Weekly Meal Plan ~ 5/14/12 -- 5/20/12

This week is all about keeping my groceries under budget and I did just that! I allot $75 per week for our groceries and this week I spent $63.27! This is for an entire week of groceries!! If you haven't started meal planning yet, give it a try. It's amazing how much money you will save. I used to spend anywhere from $100-150 a WEEK in groceries and now I've cut that by half!

Here is my meal plan for this week:

Monday: Baked Ziti, Salad, Garlic Bread

Tuesday: Spicy Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese (Sometimes I add the beans and pasta in this soup and sometimes I don't. It's good either way)

Wednesday: Grilled Chicken, Baked Potato & Sauteed Squash & Zucchini from the garden

Thursday: Mexican Chicken Casserole (I'll try to post this recipe later this week. So easy & so good)

Friday: Sloppy Joes

Saturday: Chow Mein (I'll also post this recipe later this week. It's also very easy & budget friendly)

Sunday: Roast, Pinto Beans & Cornbread (I cook my roast & my beans in my crock-pots. This is also a very easy meal to throw together. I love crock-pot meals on Sundays because I can put them on before church and come home to dinner).

I didn't post breakfast & lunch this week because we hardly ever follow "the plan." But here's what we rotate and eat:

Breakfast: Oatmeal & Toast, Pancakes, Biscuit & Gravy, Toast & Scrambled Egg, Bacon Biscuit, Muffins, Cinnamon Rolls & Fruit.

Lunch: Mac & Cheese, Soup, Fish Sticks, Chicken Nuggets, Hot dogs, Left overs, PB&J.

Snacks: Fruit, Gold Fish, Smoothies, Cereal.

Here's my grocery list:

Spaghetti Sauce, Chicken Breasts (I buy the bagged frozen chicken breasts at Wal-Mart, $6.98. Depending on how much chicken we eat during the week it will usually last for about a week and a half), Chuck Roast, Potatoes, Carrots, Hot dogs, Sweet potatoes, Manwich, Italian Sausage, Cheese, Garlic cloves, Bacon, Apple Juice, Milk 2% & Whole, Sour Cream, Sugar, Drinks (I have to have my caffeine especially in the mornings & this week I bought four 2 liters for $2.00 at Wal-greens using coupons), Orange Juice & Popcorn. Everything else such as the Garlic Bread, pasta, beans, etc. I already had on hand so I didn't have to buy those.

This week I shopped at Save A Lot, Wal-Mart & Walgreen's. I know everyone doesn't have time to go to all three places so this isn't the most practical idea, but when I go grocery shopping & as I call it "coupon shopping," I don't take the kids with me so it's kind of like my free time. I like to go and see how much stuff I can get for pennies on the dollar. lol. So even if you can't or won't go to three different stores, you can still save a ton of money just by planning out your meals. I hope you give it a try.



Weekly Meal Plan ~ 5/7-5/13

It's the start of another week and while I usually make my meal plans out from Saturday-Saturday this weekend we were way too busy, so my meal plan for this week is Monday thru Sunday. My goal is to only spend $75 a week to feed our little family of four- this includes breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. This is my first week to lower our budget to $75. Before I was trying to keep our grocery budget below $100 per week. I did pretty good considering it was my first week with our new budget. I spent $80.24. So I was a few dollars over budget, but all in all I'm pretty happy to keep our cost that low. Like I said it's for an entire week and it includes all of our meals. It even includes STEAK! :-) 

Last week there was a couple of times we ended up eating over at my parents house, so the meals that I had planned last week I just moved over to this week. (I hope this makes sense).

Meal Plan ~ 5-7-12 -- 5/13/12:

Monday: B: biscuit and gravy L: Grilled Cheese D: Cracker Barrell Chicken Tenders, Sauteed Veggies, Baked Potatoes & Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cake with Chocolate-Peanut Butter Ganache

Tuesday: B: Cinnamon Rolls L: Chicken Nuggs (as Olivia calls them) D: Tacos with all the fixins'

Wednesday: B: Toast & Scrambled Egg L: Mac & Cheese D: Grilled Pork Chops, Grilled Cabbage & Crescent Rolls

Thursday: B: Pancakes L: Ham Sandwich D: Orange Chicken Skillet

Friday: B: Oatmeal L: Fish Sticks D: Spaghetti, Salad & Garlic Bread

Saturday: B: Muffins L: Soup D: Steak Kabobs, Sauteed squash & Baked Potato

Sunday: B: Eggo L: Crock Pot Potato Soup  & Strawberry Lemon BarsD: Left overs

For the kids snacks I rotate fruit, smoothies, yogurt, granola bars, cookies, crackers, cheerios. I don't know about you, but my kids are bottomless pits! I believe they could eat all day everyday.

I've had a couple people ask me how to get started meal planning... 

First, there's no right or way to meal plan. Some just plan out dinner. Some only plan during the week and then leave the weekend open to eating out. You can do it however you want, but this is how I make out our meal plans.

Initially when I started meal planning I made out a list that includes our most favorite recipes. Then I went through my cookbooks and looked on Pinterest and other websites and wrote down several more recipes. You will want to have a decent list to start with that way your not eating the same thing every week. Now on Saturdays (usually), I get out my list and start making out my plan. Sometimes it comes easier than others. After I decide what we're going to eat for that coming week, I make out my grocery list. Afterwards I look through my pantry and mark out what I already have on hand. (This also helps keep our grocery budget down). Then I go grocery shopping. It takes some time and a little planning, but it's saved us a ton of money! It's not only saved us from eating out all the time which can get very expensive, but it's also kept me from buying random junk at the store. Like I said, I'm hoping to keep our grocery budget to $75 per week. I think that's pretty reasonable for feeding a family of four for only $300 per month.

Party Chicken

It's no secret that I'm addicted to Pinterest!! I LOVE IT!! At night when Ben and I are watching TV, I'm usually half watching and pinning things at the same time. Who said I can't multi-task? lol! One of my favorite things on Pinterest is all the recipes! I blogged about our meal planning here and I said I would post the recipe to the "Party Chicken" so here it goes.

Unfortunately the pin that I pinned (crazy verbiage) did not link me to the actual site (I hope that makes sense). So here's my version of Party Chicken:

Ingredients:

Chicken Breast, cut into tenders or pre-cut Chicken Tenders (not breaded)

Bacon

1 can Cream of Chicken

1 cup Sour Cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Wrap Chicken tenders with bacon. If the chicken tenders are small cut the bacon in half and wrap it around the chicken

3. Place bacon wrapped chicken in a 9x13 dish

4. Mix sour cream and cream of chicken in a bowl

5. Pour over chicken

6. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until chicken is done

7. Enjoy

(I forgot to take a picture of the chicken until I had almost ate it all, but here it is along with a biscuit and fried okra. Delish.)

The chicken is so good. It's tender and with the bacon... YUMMY!! It's probably one of my favorite meals that I've pinned. We will definitely be adding it to our favorite recipes and meal plan.

Weekly Meal Plan (4/30-5/6)

We've been meal planning for awhile, but since I'm at home all the time now I've recently started planning for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner... every week. I love planning out our meals. It's great to have a home cooked meal every night and it's been great for our budget. (Dave Ramsey would be proud)! I'm going to try to start posting our weekly meal plans along with my grocery costs and recipes... let's hope I can stick to it.

This week (April 30th - May 6th):

Monday: Breakfast: Biscuit & Gravy, Lunch: ABCs, 123s, Dinner: BLTs

Tuesday: Breakfast: Eggo & Fruit, Lunch: Chicken nuggets & smoothies, Dinner: Party Chicken & Okra

Wednesday: Breakfast: Banana Muffins, Lunch: Mac & Cheese & fruit, Dinner: Pizza Casserole

Thursday: Breakfast: Toast & Scrambled Egg, Lunch: Ham & Cheese Sandwich, Dinner: Southwest Chicken Skillet

Friday: Breakfast: Oatmeal & Toast, Lunch: Fish Sticks & Fruit, Dinner: Grilled Pork Chops & Grilled Cabbage

Saturday: Breakfast: Pancakes & Fruit, Lunch: Church Yard Sale (having food there), Dinner: Chili Dogs, Ben's choice ;)

Sunday: Breakfast: French Toast Casserole, Lunch: Slow Cooker Chicken & Rice (I use my slow cooker at least once a week, usually on Sundays), Dinner: Left-overs. 

(I will try to post the recipe for the party chicken tomorrow. This will be our first time to have it, but it sounds amazing!)

I am getting back into my couponing kick, but this week I didn't use any coupons and I went to Save-A-Lot and spent $60.69. I've also been going to Save-A-Lot for awhile and while they don't carry everything that I like to use, they usually do have a really good selection of meats. I pretty much hate all things Wal-Mart, but those of you who also live in Mayberry it's really the only other place to shop. Thankfully I only had to go to Save-A-Lot this week. I've also started using this grocery list. I love it because it has absolutely everything on it. If you also meal plan, I'd love to hear what recipes you use or how you plan out all your meals. I've found a couple blogs of moms who meal plan by the month! Yes, you read that right, by the month! I don't think I could ever do that, but I definitely admire their efforts. If you don't meal plan, give it a try. We really love it. It's nice to know what we're eating and it's really nice to have a plan when you go to the grocery store instead of just buying random stuff. I hope this gives you a jumping off point.

Cooking Extravaganza!

Today has been a crazy day! I woke up and found our freezer to be completely thawed out!! Yeah, lots of food, lots of money, I couldn't see it all go to waste so I decided I'd start cooking like a crazed maniac!! lol! It kind of worked out because Ben and I had been talking about setting up a weekly meal plan. I hadn't really given much thought to freezer meals, but let me just say, I'm definitely thinking about it a lot more. I spent about 3&1/2 hours in the kitchen cooking, but I now have SEVEN prepared meals!! SEVEN!! (Actually nine because my Taco Soup & Chili made a double batch)!!

Here's some of the ingredients for all my lovely little meals. :)

I made Tater Tot Casserole (from the Duggar's), Chicken Alfredo Lasagna, Roasted Chicken with Vegetables, Chicken Pot Pie, Taco Soup, Chili and Baked Chicken Parm. (I'll add the other recipes to my recipe blog soon, but I'm a little bit exhausted today). :)

Here's all the food cooling down. YUM!

Packaged up and ready to go into the freezer.

Somehow I managed to fit everything in there.

I definitely think I'm going to like this freezer meal thing. As long as you have a plan in place, it's pretty simple. I think it will help cut down our grocery bill and it will give me more time to spend with my family. I look forward to not being trapped in the kitchen while they're all playing together. Even if we don't stick to the freezer meals, I still plan on using my planner and soon to be Erin Condren planner (thanks to my hubby) to make out our meals hopefully a month in advance.