MENU PLANNING MONDAY IS HERE!

Today is the start of menu planning Monday. I hope you will find it helpful.

Years ago when my husband and I were a younger couple with a young family our budget was pretty tight. I had a certain amount of money to work with to buy groceries when he got paid. So, I had to not only be frugal, but well organized. Meaning I had to have a list of what to buy and stay faithful to the list. Otherwise I would find myself buying things we didn't need and not having enough food before he got paid again.

My hubby got paid twice a month. We would set a budgeted amount for groceries and that would be the figure I would stick to each time he got paid. It sounds like it might of been hard or miserable, but actually it wasn't. In fact, I found it enjoyable and was ecstatic when the cashier would tell me how much the bill was. I would try and beat that total each month. Sometimes I would and sometimes I wouldn't. It depended on what was on sale that week.

Okay, so here we go. I am not a fan of going from store to store when things are on sale just to get the good deal. I mean really, if you think about it how much are you really saving driving to more than one store? You are using gas and your time. So, where is the saving in that? While I don't go to different supermarkets to get the deals, I do go to two different places. I go to our Wal Mart Supercenter for the main food we need and COSTCO for our meats and paper goods. I don't care for Wal Mart's meat and that is why I shop at COSTCO for it. Usually on Sunday nights I like to look ahead to see what our week is going to be like. Whether the kids sports games will have us coming home later than usual or whether we have things going on at church. Then I set out to write a meal out for each night of the week for a two week period. I base my groceries on what those meals are and what I will need. I only plan out dinner meals. Those are the meals that I find the hardest to adhere by. If dinner isn't ready because we came home late from a game that the kids were playing in we find ourselves eating out or calling for pizza. This is what we are trying not to do. I find that if I am organized about what we are eating for dinner I don't get as frazzled about what to cook. I am more intentional about having it ready to eat. For example, my son has a basketball game on Tuesday. By the time we get back home from the game, it will be after six in the evening. No time to start cooking a dinner meal for sure. So, usually when he has a game I either pick something that I can cook ahead of time or in a crockpot. That way we are eating at home and eating healthy.

Here is this weeks dinner meal schedule:

Monday: Chicken Cacciatore over noodles with a salad and some bread.

Tuesday: Chicken soup, salad, bread

Wednesday: Chili, cornbread

Thursday: Bourbon Salmon, roasted veggies and a salad

Friday: Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread

Sat: Potato Soup, salad

Sun: Usually leftovers from Friday or Saturday. But I would love to get in the habit of having a nice Sunday meal. Something that we eat each Sunday that everyone can look forward to having. Haven't figured that one out yet. I will have to ask hubby and the kids what they would like and go from there.

So, that's this weeks meals for dinner. I then look at our calendar for next week and see what all is going on start to plan each day again. Once I have the meals planned, I write up my list. Do I need meat, veggies, etc.? Then I head out to the store to do the shopping.

I will be posting the recipes for each dinner meal each day if you would like to try them. They are tried and true recipes and they are EASY! Ladies, I only do easy meals. I have been fortunate enough to find some recipes that my family loves that are easy to prepare and easy on the wallet.

Check back later for todays dinner recipe!
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