The Happy Housewife has really been encouraging me this week concerning my grocery spending, so I'm going to be going on a $450 monthly food budget starting May 1. It's not going to be as low a budget as I'm sure it could be, but I'm taking baby steps here.
I tend to spend a whole lot more at the grocery store than I plan to (probably due a lot to my addiction my former addiction to milk), and since Jeff and I are going to really work hard on getting out of debt, we're going to begin our journey by gaining control of our food budget.
So that means that I'm not going to grocery store until Thursday. Which in turn means we're going to be eating out of the pantry this week. Thankfully, we didn't get to a couple of last week's meals, so we still have the ingredients for those.
Here's our plan for this week:
Breakfasts: French Toast & Bananas; Pancakes & Eggs; Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Muffins; Scramble/Fried Eggs & Toast; Cinnamon Rolls
Lunch: Meat or PB&J Sandwiches (twice); Spaghetti & Corn; Mac 'n Cheese & Green Beans; Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
Snacks: Apples, apples, and more apples (we got a ton free this weekend); Popcorn; Peanut Butter Balls; Graham Crackers & PB
Dinner: Pancakes & Eggs (yes, breakfast for dinner; Jeff loves doing this); Baked Beans & Cornbread; Meat or PB& J Sandwiches with Pasta Salad; Slow Cooker Chicken Enchiladas with Spanish Rice; Quesedillas/Bean Burritos with leftover Spanish Rice
Now I just need to make sure I actually stick to this menu. It's just always so tempting to tell the kids to Yo-Yo for their meals! But I will strive to be a better mommy this week and actually fix meals for my kids.
Head on over to Organizing Junkie for other Menu Plan Mondays.
I'm trying to cut my grocery budget as well … I'll have to keep an eye on your blog to see what things you make that maybe I can make as well !!
Bonnie at The Beans Blog
With your schedule it is hard to make dinner I am sure. Maybe once you get the grocery shopping budget thing going you can work on make ahead meals that can be popped in the oven during piano lessons and when the lessons are done it will be ready to go.
http://thehappyhousewife.com
You can do it!!!
The menu planning was one of the best things I have ever done. I now grocery shop every two weeks. It saves in time and gas money. I feed 8 of us mostly organic, natural, whole healthy food for around $650 a month. That includes cleaning products, pull ups, baby food and such. It was a lot higher than that but the menu planning really helped me to get it under control. Yes!
I know you can do it and not to mention having a menu makes preparing meals easier as well.
~Rhen