Tag Archives: meal plans

Menu Plan & Grocery Round Up: 12/13-12/19

This week we finally saw a decrease in our grocery spending resulting from our monthly menu planning experiment. Our total was $51! That’s about $9 less than what we typically spend.

Because we bought many items earlier in the month, our list was pretty short this week. We also didn’t need to get any meat for this week’s meals, because we already had it. Even though we weren’t spending more than normal in the beginning of the month, our advance planning helped us spend less this week.

This is only one week, so I don’t have enough information to know for sure if monthly menu planning will be cheaper in the long run, but I’m certainly feeling encouraged enough to try it again in January. Most importantly, it made menu planning and grocery shopping a lot less stressful on the weekends. For that reason alone, I liked it.

Here’s this week’s menu plan (my final full week before our holiday vacation!):

Saturday: Chicken wraps and oven fries
Sunday: Steak fajitas
Monday: Dinner party with friends — we’re bringing chocolate chip cookies for dessert.
Tuesday: Bacon wrapped chicken (We’re using Monterey jack instead of blue cheese and omitting the pecans to reduce the cost of this recipe.)
Wednesday: Chicken noodle soup
Thursday: Broccoli chicken stir fry
Friday: Black bean quesadillas

Looking over this menu, it actually looks a lot more expensive than my typical menu plans. That’s why I’m so excited that we spent less than normal this week. Without monthly menu planning, this menu would have cost a lot more.

I hope you had a successful week at the grocery store!

Visit OrgJunkie for more menu plans.

Menu Plan & Grocery Round Up: 12/6-12/12

I’m just going to come out and say it: I love monthly menu planning. Shopping this week was so simple. We already knew what we needed, and even bought some of it last week. That freed up some of our budget to spend on sale items to use in coming weeks. I think we might continue planning monthly instead of weekly from now on.

Our spending isn’t lower (we still spent about $55 this week which is pretty average for us), but planning for the month has saved us a lot of time and hassle.

As you may remember from my post’s last weekend, this month we’re on a food & financial diet. Monthly menu planning is part of that, but we’re also trying to eat healthier without spending more money.

Here’s our menu plan for the week:

Saturday: Sandwiches
Sunday: Grilled tilapia fillets and squash
Monday: Chicken and rice soup
Tuesday: Grilled chicken salad
Wednesday: Garlic chicken with broccoli and cheddar
Thursday: Chicken wraps
Friday: Bean and cheese burritos (recipe below)

Bean and Cheese burritos (from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook)

8-inch tortillas
1 cup chopped onion
1 tbsp. cooking oil
16 oz. fat-free refried beans
Shredded lowfat cheese
Shredded lettuce
Salsa

Saute onion in oil until tender. Add refried beans. Heat through. Fill warmed tortillas with 1/4 cup beans, and cheese. Roll up and bake in 350-degree oven about 10 minutes until heated through. Serve with lettuce and salsa.

Check out OrgJunkie for more menu plans.

Menu Plan Monday & Grocery Round Up: 11/29-12/5

As part of my Holiday Food & Financial Diet this month, we spent Sunday morning planning out three and a half weeks worth of meals to last us until we leave for Christmas. These menu plans were especially tough because I’m also putting some restrictions on my diet to ward off holiday weight gain and hopefully cancel out the damage I’ve already done.

We originally planned to reduce meat consumption, but I’m also limiting my wheat and carbs consumption (to an extent) for the next three weeks. Trying to come up with vegetarian meals with pasta and bread off limits was pretty much impossible. So we planned a pretty chicken-heavy meal rotation with a few healthy carb-heavy meals (like red beans and rice) and lots of soups for the next three weeks.

Chicken wasn’t on sale this week, but we have enough in the freezer for this week’s meals. We’re crossing our fingers that it will go on sale next week so we can buy enough to carry us through the month. (Cross your fingers for me!)

This week’s total was $52. That total isn’t necessarily true to what we spent for this week alone, though. Because we already have meals planned for the next three weeks, we picked up several sale items that we know we’ll need in the near future.

Here’s the first installment of our December meal plan:

Saturday: Thanksgiving leftovers
Sunday: Turkey sandwiches
Monday: Chicken fajita tortilla soup
Tuesday: Chef’s salad
Wednesday: Red beans & rice
Thursday: Vegetarian chili
Friday: Grilled chicken wraps

I hope you’ll come back for week two of my month-long menu plan!

Now head over to OrgJunkie for more menu plans.

Menu Plan & Grocery Round Up – 11/22-11/28

Watch out! After wrapping and shipping Christmas gifts for my niece and nephew in Seattle this morning and picking up the final things on my Thanksgiving menu, my holiday spirit has arrived. My husband probably won’t find his holiday cheer until next weekend when we put up the tree. He doesn’t appreciate the pre-Thanksgiving Christmas music so much. He’ll get over it. :)

Our grand total for groceries this week was $56. Not too bad for the week of Thanksgiving. In the past, I’ve waited until the last minute to buy everything I needed for our Thanksgiving meal and ended up with a $100+ grocery bill. This time, I split up my list throughout the month of November to reduce the burden. All we picked up this week was some produce and random last minute items.

Some friends invited us to a potluck Thanksgiving dinner Thursday. We’re happy to spend the holiday with friends, but my husband doesn’t want to miss out on roasting his own turkey. So we’ll be making our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. That means two Thanksgiving dinners for us. Fine by me. :)

Here’s our holiday menu plan:

Sunday: Strip steaks, green beans, and baked potatoes
Monday: Chicken and dumplings
Tuesday: Chicken tacos
Wednesday: Homemade pizza
Thursday: Potluck Thanksgiving with friends (We’re bringing homemade green bean casserole.)
Friday: Thanksgiving dinner
Saturday: Leftovers, because there’s no way we’re going to eat all the food we make on Friday. :)

Now head over to OrgJunkie for more menu plans. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Menu Plan & Grocery Round Up – 11/15-11/21

Our total for the week was $62, which is $2 over our maximum budget. I’m not complaining, though. We walked out with a TON of food.

We shopped this week at the pricier store in our area, because they were offering turkeys for 49 cents a pound with the purchase of $25 in groceries.

We were originally going to buy just a turkey breast, but I haven’t seen them on sale this year for under $1.60 a pound. I couldn’t resist 49 cents a pound for turkey, especially since there’s only a week and a half until Thanksgiving. We also picked up potatoes for Thanksgiving as well as whipped cream for our pumpkin pie.

We also got four New York strip steaks, which we’ll freeze and use for dinners later. We split one steak between us, so we’ll stretch those steaks out to four meals.

This store takes some of the discounts off after everything is completely rang up. I was expecting to go over our budget since our cart was so full. I cringed when the total came to $90. But then she took off the discount for the steaks and the turkey, as well as a 5% discount since my husband is a student. We saved almost $30!

For our menu plan this week, we’re raiding our pantry and freezer to make the most of what we have since some of our grocery budget this week went toward our Thanksgiving meal. Most of our meals are coming from a whole chicken that’s been in our freezer for a couple weeks. Here’s what we have planned:

Saturday: Film festival dinner party (We got free tickets! Woo hoo!)
Sunday: Roasted chicken and potatoes (We need to make stock this week, so it was time for a chicken.)
Monday: Chicken fajita tortilla soup
Tuesday: Leftovers/sandwiches
Wednesday: Chicken quesadillas
Thursday: Shepherd’s pie
Friday: Homemade pizza

Now head over to OrgJunkie for more menu plans!

Menu Plan Monday & Grocery Round Up – 11/8-11/14

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This week, we shopped at two different stores to get the best deal. It worked out well. Our grand total was $58, including two Porterhouse steaks on sale for $4.99 a pound as well as some ingredients for our Thanksgiving feast.

We also picked up the ingredients for our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. Still no sale on turkey, but we’re keeping an eye out at both of our local grocery stores to wait for the best deal on a whole turkey breast.

We were on the high side of our budget this week, but we’ve tentatively planned out next week’s menu to maximize items on hand and drastically reduce our food cost for the week. You’ll have to come back next week to see how we do!

Here’s the plan for this week:

Saturday: Grilled Porterhouse steak (we split one) and baked potatoes
Sunday: Chicken noodle soup
Monday: Bacon wrapped chicken with blue cheese crumbles and roasted potatoes (we’re omitting the pecans and the cream sauce)
Tuesday: Leftovers/sandwiches
Wednesday: Pasta with meatless marinara
Thursday: BLTs with oven fries
Friday: Homemade pizza

For breakfasts we have cold cereal and oatmeal. For lunches, I bring leftovers from the night before or salad.

Now go check out more menu plans at OrgJunkie!

Menu Plan Monday & Grocery Round Up – 11/2-11/7

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After cutting back last week to try to stay within budget, we found that we needed to buy more this week to make up for some of the staples we left out of our last shopping trip. We ended up spending $62, and we’re not done yet. There are still a couple things we need to pick up at Costco tomorrow.

Part of the problem is that we cut our leftovers/sandwiches night out this week. Tony is on a fall break and will be home all next week, and we decided to make some special meals with pricier ingredients, including two types of meat. The result was a pricier week for groceries.

The good news is our Costco purchases will last throughout the month, so that money technically will be distributed throughout our grocery budget. Oh well. We’ll cut down to the bare minimum next week to make up for it and balance out the budget. That’s why I operate on a monthly budget instead of a weekly budget.

In other good news, I found out today that my reusable grocery bags will pay for themselves. Our cashier informed us that we earn 50 bonus rewards points each shopping trip for every reusable shopping bag we bring to the store with us. That’s on top of the rewards points we earn for our regular shopping (usually 500-1000 per week). Once we reach 5000 points, we can redeem them for $5 off our groceries.

I’m glad I know that now. I don’t think our cashier credited us with those points last week. Now that I know, I can be sure to remind our cashier to add those points.

We bring 5 reusable grocery bags for each trip, so we earn 250 bonus points a week. We paid about $5 for our reusable grocery bags, so it’ll be about 5 months before they pay for themselves in bonus points. We like that the reusable bags are better for the environment and reduce the grocery bag clutter in our kitchen. If they’ll eventually pay for themselves then that’s even better!

Last week I redeemed 5000 points on a week when we were struggling to maintain our monthly budget. I plan to save my rewards points for those weeks at the end of the month when we can really use a few bucks off our groceries to stay within budget.

On to our $60 menu plan for the week:

Saturday: Roasted pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes and baked apples
Sunday: BBQ pulled pork sandwiches (made with leftover tenderloin) and roasted potatoes
Monday: Italian grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup
Tuesday: Grilled steaks, creamed spinach, and baked potatoes
Wednesday: Chicken and broccoli stir fry with rice
Thursday: Potato soup (recipe below)
Friday: Homemade pizza

Mom’s Potato Soup recipe

3 pounds large russet potatoes, peeled and diced
½ an onion, diced
1 quart of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of butter
1/2 cup of shredded cheese
1 cup milk
Sour cream (optional)
Chopped chives (optional)
Crumpled bacon (optional)

Cover the potatoes and onion in chicken stock and boil until fork tender. Boil until stock reduces and becomes starchy (about 20 minutes).

Add butter, cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Add milk. Heat through to warm milk, but do not boil. Garnish with cheese, sour cream, chives and bacon.

Make sure you check out OrgJunkie for more menu plans!

Menu Plan Monday & Grocery Round Up – 10/25-10/31

We really tried to keep our grocery costs to a minimum this week. As we approach the end of the month, it’s looking like we’re going to be a bit over budget, mostly due to some meals out when we were traveling the first weekend in October. We tried to minimize the overage by keeping costs low this final week in the month.

Overall we did really well. Our total was about $56, but then the cashier informed me that I had earned enough rewards points to take an additional $5 off my total. I don’t completely understand their rewards program yet, but $5 off sounded great to me, especially this week. So our actual total was $51. That should help us stick closer to our budget.

And now for this week’s menu plan. We’re craving hearty fall foods since the weather has finally cooled off.

Sunday: Chicken and dumplings
Monday: Spinach pesto & angel hair pasta (We’re just going to serve the pesto over pasta instead of serving it over chicken as the recipe suggests)
Tuesday: Sandwiches/leftovers
Wednesday: Three-bean vegetarian chili
Thursday: Baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese
Friday: Homemade pizza

We can’t wait to try out our new knives tonight when we’re chopping all the veggies for the chicken and dumplings!

Check out more menu plans at OrgJunkie!

Menu Plan Monday & Grocery Round up: 10/18-10/24

This week was not so great on the grocery budget. We ended up at the high side of our budget limit at $60.

We had to stock up on some monthly necessities. We’re also out of chicken stock just as soup season has begun, which means we need to roast a whole chicken this week to make some stock.

We ended up picking up two whole chickens at Costco essentially for the price of one. We’ll use one for dinner and chicken stock tonight, and freeze the other for later. Buying two drove up our costs for this week, but it was ultimately a better buy. We cook a lot of soup in the colder months. Next time we need stock, we won’t have to buy another chicken.

Another reason for our high grocery costs? We finally picked up some reusable shopping bags. They were on sale for 99 cents each, and I really liked the size and stability of these bags. I’ve been keeping an eye out for affordable, good quality reusable bags for some time now.

We’ve tried to reuse the plastic bags, but our cabinet has become overrun with them at this point. They’re too flimsy to make it through more than a couple shopping trips, and other household uses just don’t use them up quickly enough. We’re just not using them as quickly as they’re accumulating. Overall, this is better for the environment and it’ll cut down our kitchen clutter.

Here’s a picture:

Aren’t they cute? They hold an amazing amount of food. One of these cloth bags holds about as much as three or four plastic bags, which makes it much easier to juggle our groceries when we carry them inside.

Obviously, they’re capable of holding much more weight than plastic bags, too. We bought five, but really could have fit everything this week into three. It’s good to have a couple extra, though, for bigger shopping weeks.

The soft cloth handles also make it much more comfortable to carry our groceries up three flights of stairs. Those plastic bags can be so painful when they cut into your hands, and I’m always terrified they’re going to rip!

We’ve seen similar reusable bags at the other grocery store where we shop, but they have the store’s logo plastered all over them. I didn’t like the idea of becoming a walking advertisement for the store. I liked that these have a generic logo.

Obviously I highly recommend that you go out and buy yourself some bags like these. Honestly, I bought them because I wanted to cut down our clutter and plastic waste, but they ended up making it so much easier to carry our groceries. Not only that, but we feel really good about the environmental benefits of reusable bags.

They’re now tucked away in the trunk of our car so we’ll have them on hand for the next shopping trip. Yay!

And now on to our menu plan for the week:

Sunday: Oven roasted chicken and potatoes
Monday: Chicken noodle soup
Tuesday: Leftovers/sandwiches
Wednesday: Chicken quesadillas
Thursday: Spaghetti with meatless marinara
Friday: Homemade pizza

Check out OrgJunkie for more menu plans!

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