Reigning in the Budget: meal planning

Here's another "reigning in the budget" topic that I have not touched on yet: meal planning. I generally go to the grocery store with a shopping list, but it's not always that I go to the store with a meal plan in mind (and you know it's bad when I go with none of the above).

When I started this series of posts, I started saving grocery receipts. Whether or not I had a plan, a list or just wanted to pick up dog food, I wanted to see about how much I was spending every time I went to the grocery store. So here I am, armed with a bit of evidence, to tell you that meal planning is a really good way to keep your grocery bills under control.

exhibit A

• 06/02/11, grocery shopping @ Giant Eagle with shopping list but no meals planned: $78.16
• 06/12/11, grocery shopping @ Whole Foods with meal plan/shopping list: $32.94

exhibit B

• 06/25/11, grocery shopping @ Earth Fare with a shopping list but no meals planned: $101.08
• 07/10/11, grocery shopping @ Trader Joe's with meal plan and shopping list: $53.27

Now, granted, we're talking about four different grocery stores here. Also, you have to take into account that it's summertime and I do a lot of shopping at the farmer's market - sans list (since you never know what you are going to find!) So, take those numbers with a grain of salt. All I'm saying is that there has been a significantly lower total when I have a few meals planned for the week and only buy what I need for those meals.

My course of action is to choose three meals that I want to make for the week, the only rule is that I have to be able to at least make enough for dinner and lunch the following day. Breakfast is usually overnight oats or bread with cheese, or an egg sandwich (eggs and cheese are staples, and therefore are almost always on my shopping list, bread is something I generally make myself). Then, any days that aren't covered by leftovers are usually a sandwich or something thrown together by other pantry staples. For the meals that I am planning to make, I (obviously) only buy what I need. 

So far, I've found that planning meals in advance has been one of the best ways to keep my grocery bill down. It doesn't happen every single week, because of traveling or just being lazy, but even having a meal plan for one grocery visit per month will help the bottom line. I can buy into that! 

peace+love,

Need to catch up on my Reigning in the Budget posts?

• reigning in the budget, part 1
• reigning in the budget, part 2
• reigning in the budget, part 3
• reigning in the budget: make vs. buy

Fun Things Friday

Okie doke, here are some of the neat things I happened across (or heard about on NPR) while I should have been doing my work this week:

I'm basically obsessed with food blogs...it's where I find absolutely ALL of my recipes. Here's another resource. From the website "Recipes you'll love from cookbooks we trust"

I always have a problem with having too many calendars. This might help a bit, at least it will streamline all of my post-it notes

Neat!

Brandon playing "Priority" on the car ride back from North Carolina over Thanksgiving weekend

This song puts me in the BEST mood around the holidays

Next Tuesday is the Winter Solstice! Practice your sun salutations so you can offer 108 of them to the shortest day of the year. Here in Cleveland, we probably won't see the sun at all that day (gray, grrraaay Cleveland) but I will be moving with a sun-shiny intention, regardless.

Ashley (my favorite neverhomemaker) has some good running advice, even if you're not trying to come back from an injury.

I made these chocolate chip cookie sandwiches for a work party. They were definitely a party favorite and miiiight even become a staple for future office parties. They're absolutely divine!

Finally, I leave you with one of my favorite pictures. It's my desktop background on my work computer:

Hope everyone has a lovely, lovely weekend! We're celebrating our monthly Freekend (lots of fun, no $$ required!) What are you planning to do this weekend?

What I did this freekend...

The Neverhomemakers, Ashley and Stephen, inspired me on this one...this weekend Brandon and I celebrated our first freekend! A few days to enjoy our time outside of work without spending a cent. Dollars spent easily add up on random things over the weekend...what could we do with the money that we save??? We decided to keep a list of things/prices that we would have bought on our freekends and put that money away and save up for something special. A vacation perhaps???

So far our list looks something like this:

• 1 gallon olive oil (from Sam's Club...for Chrismukkah gifts!) - $13
• foot lotion for the puppy - $7
• iron supplement - $6
• Christmas Ale - $9 
• Drinks in Lakewood - $40

For a grand total of...(drumroll, please)...$75!! I honestly don't think this list is very complete, because it was kind of an ex pos facto decision to keep track of things we would have spent....but seventy-five bucks isn't half bad! That's seventy-five dollars towards our next vacay. Thanks, Ashley! I love freekends.

So how did we spend our time? It actually ended up being a ridiculously full weekend, both productive and relaxing. It went something like this:

Friday night

• yoga with my favorite yoga teacher!
• grilled pita pizzas for dinner, plus one Christmas Ale
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (we're doing a HP recap before we go see the Part 1 of the Deathly Hallows)...falling asleep in front of the TV ensued, we woke up at 2am to move into the bedroom. 

Saturday:

• Sleep in
• 10-ish mile bike ride, to a park I've just discovered 2 miles from our house. We're planning a bike/run/bike on Thanksgiving morning before we head out to Pennsylvania because we had so much fun riding out there!

Our ride to Euclid Creek Reservation and back

Yep, big 'ol hill. Love it

• stop riding to hug a tree and appreciate the beautiful feats of nature that northeast Ohio has to offer

• take a break from riding to marvel at the graffiti on the Monticello Rd. bridge.

• muscle up the 2-mile hill (Brandon way ahead of me. That's what I get for trying to take pictures while fighting up a monster hill on my bike.)
• go watch Brandon's sister dance in a Swing Dance Flash Mob @ the mall in Strongsville. I need to take a second to talk about how AWESOME this is. Its like, random acts of kindness...just a ways to spread joy for no reason at all!
• Have dinner with Brandon's parents (I guess this technically should disqualify us from our "freekend" but we didn't pay...so I maintain that we're still in.) Bruschetta. Stuffed mushrooms. Veggie fajitas. Christmas Ale. Enough said.
• watch the more of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and fall asleep on the couch again. Still didn't make it all the way through

Sunday

• sleep in. We had planned another bike/run workout, but decided to do that later in the week. 
• turn our leftovers from dinner into a de-freakin-licious brunch. Veggie fajitas-turned-veggie egg scramble with chips crumbled on top!
• first time for everything: SUNDAY WAS MY FIRST TIME EVER RAKING THE YARD! I started out in a ridiculous get-up because I thought it was cold outside: jeans, longsleeve shirt, hoodie, puffy vest, snow boots, gloves and earmuffs. Temperature: mid-60's. Yep, I shed that clothing pretty quickly. Armed with my rake and a Christmas Ale, I happily spent the afternoon raking our lawn and playing in the leaves!
• here's another freekend first: homemade ravioli for dinner!!! We made the ravi's while finishing up the rest of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. 
• ended the night with popcorn (airpopped with HOT SAUCE, salt, cumin and pepper. delish!) and ice cream and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We probably made it through half an hour before hopping into bed at 10pm for a solid eight hours of sleep!

 

What would you do all weekend if you wanted it to be a freekend?? Pick a weekend and...GO! Freekend! How much money do you think you'll save?