July Break Down || Grocery Budget & Menus

In this post ~ See how my budget works and maybe get ideas on ways to save money or new things to try. I get real on debt and living a life edited. 

July's Fruit Bowl

How to Create a Meal Plan || Part Three

Hi! 

This is part three of a three part series on how to create a 

{weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly} meal plan. Today I'll be sharing how I grocery shop and portion certain items. It's been really fun to share all of this with you.
I hope it's been helpful!
Here we go!!!

>> Three Part Series >>

Meal Planning Basics ~ Part One
Creating Your Meal Plan and Shopping List ~ Part Two 
Grocery Shopping, including my real list, budget, and timed shopping trips ~ this post

How to Create a Meal Plan || Part Two

Welcome Back! 

This is part two of a three part series on how to create a 

{weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly} meal plan. Today I'll be sharing how I create my meal plan and shopping list. I'm so excited to share all of this with you, I have a million things running around in my head right now! 

>> Three Part Series >>

Meal Planning Basics ~ Part One Here 
Creating Your Meal Plan and Shopping List ~ this post
Grocery Shopping, including my real list, budget, and timed shopping trips ~ Part Three Here

How to Create a Meal Plan || Part One

This is part one of a three part series on how to create a 

{weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly} meal plan. 

Have you ever gone grocery shopping the beginning of the month bought a whole cart full of stuff, checked out and it's a shocking $150, then you get home and don't even know what you bought or what you're going to have for dinner. Then later in the week, you run out of toilet paper run into Target for JUST ONE THING, check out $75 later...oh, did you even remember the toilet paper? Now it's Friday you're stressing at work wondering what to make for dinner, search Pinterest and find something that sounds oh so delicious, just need to stop at the grocery store to pick up a few items, $50 later you have everything for dinner. Now it's the following week, you realize you've already spent $275 on...what really? You spend 15 minutes looking in your fridge, freezer, and fridge again; they are packed, but you still have nothing to make, you throw out the moldy.......something, while you're looking.  Then wonder why you never finished those delicious leftovers you made last Friday night and now they are bad too, throw that away. In the zone, you spend another 20 minutes cleaning out the fridge throwing out half a garbage can worth of stuff. This is so annoying! Let's just order pizza, but we don't have any money until payday...whatever just charge it. Oh, and don't forget a side of wings and bread sticks! 

Sound familiar? 

New Hair || Turquoise, Purple, Pink

Aloha Friday Everyone! 

Here's an update on my latest hair adventure...

First, I went on a Sally's (beauty supply store) shopping spree. My lovely sister gave me a $25 gift card for my birthday in January and I was saving it for a new hair day. Then, I got a 30% off coupon, dang I know, in the mail! Yippee!! So I stocked up on my basics and a few fun things ~ left with all this and paid only $2.44!

Sally's Spree

New Highlighters

You know your husband loves you when he goes to the store and brings you back a surprise. You know he really loves you and knows what makes you happy when he brings you new highlighters that you've been sweat'n.

Awesome! If you're a pen/office supply nerd like me - go get these now! So cool and really fun to use. They are gel, almost feels like a crayon, no bleeding or smearing. And they're Sharpie, so how could they be bad...

xoxojolleen

Meal Planning Part 3 - Weekly Plan

These are earrings that me and my sister made this weekend, I love them! I'll post the DIY later this week.

food budget-posted
monthly planning-posted
weekly planning

WEEKLY: Saturday Grocery Shop for the following week, local grocery store - Budget $40
So, for the first week (last post “monthly”) I get staples and next week’s food, for the other three weeks I just get what I needed for the following weeks meals.
Shopping Time: 30 minutes

I have learned the more I plan the less stress I feel. So I have certain days that I do certain things and everything just flows and falls into place. I also have a lot less waste, I feel like sometimes people over shop and then they are throwing away so much stuff they just bought. This is what I found with us when I would stock up on sale/coupon stuff, I’m not saying I don’t use coupons or sales, I love a deal, but I’m not over buying just to save money, then not using the stuff and throwing it away because it’s expired or bad.

If on Friday I have a bare fridge we did a good job. Here is my weekly meal planning template, if I follow this we tend to stay in budget and we don’t waste food. Again bring a list and cash.

Saturday- Make Meal

Sunday- Make Meal, Sunday is when I’ll try to make something bigger. Then I can practice being an Italian Grandma, so when I have kids and they have kids I’ll be ready for them all to come over and eat dinner. This is usually when I bake a treat for our week too. I love cooking and baking, so really Sunday is my day that if I want to spend the whole day in the kitchen I can.

Monday- My honey is off of work, so he cooks me dinner. I know he is a sweetie! So on Mondays I come home and dinner is cooked and he also does the dishes! I would be fine with dollar menu too, if he decided on it. But it’s really nice knowing one day a week; I don’t have to make any decisions on “what’s for dinner". He'll grill other times for me too, especially in the summer, but Mondays are a for sure, he is wonderful to me. 

Tuesday- Make Meal or Leftovers from Sunday

Wednesday – Something very simple and inexpensive, grillies and soup, deli meat sandwiches and salad, mac and cheese and hot dogs, cold cereal…something along these lines.

Thursday – Leftover clear out! This is a must to have no waste grocery shopping. I take everything out of the fridge that is leftover and we each create our own dinner from the items. We’ve had some pretty funny combinations.

Friday- Date Night!! We have a $20 budget and make no plans until we are home from work and then decide together what we want to do with our $20, then any money left over we spend on Sunday after church for Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, or Breakfast Burritos. This has been a really fun addition to our marriage; I would label this as a “MARRIAGE SAVER” for sure. Who says you have to wait to have kids to make a date night??

Now on a side note I’d like to share with you the meal planning app/service I LOVE-

Plan to Eat, amazing….it really does all the stuff I did before by using spreadsheets and meal calendars on my computer. But using Plan to Eat it's all online so it's super easy. Here are some reasons why I love it-

1. I input my recipes including a picture of the food I made (i love this, makes me feel like a famous cook/baker!)into my recipe book, including ingredients. Once you’ve done this your recipe will always be online for you.

2. There is a monthly calendar, on Saturday I just drag and drop my recipes into the day I want to make it.

3. Since my recipe is in the calendar it knows all the ingredients that I need to make it, I just click on"shopping list" everything I need to make the weeks’ worth of food is listed for me! I can look at this on my iPhone too, so all I need at the grocery store is my phone and when I check something off of my list it disappears....oh......and it's all in order too. Produce, can goods, dairy, so on.

4. I can save menus, so at the end of the month I save July 1-31 as a menu then next July or whenever I just drag and drop the ENTIRE months’ worth of meals. Then I can edit certain days if things need changing.

5. Kind of like how you"pin" stuff you can copy a recipe to your Plan to Eat site, so when I'm on Pioneer Woman site and I like something I just copy it over, amazing!

6. You can email a recipe from your Plan to Eat, so say I'm with someone and they are like, "Wow, Jolleen these are the best Sloppy Joes I've ever had! Can I have your recipe?" I say yes and take out my phone and go to the website and email it to them. Done!

7. You can make your own categories for recipes. Example- When it's over 90 degrees out; I don't like to turn on the stove top. Over 80 degrees I don't like to turn the oven on....so I have a category called "warm weather food" so when I'm making my meal plan for the week, I check the weather forecast. If it’s over 80 I just look for recipes from this category, it’s so nice.

Plan to Eat - You can get a free 30 day trial, then it’s $39 per year

I really could go on and on...but I think 7 favorite things is a good amount.

My meal/budget wrap-up:
Budget- Costco $40, Staples at Wal-Mart $80, other three weeks local grocery store $40, Date Night $20 = My Monthly Food Budget $320 (this includes all house stuff too like shampoo, cleaning stuff, contact solution)

Plus my honey makes me dinner night, I don't give him a budget, but he usually spends around $10 (he does his own shopping too for this, but can use anything in the cupboards or freezer) = Approx total $360 for the month

Ok this really was a lot of stuff to tell you all, I hope it is helpful and maybe you got some good ideas. Just remember you need to make whatever you do work for your family. I really love doing budgets and meal planning, so it was really fun to share all of this with you.
xoxojolleen

Do you have any meal planning tricks you use?

Meal Planning Part 1 - Food Budget

Cute sign I want to get for my kitchen, Hobby Lobby

This post will be broken up into three parts food budget, monthly planning, and weekly planning.

I've been working on this for about a year, trying different ideas and ways to shop and organize. I'm happy to say I'm down to perfection! (Well in my mind...hehehe) It's taken a lot of trial, error,and redo's but here you go. Use whatever you like, probably the best thing I've learned is you need to create what works for you. What I like to do, you might hate.

BUDGET:
You need to set a budget, the best way I stick to my budget is buy using cash ONLY and a shopping list.

I love to shop and spend money; it really doesn’t matter on what. So grocery shopping is just as much fun for me as clothes shopping, well almost. So in order for me to stay in budget I have to do cash and a list. Or else I’m spending more and getting lots of unneeded stuff, I’m very distracted when shopping by eye candy. If I don’t have a list I’m most likely buying twice as much stuff as I went in for. Ha! Love being a chick, I think this might run in our blood.

So since I know this is my weakness, I stick to cash and a list and I’m good.

P.S. The app I use and love for book keeping is called Pocket Money (iPad and iPhone), I also have heard really good things about Mint.com and Mint is free.

xoxojolleen
Do you have any tricks to help you stay in budget?

The Plan

I love meal planning!

But, I realize some people don't think this is one of the best things ever....so to help you out I'm going to start posting my meal plans on Saturdays, maybe this will give you some new ideas.

Then through out the week I'll post the recipes of stuff I made. This week I'll be posting in detail how I organize and budget planning for weekly and monthly stuff. Hope you get some new ideas!!!

xoxojolleen