Menu Planning {on the cheap #2}

I thought it could be fun to post my dinner meal plans bi-monthly for those who are interested and also for myself to go back and look over when I get in a cooking on the cheap stump. This round I spent $60.92 for 2 weeks of groceries! I spent a little more this round because there was a great deal on cereal and on pop (what do you all call it soda? cola?) for W. I saved about $18 in coupons.The most exciting deal we scored this week was a bag full of peaches from one of our friends peach trees. So delicious and best part free! :)

Day 1: Alfredo, salad and italian bread (I never made it up last round so I had everything on hand)

Day 2: Pizza

Day 3: Orange Chicken Stirfry (we love stirfry!)

Day 4: Chili and bread (I have some chili left in the freezer from our last big cooking day so all I have to do is thaw it and make some bread)

Day 5: Chicken &Noodles with mashed sweet potatoes

Day 6: Chicken drumsticks and sweet potato fries (its a game day that day so we need some football watching food)

Day 7: Vegetable Lasagna (I don't really know if I should call it that because its not really vegetable lasagna its just what I call the lasagna I make where I sneak in lots of healthy veggies and cover it all up with cheese and meat)

Day 8: Calzones (again a staple around here so easy to make so filling and packed full of veggies covered up in tomato sauce and cheese)

Day 9: BBQ Chicken sandwiches with corn and salad (the bbq chicken is  in the freezer so i didn't have to buy anything for this meal except salad)

Day 10: Italian white bean soup (we love soup around here in the fall)

Day 11: leftovers

Day 12: Grilled fish and quinoa (I still have fish in the freezer, our plan is to eat it at least twice a month before buying more)

Day 13: Pot roast

Day 14: Spaghetti with turkey meatballs and salad

How are you all doing with menu planning? Do you menu plan? If so, for how long at a time? I have found that 2 weeks is about the most I can plan out at once. That way none of the vegetables I buy go bad before I get to them and I am not stuck using the same things over and over. Sales tend to change about every 2 weeks so this way I get a whole new pick of foods for our menu.

Menu Planning {on the cheap}

I have been trying to get better at menu planning and wise couponing, as in I only use coupons for things we need. I have started planning out meals for 2 weeks at a time and shopping accordingly. Although, if there is a great sale on meat on one of the off weeks I still go and stock up. I went shopping yesterday and only spent $48.01 on all our groceries for 2 weeks...including fruits and milk! I saved about $12 in coupons and planned my menu around the best deals that week at the store. There are a few things that I already had on hand for the menu but for the most part I bought all the main ingredients for most meals. Here is our menu:

Sunday: Butternut Squash Soup (I bought the squash {$8 for a giant one that will make 3 soups} at the farmer's market last weekend and roasted it up then cubed it and froze it to use when needed)

Monday: Roasted Chicken and Okra (the okra is from W's Grandparents garden so that part of the meal is free, plus I had some chicken {I bought for $.59/lb a month ago bone-in skin-on chicken breast} in the deep freeze so I paid nothing this week for this meal)

Tuesday: Calzones (this has become a staple in our house. This week I had to buy flour, cheese, and sauce for them the rest of the ingredients I had on hand or in our garden)

Wednesday: Pumpkin Curry Soup (I bought the pumpkin at the farmer's market last weekend, it was $4 for a good sized pumpkin)

Thursday: Stirfry (again a staple around here. Had to buy a big bag of rice this week and bought some chicken which was on sale for $1.59/lb...great deal)

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: We will be gone for dinner so no plan here

Sunday: Spaghetti (a few months back I spent a whole day making and canning sauce, so now we have jars on hand for whenever we need them, I did have to buy noodles though this week)

Monday: Crock-pot BBQ chicken sandwiches and corn (again bought chicken for $1.59/lb and bbq sauce have the buns and corn in the freezer)

Tuesday: Macaroni and Cheese (had to buy the cheese and noodles)

Wednesday: Crock-pot pork tacos (bought the pork for $1.99/lb and the taco shells everything else I have on hand)

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Grilled fish and broccoli (have both these items on hand in the deep freeze...stocked up a fish a few months back when it was on sale for a great price)

Saturday: Chicken noodle soup and homemade french bread (have all the ingredients on hand at home to make this)

Sunday: Alfredo and homemade french bread (had to buy cream, have everything else on hand)

A couple things I've learned menu planning is:

• Always check your freezer and pantry before making a grocery list.
• When planning meals out think of what meals you will make that can be easily doubled or tripled for leftovers or the freezer (I do this with the bbq chicken, pork taco meat, and some soups)
• If you see a great deal on a certain meat, stock up and plan meals around that, or freeze extra.
• Spend some time double checking store deals and coupons to make sure you have all you need before heading to the store.
• Shop sales and for in-season fruits and vegetables.
• Cook ahead. I do this with the calzones or any meat I will use shredded that week. I also pre-cut vegetables ahead of time if I can.
• Buy yogurt with coupons and stock up on double coupon days so you have it for awhile.

Wanted to also note for breakfast we do a lot of cereal, oatmeal, or yogurt and granola. They are fairly cheap and often you can use coupons and sales to stock up on cereal for less than .50 cents a box. Lunches we do leftovers, pasta w/tomatoes from the garden, or grilled cheese sandwiches.  I do buy fruit too. On this last trip I bought 2 large bunches of bananas (for $.39/lb) and a large bag of apples (for $.99/lb), I bought some grapes last week for $1.19/lb so we still have those on hand. I also have some pear and apple sauce frozen from our last big make ahead day. I also try to make up homemade cookies for snacks at least once a week. They are great for hubby's lunchbox and for pick-me-ups throughout the day, other than that we don't really have snacks beside fruits, vegetables, and yogurt or if I make up homemade wheat-thins.

Anything else you guys wanted to know? Or any tips you have that I may have missed? 

Couponing

Just a little disclaimer before I begin this post. I am by no means an expert on savings, I just enjoy saving some money through couponing. Since a few of you asked what I do I figured I'd do a post on the simple things I have done to save money. Hopefully it helps you. And if you have any more questions let me know and I'll try to answer them. 

When I first heard of people couponing I had two reactions... first, I thought it was a waste of time to sit around and cut out coupons for things I would never use and secondly, I didn't think the time it takes to organize and clip coupons would be worth it. I was wrong on both accounts. There really are coupons for things I use fairly often and the savings is total worth the time. The way I see it is if I save on average $40 a shopping trip for 2 hours of work that is like making $20  an hour. Not too bad at all.

Here are a few things I have found to be key to making your time with the effort. 

~1~ a coupon organizer. Here is what I use all these pages can be found here check out TheKrazyCouponLady for more tips too.

~2~ a newspaper. Seriously, the best coupons are found in there. We just get the Sunday paper so I can get the ads and W can get his news fix. It works perfect for us :) Here is a picture of all the coupons I've clipped and the ads I'm going through. That flowery pouch is where I put all the coupons I need for my shopping trip.

~3~ Online coupons. My favorite site to get the deals off of is moneysavingmom.com She organizing them by store and deals so it makes it super easy to plan your trip. I always go on there before heading to Target and check over the deals she has posted so I can get the best deal. or pick up any item  I may have missed while planning my trip. Often times target has store coupons for things so you can print the target coupon and pair it with a manufacturer one (that you clipped from sundays paper). This is the way you save the most money. The other day I got quite a few things for almost free by pairing up store plus manufacturer coupons. And a few of those things were Dove products. Just so you know it wasn't no-name brands or things you may not use.

~4~ Planning out your trip. I have tried to get better at this part. Basically I go through the ads for the week and see which things we need to get. Then I make a list by store. Pretty much I do all my shopping from either Target or Hy-Vee. I get their ads on Wednesday then pair the best deals with my list and head out. I  go to target about every week and then Hy-Vee every other week or so unless they have a great deal. 

I save on average between 20-50% a trip. I am not one of those people who stockpile, mainly because we do not have the room for it and I don't like driving all over town just to get one item for free. I have also found that almost everything goes back on sale at some store in a month or two and I can wait. We don't go through more than a stick of deodorant in a month so I don't find the need to have 10 laying around. I also buy lots of fresh fruits and vegetables so I don't save as much during my outings. But a 20% or 50% saving is still a huge deal to me and it has helped Wade and I save quite a bit each month. So my method of couponing may not be best for you if you want to get rid of your grocery bill. But for me staying under our $300 budget for the month is what I shoot for. Last month I was $80 under that. I find that pretty great. That's $80 we have in our savings account that we would have otherwise lost. Almost $1000 at the end of the year.  If you count all the money I saved a target last month on toiletries and other necessitates it is closer to $140 I save last month. Not too shabby. I am sure we all can think of things we can use that money for instead. Now that the summer month are approaching I will save much more than that because our garden will be in full swing and I won't have to buy very much produce. 

I hope this post helps. And please let me know if you have questions or I left something out you were wondering about.