We tend to spend a lot of money on food. One of the ways we've been trying to whittle our budget down is by planning our meals.
Meal planning allows us to have a better grasp of what we will need, it helps us to plan to use up foods more efficiently (e.g. before the sour cream turns on us); it saves time - we don't grocery shop nearly as often as we used to, and we don't get home from work hungry, worrying about what to cook. The best benefit is that we've been able to cut back on the "I'm bored with my choices - let's eat out" nights in a significant way. We eat out at least 50% less than we used to. That adds up.
Each weekend, we take 10 minutes to rummage through the cupboards and freezer, and we sit down and plan out what we'll be eating the following week. We've really cut back on what we waste this way, and we're more conscious about using up what we already have.
Win-win!
This week's menu is fairly typical.
Monday: Scrambled eggs with corn & zucchini, corn tortillas, spanish rice and refried beans
Tuesday: Salmon burgers, sweet potato oven-fries, steamed kohlrabi, salad
Wednesday: Spagetti (homemade sauce), salad, broccoli, bread
Thursday: Halibut (from our neighbors' trip to Alaska!), green beans, rice pilaf
Friday: Homemade pizza
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3 comments:
Yum! Let's make a deal; you cook, I'll clean. With occasional swaps, and we'll let the dudes take care of the laundry.
We too have been planning our meals out weekly to save money and to reduce the spoilage. It's been great. It's funny Friday night around our house is Make Your Own Pizza night. I've got a great recipe for whole wheat dough that I make a ton of about once a month and then we freeze it for the whole month. If your interested pop me an email. Another thing we do is get basil, when in season, we make a huge batch of pesto then use ice cube trays and freeze the pesto. So when feeling lazy/tired and need a quick easy meal, cook up some pasta, saute some veggies and melt pesto. Easy dinner in 15 min. Rachel Ray better watch out, some of us don't have time for 30 min. meals! Cheers.
I totally need help with this. I am the worst cooker/meal planner ever. Stacie has got it down to a science.
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