But we did learn to be a bit more strategic with how we handle our finances. One of the things I chose to do was to start meal planning each week. This forces me to sit down and plan my meals for the week, including sides, and then write out my grocery list. This is good in so many ways:
- I force us to eat at home, which saves an untold amount of money.
- I am able to get our family to eat relatively healthy.
- I don't go to the grocery store every day to get the makings for a meal. Doing this does, in fact, cost more money than buying it all at once.
- I only buy what is on my list and avoid the always difficult, "Do I already have that?" moment...I've already checked so I don't end up with 5 of something that I'll only use every now and then.
- It prevents me from buying something I want, but don't need. (like Swiss Miss Rolls. I can literally clear out the box in a day.)
- It saves us money.
In addition to helping me to curb my spending at the grocery store, it forces us to sit down as a family for dinner. Sometimes its just three of us, but Roundabout Geek is able join us most nights. After all, we don't normally eat dinner until 7pm or later. We take this time to find out what's going on in our kids' lives and even catch up with one another. (Incidentally, what do people who don't work in the same industry talk about?) Right now, meal time is also memorization time...we are memorizing the Christmas story out of Luke as a family.
So, what does a typical meal plan for a week look like in Engr2mom's house? Well, I'll tell you. I'll use this week as an example. For our schedule this week, Quarterback has wrestling on Monday and Wednesday beginning at 6 and going until 8 and Princess N has ballet on Tuesday til 7 and on Thursday from 6 until 8. I work on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Roundabout Geek will be home late on Monday and won't be home at all on Wednesday (still questionable) or Thursday. We don't have small group Friday but have our annual Friends' Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. So dinners this week will be easy, quick, prepared ahead of time, and crockpot meals.
Monday: Shredded BBQ Beef sandwiches with green beans and macaroni salad. The beef cooked in the crock pot all day and I just added the homemade BBQ sauce right before serving. The macaroni salad was actually a last minute addition - leftover from Thanksgiving dinner.
Tuesday: BBQ pork chops with macaroni and cheese, corn, and a spinach salad. These are super easy - 4 pork chops with some yummy spices and a little bit of olive oil. Macaroni and cheese was homemade. Corn was frozen (cause frozen is better than canned).
Wednesday: Lasagne with a salad and some ciabatta bread. Lasagne is easy to make ahead of time and just stick in the oven.
Thursday: Leftovers day - Lasagne is also great for leftovers!
Friday: Baked fish with roasted new potatoes and peppers and salad.
Saturday: Friends' Thanksgiving. This year I am responsible for the cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, homemade bread, and pomegranate cheesecake.
Sunday: Homemade pizza with homemade breadsticks and salad.
I am not so rigid in my planning that I can't make some adjustments. Case in point - although I've planned lasagne for Wednesday, it will depend largely on whether Roundabout Geek's plans include coming home. If it doesn't, we'll do leftovers on Wednesday - still have BBQ beef and Sunday's chicken enchiladas, as well as tonight's macaroni and cheese, that we can eat. Then Thursday would turn into lasagne day and we might have lasagne again on Friday and save the fish until next week. I'm flexible that way.
With the food we already had in the house this week, I only spent $65 on groceries this week. No, it's usually not that low, but it's usually only around $100 to $125 a week. Before I started this, our grocery bills usually soared to upwards around $200 a week.
Now, we eat a lot of fresh produce - and unfortunately eating healthy is not cheap. In fact, it is often more expensive. So I try to be careful not to buy too much of the fresh stuff so I don' allow it to go to waste. One thing I have found is that for our salad makings, I use the organic stuff in the plastic boxes - they last longer and there's more in there than meets the eye. I can usually get a good 3 to 4 days out of one box. And if we do run out of some of the fresh stuff, then I will go back to the store for just those few items.
A "normal" week would include having small group at our house. Technically the meal preparation is shared amongst all of the families. I will always make a salad - partly because I love fresh salads and also to add an element of healthiness to our meals. I often cook once or twice a month. This can mean an increase in the spending for the dinner. Solution: spaghetti, chili, tetrazzini, cavatini, even breakfast for dinner - things that are cheap and easy to make in bulk. Every now and then I'll do nachos or burgers and dogs on the grill. Rarely do I do something like order pizza or subway or KFC. I prefer to make dinner rather than buy it. I control the ingredients and the preparation. I can make a bulk meal a little healthier if I do it myself.
I enjoy cooking and baking. I enjoy watching my family try new things - sometimes we like it, sometimes we hate it, sometimes its just so-so. I usually do the trials on the weekends, especially if I think it'll take more time to make than what an evening will allow. I use my crock pot a lot. Love my crock pot! In fact, just got a new one on Black Friday.
So, how do I keep from making the same meals every week? I am keeping a calendar of what I prepare and when. Eventually, after doing this enough, I hope to develop a calendar where I have three choices for meals on any given night of the month. That way, I will be able to complete my meal planning even faster on my slow-to-get-going Monday mornings.
I want our kids to appreciate a multitude of foods. I want them to be aware of the importance of eating healthy and getting lots of fruits and veggies. I don't offer a lot of sweet snacks and drinks. There aren't bags and bags of chips or pretzles or junk. Instead, there's dried fruit and fresh fruit, crackers, cheese, hummus with carrots, sugar snap peas, celery or pita crackers. Yes, they get the sweet stuff (Princess N and I made sugar cookies this weekend), but I have chosen to control that as much as I can here. I figure you can't start them too early on making healthy choices - both in the refrigerator and the checkbook!
Perfect? Far from it! I am a work in progress. My family eating healthy is a work in progress. There will be some weeks that I am totally on and some that I am totally off. When I'm sick and tired (literally), cooking is the absolute last thing I want to do. Flexibility is the key to any plan, including meal planning.
If you're looking to shed a few less dollars from your grocery bill and add a few more healthy food choices to your weekly meal's, there is a way. This is what works for me, for our family. Every person, every family is different. I'm not a nutritionist - just a mom finding her way in the kitchen!
Bon Appetit!
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