I cannot say enough for the benefits of having a monthly, weekly, and daily. When I found out that my baby was intolerant to milk and soy protein products, I needed a plan of action so I wasn't floundering about what to make when dinner rolls around. The usual standby's like freezer pizza and prepared mac and cheese were off the menu and many other my staples for throwing a meal together had to be reconsidered. So I revised my meal plans to a monthly schedule which I base my bi-weekly menu's. I love this method so much because it has simplified my menu planning, grocery shopping, and life in general, yet I am allowed enough creativity in meal planning. My husband also likes it because he knows every Friday night we are having Mexican. Every Tuesday night we have Italian. To me-it is like writing the outline of a paper or a speech--only with meal planning--all I have to do is fill in the blanks when the time for grocery shopping arrives.
Let me explain how it works...
I start out with a calandar and type in Menu Ideas for a Month
This is the plan for Summer-I willupdate it in the fall to include more seasonal menus
My menu goals for the summer were
#1 not to have a meal with cow or soy products
#2 have inexpensive meals that could have re-purposed leftovers
#3 not to have a meal that needed an oven
Step 1) Keeping those goals in mind, I started by choosing a theme for each day of the week. For instance-Every Tuesday is pasta night, every other Wednesday is breakfast for dinner, every Friday is Mexican--etc. Then I planned a Sunday meal-usually this is the most expensive meal of the week, but it will also double as leftovers for at least one meal later that week. For instance the third Sunday of the month, we will have home-made fried chicken. For Monday's dinner, I will chop up the chicken, mix it with Asian noodles, toasted almonds and pile that on Romaine lettuce, topped with Italian dressing. Yum! This Sunday, I made BBQ seasoned meatballs. Since every Thursday throughout the summer we will be having a sandwich, it works out perfectly to add spaghetti sauce to the leftover meatballs and put them on sub sandwiches! Hopefully, this is making sense.
Step 2) Since I make my grocery lists based upon what is on sale I know in advance that we will be eating lots of pasta this summer. So for instance when my local grocery store had a sale on Wacky-Mac for .88 this summer, I used a printable .40 off coupon and purchased half a dozen bags of the stuff for .48 each. Last week I purchased 4 whole fryer chickens at buy one get one free because I knew I would be frying chicken once a month. It really has helped save money to stock up on those menu items. It also helps when planning a more specific weekly menu.
Step 3) I work up a bi-weekly menu. I do this by taking note of the foods I already have in stock, then I work up a more detailed menu for each day. For instance one of the weeks would look like this:
Sunday: Meatballs
Monday: Grilled Spiedes
Tuesday: Warm Bacon and Chicken Pasta Salad
Wednesday: Fried Eggs and Toast
Thursday: Meatball Subs
Friday: Ground Beef Tacos
Saturday: Hamburgers
From that I make a list of what I am running out of and what is on sale that I should stock up on. Then we go shopping!
Since I started writing menus and shopping by sale, I spend almost half of what I did on groceries and have a conservative stockpile of goods in the freezer and in the pantry. Also, a trip to the grocery store used to include a list of 30 or so items for me and my husband. Now-even with a baby, I only get 5-6 items, but several of that one (i.e. 4 whole chickens $7.00 for 2, 6 bags Wacky-Mac .48ea., 6 pks Oscar Meyer natural hot-dogs $1.00, 1 bunch of romaine lettuce $2, 2 dozen eggs-.88ea. Est.$27 total for 2 weeks for 3 people!). It hardly feels like grocery shopping anymore.
Hopefully that is inspiring!
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