Meal Planning

So I'm back after a little hiatus, February was an incredibly insane month for us and I didn't really have any inclination to blog. So now I'm feeling more alive and I think we'll give it a go again! I'm going to start out with a bit about our latest attempt at orginization...Meal Planning!

So last month the hubby and I decided to cut our costs more and stay within a strictly laid out cash budget for groceries. We decided to partially meal plan the month and well we did pretty good, we came in under our $300 semi-gluten free family of 4 budget. This month I decided to take it a step further and I've meal planned most of our month, some of it is specifically planned and others are just the bare "bones" so to speak so that we can still get creative when we want to. We've also planned one Meatless meal per week in an attempt to cut down the amount of meat that our household (ahem...husband) consumes. We did our grocery shop (we do a big shop once a month to get most of the household ingredients and then 1-2 little shops to restock our fresh fruits, veggies etc later in the month) and we came in under $250 for groceries this month with a bit of wiggle room to be able to again restock our fresh produce later. (Wooohooo! look at us go!) The key was to stick to our list! We went through all the flyers and compared prices and made a list accordingly and we stuck to it. We varied off of it for a couple things (like chick peas for hummus) but most of it was spot on. We've also made it a goal to not eat out this month (except for our one possible date night). Which means the hubby has to take lunch from home or come home for lunch, no more fastfood! Anyways thats our attempt at being healthier and cutting our costs. Here's what our meal plan for this month looks like :)Most of our meals are all made completely from scratch :)

March 8th to 13th:

Monday: Shortribs in sauerkraut (crock pot) with veggies and mashed potatoes (extra mashed for tomorrow's meal)

Tuesday: Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie (with NO meat or meat substitute, the recipe called for fake meat but not only is it more expensive, its chock full of GLUTEN...Nasty Nasty! We are doing lots of veggies and mushrooms in it)

Wednesday: Beef Stirfry with noodles

Thursday: Pasta of some sort

Friday: Meatloaf with Broccoli and potatoes

Saturday: Pork chops

Sunday: Roast lamb with mashed potatoes and veggies

March 14th to 21st

Monday: Crock pot Chili (with dried beans)

Tuesday: Pork stirfry with rice

Wednesday: Hamburgers and home made sweet potato fries

Thursday: Pasta

Friday: Veggie Risotto

Sat: BBQ steak and potatoes

Sun: Crock pot chicken

March 22-29

Monday: Beans and rice

Tues: Pasta

Wed: Stir fry

Thursday: Breakfast for dinner! (our favorite thing to do!!)

Friday: Pork chops with rice

Saturday: Pizzas!

Sun: Roast Beef dinner

March 30th to April 5th

Mon: Mexican meal

Tuesday Pork chops with scalloped potatoes

Wed: Corny Pasta (Veggie)

Thursday: Steak

Friday: Pasta

Saturday: Hamburgers

Sunday: Ham