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.

22 Day Challenge - Day 1 Girls' Room

I have to tackle the girls' room first because they have so much stuff coming in and out all of the time.  I've got to get this room under control.  I wish, more than anything, that they could each have their own rooms, but that just isn't happening here with 5 people in the house.  Luke has his own room, but that's because I don't want him waking them by sharing with one of the girls and vice versa.  

Here's the LIST:

1.  Pick up 

2.  Go through closet

• have girls try on all clothes to weed out the smaller items
• remove items that are too small
• try on all shoes
• remove shoes that are too small
• organize top of closet
• organize blankets and sheets

3.  Strip sheets off of mattresses

4.  Clean mattresses

5.  Wash pillows

6.  Go through drawers

7.  Weed out any clothes that are too small

8.  Go through books and weed out

9.  Change out all pictures in frames

10.  Move hanging stuff over correct beds

11.  Clean window sills

12.  Clean baseboards

13.  Clean ceiling

14.  Clean walls

16.  Dust every surface and knick-knack

17.  Windex all glass surfaces and mirrors

18.  Make a list of items needed for their room

19.  Clean carpet

20.  Vacuum

21.  Lysol everything

22.  Febreeze

Update:  I've been going through everything all day.  This may take me two days.  Plus, the girls are playing in there as I'm going through everything.  I'll have to do it real early in the morning when they are asleep (they often end up in our bed).  I've gotten all of the clothes cleaned out.  Now I just have to figure out where to store it all until I can get a few boxes to put away Katie's clothes in order for Kinsley to have them in the future.  I'm selling all of Kinsley's clothes at a local consignment shop or at the bidding site that I participate with.  I now have to go and clean the kitchen before my dear husband gets home.  I hate when he comes home to the 3 main rooms being a mess.  Luke is asleep and I just hope he stays that way until I'm done.

22 Days To A Clean and Organized Home

I started my maternity leave on April 18th.  Had my baby on April 22nd, and summer break started for us on June 7th.  The last day of my maternity leave was June 6th.  I planned it perfectly.  All summer, so far, my house has been a disaster due to spending so much time with my new little one.  My other two have been running a muck without much focus on cleaning up after themselves.  We've had a few days here and there where the house is clean, but it is quickly destroyed again within a day due to us not following any type of schedule.  

On top of all of this, I've been preparing the girls for school by purchasing school clothes.  I've bought a lot through a local bidding site on Facebook.  I've purchased so many next size up clothes through there that now our home has 2 sizes for each girl X two.  Ugh!  Talk about overload.  

In 22 days I'll be returning to work to begin preparing my classroom for my new batch of kiddos.  I spend all of August getting ready for school, so I want my home to be ready for me to get back to it.  During the school year, all of our focus is totally on school.  We have a few weekend days that I spend cleaning out and decluttering, but it's few and far between.  

I'm going to be blogging about my 22 day challenge as I prepare my home for the return of school on August 25th.  Each day will be focused on one room or one item that I need to take care of.  Pictures will be included.