard enough to get them to eat carrots and green beans; adding “exotic” vegetables like zucchini? Forget it, they won’t touch it. “Oh, I don’t like this….” or whatever. They’re not picky when it comes to food, on anything except vegetables.
We’re very picky eaters too. This year we’ve decided to try two new foods each week. We’ve found some things we liked and some things we haven’t, but we’re trying!!!!!
I definitely have to make it a priority to look for some new recipes to try. We get stuck in a rut because we’re not trying anything. We’ve been saying we’re going to try tilapia for ages now, but still haven’t done it.
Holly, what were some foods you’ve tried?
Oh Meredith, you’ll love tilapia. It’s a very mild fish, so it’s great for those who don’t particularly enjoy “fishy” foods.
Here’s what we have tried…don’t laugh i know its nothing extraordinary – brown rice, turnips, sweet potatoes, 16 different types of beans, pesto pizza, tacos with kidney beans, cashew chili. One of the things we’ve also been trying is whole wheat bread. Just overall healthier and more nutritious. I try to incorporate new foods into foods we know so that a whole meal isn’t a waste. It’s quite interesting to see our different reactions! Some are keepers and some we will not try again!
Great post.
I like to focus on basic foods and simple meals too. Meat, grains, fresh fruit and veggies, dairy. I’m able to feed my small family (myself and my preteen daughter) for under $100/month easily. I could lower my grocery bill even more if I made more of an effort, but for me, the $100/month budget is a good balance between time, money, and storage space.
Beef comes from a friend who raises cattle, $2.50/lb for all cuts (ground, roasts, steaks, everything) and I split a quarter steer with a friend. It lasts me a year. Chicken breasts come from Zaycon (again, an order will last me a year); whole chicken comes from the grocery store where it’s often on sale for $.99/lb. Fish and pork come from the grocery store where I look for sales, coupons, and manager markdowns. Last fall my local store had $1 any fresh pork coupons available in-store for weeks, so every time I shopped I’d pick up individually wrapped pork chops $.10-$.25 each after coupon.
I stretch meat by using it in stews, casseroles, etc., instead of serving it by itself. Pork roasts are often bogo at my local store, with Hormel coupons available pretty regularly. Last weekend I picked up two pork roasts for $2.50/ea, and each will easily make 3 meals for us.
Fresh fruits and veggies come from a wonderful farmer’s market near me, which is open year-round. I tried Boutiful Baskets, and while I was happy with the quality of the produce and the overall price, it didn’t really work for me because (1) it was too much food for my small family, and (2) the ordering deadlines and pickup time didn’t work for my schedule. But the farmer’s market is a great alternative. I spend about $10/week on fresh produce. I don’t like to waste food, so I tend to buy the lowest quantity that I think we will use before it goes bad. We eat the fresh we have it, and when we run low on fresh, I turn to frozen or canned, which I stock up on when it is on sale.
I shop sales and use coupons for nearly all pantry items: pasta, rice, canned foods, frozen foods, ingredients like flour, sugar, seasonings, etc. We rarely eat cereal and other pre-packaged foods, but I will pick up some of that stuff when it is very cheap with coupons. I also stock up (within reason) on cheese and yogurt when I can match sales and coupons. Pretty much the only other foods I buy weekly are bread and eggs.
The most expensive items that I buy regularly are yogurt and coffee.
As for meal planning, I was inspired by Crystals’ method of making a list of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners each week, but without planning certain meals for certain days. This has worked extremely well for us.
Once again the very thing that I am thinking about is featured on MSM. Amazing! I meal plan – but the whole idea of simplyfying my meals even more makes sense….why can’t we eat rice and beans once a week etc., This thought process fits right in with the Chris Seay vlogs posted on this site too. Really as Americans how spoiled do we need to be? How much variety do we need? Much better to train up my little ones to see food as nourishment and not as recreation 🙂 My family appreciates the counsel and ideas on MSM so much!!! Thank you! (Someone should come up with 7 different recipes using the same 5-7 ingredients for a week….like rice, beans, chicken…????)
“Much better to train up my little ones…” key statement. My kids are 15, 16 and 18 and I often have to hear “Beef and bean burritos again?”. They really are spoiled compared to the rest of the world they just don’t see it. Train them when they are young people!!!
I have to say that I completely disagree. Just because you are using a minimum amount of ingredients does not mean that it needs to be boring and uncreative; the exact same 7 meals every week.
I do like variety and I do enjoy finding new recipes and making them for my family. In fact, just this week we are making all new recipes and have found three out of four delicious new meals to add to the “favorite recipes” binder.
However, I did not go out and buy a bunch of unique ingredients for these recipes. I buy common ingredients in bulk and all of the recipes are items that I already have in my pantry. I’m just making them in a new way.
While I do think that we need to have global awareness and help our children to recognize how very blessed we are, being blessed and acting upon those blessings is not a bad thing. I think that doing things like providing a beautiful meal with variety for our families is one way that we can serve our families and show that they are loved. At least for me. Food is my love language and I so enjoy cooking dinner for my family every night and hearing their enthusiastic response.
Just because you have an abundance of beans and rice does not mean that they have to be made the same way every single time.
Wow, I feel even worse than when my kids complain.
I’m not sure I understand?
Are you saying that you feel bad because of my comment?
Because I encouraged you to enjoy variety and try to make meals a loving expression for your family?
I’m sorry. :-/
I agree Jennifer. My husband and I also enjoy a variety of foods and are hoping our children will too. We also try at least one new recipe each week that may or may not make it into our “recipe index” depending on how much we like it. We’ve discovered many of our favorite meals that way.
I have to disagree here too. I’d be afraid that offering only the same meals over and over again might cause little kids to end up picky eaters that will only want the same things over and over again and might not be willing to try many new foods. We’re basically trying just the opposite…..to offer and expose our kids to a variety of choices and plenty of new foods in hopes that they might discover that they love something new.
Wow! My thoughts exactly! I have a best friend who is so ‘simple’ in her meal planning that Monday is always baked chicken night, Tuesday is always Spaghetti, Wednesday is always … you get the idea. It is a joke among our friends because if you ask her to help with a meal to go to a mom with a new baby or whatever, she says, “Well if it’s Tuesday, I’ll only be able to bring spaghetti.” She and her children are incredibly picky to the point that we hate to go to a restaurant with them. Nothing ever suits and it becomes embarrassing. I think the author of the post and most of us like variety but I can see that it would be okay to have guidelines for what to fix when (say Meatless Mondays, Beef on Tuesdays, etc.)
You are right about that. My MIL only cooked a few things over and over because it is all that she knew how to cook and my husband only learned to like those few things. I took years for him to develop a taste for other foods after we were married.
Did we marry into the same family, lol?!
My mother in law admits her lack of cooking skills, and jokes that was her goal so her three sons’ future wives never have to hear about how perfect “dear old mom’s cooking was”!!
I think I married into the same family, too! 🙂
My husband’s mom cooked the same few meals over and over…and over again! He’s not necessarily picky per se, but he prefers the “boring” meals (IMO!). I’m slowly working on him, though…!
I want to be a more creative cook especially when we have children, because I would love to expose them to plenty foods to try to head off pickiness!
I agree! Clementine tangerines (“cuties”) and pomegranates are available seasonally. When my daughter was little, she would eat both. Then we didn’t have them for many months and when they became available again, she refused to try them because they seemed new to her.
I don’t really enjoy menu planning either and do it in spurts. I’ve been kind of doing what Theresa does and it is helping.
My question is this. Do those of you that do this really think it shaves money off your grocery budget? I already only buy things almost always when they are at rock bottom prices. Then I try to plan my meals around what I have on hand. I only spend $190/mo. on both grocery and household/cosmetic items. But from what Carrie says in this post I could be saving more by menu planning. What has your experience been? I’m intrigued! 🙂
Do you waste much food? If you do, planning might help.
Yes, because when I plan a meal I know I have everything — there’s no situations where I think I could make X if I only had Y and then I end up running to the store and buying Y plus two other things.
Menu planning actually does save me money. Before I started any sort of menu planning, I would stock up on food (like meats or pastas) and then, because we forgot to thaw the meat, we would wind up getting take out anyway because we didn’t have anything planned. Our grocery budget was much bigger because we had to factor in the cost of eating out if we wanted to stay in the black that week.
By planning our meals, we’re able to cut that eating out expense and we don’t wind up getting a lot of extras we’re not actually going to use. I stock up on things when they’re on sale, and then during a regular shopping week I’ll buy the produce or seasoning or whatever to make the meals that are planned. And because the menu is planned in advance, we can just look at the calendar before bed and set down the meat to thaw, so no dinnertime rush and eventually getting take out anyway.
Saves us time and money!
I have found a time saver to be to cook meats ahead of time (especially chicken). Get a sale on chicken, skin it (if necessary), then throw it directly in the crockpot to cook. Then take the cooked chicken and slice or shred it how you need. I have found this to be a time saver; if I’m making stir fry (for example), I cook the veggies in the pan, and add the chicken at the last minute to heat up, then put in whatever sauce. If you always keep some cooked meat in the fridge, you also eliminate the need to thaw the meat as mentioned above.
Neither I nor my husband can ever get frozen meat to cook all the way. We always have to thaw it first, in the fridge. Even the chicken breasts we cooked on the grill have to be thawed first; the last time we tried anything like you suggested, the food was plated and served and my daughter asked if it was supposed to be frozen inside (and this was after we thought we had heated it thoroughly!).
We’re no chefs here.
Have you ever tried the crockpot? That’s the only way that I can get frozen food to cook completely.
Meal planning saves my family money only in the sense that we are much less likely to order take-out after a busy day at work if we have a menu plan for the week and know the minute we walk in the door what’s for dinner. I do find that when I’m lazy and don’t have the full week of meals planned out, we tend to just grab something. It also helps us waste less food, because I keep lists of recipes using certain ingredients. If one of our meals in a particular week calls for some ingredient that I don’t normally keep on hand or tend to use up right away, I just plan another meal that week using the same ingredient. But no, meal planning doesn’t save me money on my monthly grocery budget, I think primarily because that is a different category from our eating out spending.
Agree agree agree! Meal planning has helped me immensely since moving into our new house, since we don’t have much space for food storage. I used to stock up on whatever was on sale or coupons and I’d always be scratching my head at 5 o clock since I never seemed to have the ingredients for whole meals. I now plan according to what is on sale and shop weekly. I also try to plan for the meals to be freezer- friendly, which has taken even more stress out of the equation! We are even saving money because we have less food waste!
i think this sounds so much harder than it is – i just write up 21 meal possibilities and try to plan around expected events – this week, i have had a terrible cold, and we have had unexpected company – between a few freezer cooking meals, planned leftovers made over, and a well-stocked pantry, i am not exactly following my plan, but we are fed with a minimum of stress and expense (i aim to spend less than $2/day per person) – and the meals we did not get to this week will go on next week’s list!
So true! When I started meal planning I would try complicated recipes and pull out all my cookbooks and I started to dread it, and it wasn’t working well! Now I but seasonal, sale fruit and veggies and we eat the same staples each week, pasta and broccoli, beans and rice w cheese, quesadillas, etc. So easy, and it’s foods that we love so it doesn’t bother us at all!! 🙂
I wish I loved meal planning, in fact to simply “like” it would be nice because I dread meal planning. So much that I rarely do it, lol! I really need to get into the habit of it, though, because I know it’ll simplify my life more and allow for a better grocery budget.
Thanks for sharing!!
Carrie,
I would love to know more about your meatless meals. Buying any meat other than organic free range chicken or grass fed beef is simply a non negotiable at our house these days. I’m a huge believer in the money saved on grocery store meat (ick) will catch up to us in health care costs. I know every family does not feel this way and I respect that but am always on the lookout for more meatless meals. Do you have some on your site?
Kim, my family eats very little meat- sometimes we go over a week without it- and I’m a bit of a foodie, so I’ve got lots of recipes. I would be happy to email you some of my favorites and recommend a couple of cookbooks that you might enjoy, if you’d like.
Hi Wendy,
I’d love to get a couple of your favorite low-ingredient meatless recipes. We also eat very little meat so I’m always looking for some new easy-to-make vegetarian meals to try on the family. My email is sbuxcoffee208 at yahoo dot com.
At your earliest convenience. Thanks in advance!
Cheryl
Cheryl, I’d be happy to send those to you. I’ll try to do it this weekend.
Hey Wendy,
If you don’t mind I would love the same info you sent Cheryl!
slghicks at gmail dot com
Thanks for your time.
Spea
Kim,
I’ve got lots of vegetarian recipes on both my blog and site:
http://www.abridescookbook.com/blog
http://www.abridescookbook.com
Just type Vegetarian in the search box.
Nancy
I can’t agree more on certain “budget” choices catching up with your health and costing much more in the end. Good meat is top priority, then animal products (eggs and milk). $0.99/lb of chicken almost made my jaw drop.
I totally agree. I recently watched “Forks over Knives” and “Food, Inc.,” and it is so very enlightening. While I have always been mindful of ingredients due to allergies, I was not always paying for the better quality stuff. Now I have determined to just pay now for good health.
I agree too. I’ve never seen “Forks over Knives” (never even heard of actually – I’ll have to check it out), but since seeing “Food, Inc.”, I will never again purchase Tyson or Purdue chicken or Hormel pork products. I regularly see Tyson chicken breasts in my area go on sale for $1.99/lb, but I’ll never again purchase it.
Emily,
I’m curious, what is the issue with Tyson and Purdue chicken?
I only have two stand by vegetarian meals that my family is ok with eating…pot pie and soup. 🙂 I’m working on finding more recipes that my family truly likes.
I first heard of meal planning last summer and wondered, why hadn’t I thought of this before? 🙂 Meal planning does help with the grocery bill and I now do it every week.