22 Day Challenge - Day 2 Menu Planning and Grocery Shopping

Menu Planning and Grocery Shopping

The amount of money that we've spent on take out and groceries since I became pregnant last August is absolutely ridiculous.  While I was pregnant, I was so extremely exhausted that I just couldn't stand anymore once I got home from work.  Now that I've had the baby, I find that he is usually awake during the times that I have to cook dinner.  It makes it very hard to get anything cooked in time.  

Once, I started cooking at 6:30 and we didn't sit down to eat until 9:45.  He kept waking up and crying.  

I was STRESSED.

Instead of cooking, Eben will just go get something fast and easy.  Or he'll make daily trips to the grocery store and will easily spend over $40 each trip and I have no idea what all he buys.

So, it's my goal to go grocery shopping once per week.  I'm going grocery shopping today, but I'm only getting things for today, Monday, and Tuesday.  I plan on going to the grocery stores on Wednesday after the sales paper comes out.  Tuesdays will be my planning time and I'll go after work on Wednesdays.

Our weekly menu:

1.  Meatless Mondays

2.  Ethnic food Tuesdays

3.  Crockpot Wednesdays

4.  Takeout Thursdays

5.  Crockpot Fridays

6.  Southern Saturdays

7.  Seafood or grilling Sundays

How I plan my shopping trips:

1.  I make a menu for the week.  I go through my cookbooks, Pinterest, and recipes that I have on hand.  I write down what we're having each night (breakfasts and lunches included).  

2.  After I make our menu, I write down everything that is needed for each recipe. 

3.  Then I go through my kitchen to see what all we have or are running low on. 

 If we have it, then I cross it off of the list.  If we don't have it, then it stays on the list.  

4.  After that, I make a grocery list based on the order of the grocery store I shop at.  

5.  Then I gather any coupons that I may have to go along with my shopping trip.

It literally takes me up to 2 hours to do this, but I find that it saves me so much money because I'm not buying things that I already have and I'm usually pretty good at sticking to what's on my list.

I used to shop for 2 weeks worth of groceries (non-perishable items), but after Hurricane Ike I now only shop for one.  A few days before evacuating for Hurricane Ike, I had went grocery shopping for two weeks.  You don't take that stuff with you when you evacuate and electricity usually goes out during hurricanes and can be out for weeks at a time afterward.  If you've every smelled a fridge that has had food in it for a long time with it running then you'd know that you never want to smell that smell again.  It will make you gag with the best of them.