Meal Planning 101

It's almost Friday!  Thank the good lord above because I am ready for a few days off of work.  I feel like I need a stay-cation to get my head in a good spot but that whole "no vacation time right now" thing is kinda biting me in the butt!  Oh well just part of being an adult :-)

So today I want to talk about a HUGE step that my husband and I took to not only eat better but to save a ton of money. What was that??  Save money.  Yeah I know that caught your attention because (if you are anything like us) we need to pinch pennies any way we can.  Let me tell you guys meal planning is where it is!

First things first I bought a dry erase monthly calendar that I turned into a magnet and hung on the fridge.  This is my go to because I don't use a planner and as much as I try to use my phone calendar I'm terrible at setting it for stuff.  I fill out all of our monthly plans (that are already in place) and then we start talking about meals.  My husband gets paid the 15th and the 31st and I get paid every 2 weeks so we like to plan around certain paychecks for when we go to the grocery.  That's when I jump onto Pinterest and get to browsing!

I like variety.  I hate eating the same thing all the time and I constantly tell my hubs he needs to "expand his horizons" and try new foods.  The man could honestly eat chicken or Hamburger Helper every night.  We go through posts on Pinterest with different recipes and I always check out Weight Watchers and Paleo posts for healthy recipes.  Then we start planning our meals.  This is our calendar for this month (well part of it based on how our pay checks fall).

As we chose recipes we write down the ingredients of these meals on our grocery list.  Once I have all my recipes planned I go through my grocery list and figure up how many of certain ingredients we need.  For example this month we picked a lot of chicken recipes so I knew I needed to buy multiple bags of chicken breasts to make everything.  Once I look at everything I add in stuff that may not have been in the recipes but its stuff we need for breakfast, lunches, and sides for the dinners (things like fruits, veggies, yogurt).

Now its time to hit the store.  Two rules...1. NEVER GO TO THE GROCERY HUNGRY and 2. Stick to your list...that's all you need to know.  I have started organizing my grocery list by my walk around the store so I know exactly what item I need to get in the aisle I'm in.  This helps me from browsing and throwing additional stuff in the cart.  Always remember the healthier stuff is on the perimeters of the grocery store.  When all else fails shop the outside aisles!  Once you have everything on your list get out of the store as fast as you can!

So down to the nitty gritty.  Before we started this my husband and I were spending $250-$300 a trip to the grocery (mind you it is just me and him in the house).  On top of this I would constantly be tired from work so we would have a ton of food and I would say, "Lets go get something because I don't feel like cooking." I never knew what I wanted for dinner and we would try to figure it out spur of the moment and we would make unhealthy choices.  Now since starting this plan we have cut our grocery bill down to $150-$175 a trip!    We only eat out on Saturdays and we are making much better food choices because we have preplanned our dinners and know the calories of every meal we are making.  I also know what I need to take out to thaw in the mornings so I have NO excuse to not feel like cooking when I get home.  This works guys, I am not kidding!  If we can do it you can too!

I hope this gives you a little insight into meal planning.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask.  I mean you can save money and you can eat better, what more do you need to peak your interests??

Happy planning!