Month One Of Meal Planning

So I did it, one full month of meal planning. It's hard but SO worth it. After it was all said and done, we saved over $100! It also helped knowing exactly what was planned for so I didn't have to come up with something last minute. This also reaffirmed how much I love my dutch oven. If it was too late for the crock pot or still frozen, it went in the dutch oven and came out *perfect*.

How I did it:

Look at the sales to plan dinners and maybe a few lunches (if Anne's mac & cheese was on sale or other things we don't normally get). Then I wrote in a lit the dinners I wanted to make. I printed off this weekly planner and wrote down what meals Aaron woudl be home for.

Then came the tricky parts. I went in and filled in dinners, then the main food for breakfast and lunches. After I was done with that I went back through and wrote down what veggies and fruits would be with which meals (we really only do apple, pear and oranges. Everything else is "if on sale only") and finally the snacks.

The first two week period was easier because I just went to Giant once and Safeway once. We had enough meat to carry us through and plenty of pantry things. The second two weeks were tricky because Wegmans and Giant both released coupons that were set so you had certain coupons per week to use. For example, Giant had $5 off $40 or more and free eggs, where Wegmans had $5 off $25, $1 off any meats and $1 off $5 or more of seafood. We get our meat and pantry things at Wegmans and produce, breads, milks and eggs from Giant (better quality).

I went through and counted how many apples, pears, oranges, green beans, etc. I had written down to tally it all up and figure how much I needed. When I had to break the trips I did all pantry, meat and dairy the first week along with one week of produce and the second week of produce and any "extras" we wanted the second week.

I also keep a list of what I pay for everything so I can go back and compare prices to see if it's really worth it.