Meal Planning

One of my most common quests online during downtime has been Meal Planning.

It has taken the stress out of "What am I making for dinner?" or "What do I need to buy at the food store?" and made it rather enjoyable.

I'm on a budget too, plus with moving, I have been trying to eat out my freezer and pantry to make use of that random bag of beans or 10 frozen bananas.

If you follow me on Pinterest, you will see I mostly Pin recipes. Doing this just before bedtime can leave me feeling hungry and cranky, so I'm trying to avoid this time of day... it just all looks SO good!

My sister out in Washington state has 3 kids 6 years and under and an 18 year old, plus her and her hubby that she feeds. We try to share ideas, including our hope of coming up with semi-regular meal planning to blog our ideas to help YOU. I am all for Meal Sharing and Meal Plan sharing.

My sister Andrea & I in Washington

Almost 2 years ago we ventured out on Meal Sharing with another couple. One meal a week we would swap. So one night a week I would double our dinner and exchange it for a yummy surprise dinner the next day. Our family has grown and our friends moved away, but it was a lot of fun!

Today, our more practical way of Meal Sharing is Meal Planning. I'm trying to do it for two weeks in advance just to help cut down on shopping.

So here it goes.

It's naptime here and our food supply is running low. Monday will mean a trip to the store and with a busy weekend ahead, I got a head-start on our Meal Planning/ Shopping list. It can vary some when I get to the stores based on meat sale stickers. I can't promise recipe links, but I'll work on basic ingredient lists and you can find your favorite recipe. My head is full of them, so I don't use too many recipes, I just search for pictures of meals to get my creative juices flowing and write out a Meal Plan.

Week of June 18-24
Monday- Loaded baked potatoes (baking potatoes, bacon, sour cream, chives (garden), cheddar cheese)
Tuesday- Chicken Gyros (pita, greek yogurt, cucumber, chicken)
Wednesday- GRILL- Burgers, grilled potato "chips", grilled veggies *Grill chicken for weekend meals
Thursday-Pulled pork sandwiches with homemade BBQ sauce IF I can find a sale cut.
               Plan B- Homemade pizza/ calzone with various veggies
Friday- Cwtrials Event
Saturday- Lunch- Cwtrials Event
                Dinner- Fish Tacos (Tortillas, avacado, onion, tomato, fish)
Sunday- Lunch- Grilled Chicken (from Wed. grilling) salad wraps
             Dinner- Father's Day dinner out at  Hubby's favorite restaurant

An old pic, but how CUTE are they? Craig loves his BBQ. We miss Famous Daves in Manchester!

Our personal goals for food spending/ budgeting per month- $300 groceries and $80 eating out/ date nights/ coffee, etc. We are really trying to cut our groceries down to $300 and meal planning has been THE WAY TO GO in saving money on food. (Hey Mom! You were right! Making lists DOES make for being more productive and saves time over all... and in this case saves money!)
We don't eat out too often but with this season of life we are in with traveling, our eating out budget was raised. I try to find coupons/ deals, etc. for a planned eating out event.

To help with this, I follow two local food stores, Market Basket and Hannaford for their weekly sale items. I also take a quick peek on Coupons.com to see if I can find any coupons for items I am already going to buy. I'm not a big couponer/ stock piler. We don't have a pantry, just a tiny cabinet. In the future, as our family grows and our next home allows, this may be something I will venture into. I am also taking advantage of my parents garden area and growing a bunch of fresh veggies to share with them this summer! Fun!

I hope this was helpful!