Meal Planning, Grocery Shopping and Food Budgets

Let's talk food.  We all need it to survive and eating healthy, wholesome meals on a budget can be daunting. I do use coupons, but only for the items I am looking for.  I am not an extreme couponer, although the thought has crossed my mind, but, we live a simple life here at the Cottage, and only use certain items, so stocking our shelves with items that we could get for free, but never use, just didn't seem like a good use of my time, so instead, I try to get the most for my time and money, by using many different ways to put food and household items that we like and will use on our shelves.

So last year I spent $5,643.38 on groceries, $452.56 on household items and $119.86 on water softener salt, totaling $6,215.80, or $119.53/week.  So for a challenge to myself, I decided that I would give myself $100/week ($5,200 for the year), saving me $1015.80.  That is a nice chunk of change.  I decided that I would just combine them all because keeping track of them seperately was becoming time-consuming.  Then, there is the eating out category which totaled $1,097.96 for the year, or $21/week.  I have cut that cost to allow myself $10/week to use however I want to.  For coffees, pop, eating out, a magazine, whatever I want, and so far, this has worked out great.

I usually make a menu of dinners for a week at a time, kind of just roughly, wrote out on a piece of paper, and then next to that I would list my ingredients for each dinner, kind of like this:

As you can see, it is just loosely put together.  I make myself notes, like by the Lasagna.  I made it with Lasagna noodles, but because I had some leftover cheese ravioli in the freezer, I added that as a layer in the Lasagna.  I would normally buy ricotta cheese for my Lasagna, but didn't have to because the cheese was in the ravioli.  I also had some Rhodes rolls leftover from the Holidays still in the freezer, so I thought using them as the dough in a cupcake tin to make individual pizzas would be a great idea, and they turned out awesome.  I try to use up what is in my freezer and cupboards from week to week, while taking advantage of sales when I am at the store to stock up on items.  So once I make my list and the ingredients, I will check to see what I have, write down what I need and look for coupons for the items on my list to buy.  I also try to plan my menus around what is on sale and the coupons I have on hand.

Here are Week 2 and Week 3's dinner menus.

As you can see, I write myself notes on my menus so I know what I may need to use up or do throughout the week for each dinner, or if I plan on eating it the next day for lunch.  I highlight the meal once I have made it.  I keep my menu plans for ideas in the future on some dinners to make in the future and not to keep repeating the same thing over and over.

I also grab regular items at the store, like bread, bagels, milk, eggs, butter, mayo, fruit and veggies, etc.  Stuff we can use for breakfast and lunches.  A lot of times, we just eat leftovers for lunch.  So far, I have come in under budget, so planning is the key.

It really doesn't take that much time.  I only go to the grocery store once a week and it helps to have the dinner menu posted on the front of the refrigerator.  I don't assign a day to them, cause each week changes with my families work schedule, so if I know we are all going to be home in the evening together, I will make a more time-consuming dinner.  If we are sporadic on our schedule, then I will make a dinner that my kids can take to work for their dinner or heat up when they get home.