Well I wrote out the menu for the next month and you'll notice some things are very common in this household right now: Pizza, Hamburger Helper and Spaghetti. You may also notice perhaps don't have the best of diets. I'm looking forward to Spring/Summer/Fall garden time plus the ability to grill out some more. Notice next Sunday we are grilling out! I have a steak in the freezer and we are going to do a little bit of chicken for the girls because it's suppose to be 62 degrees and we are very excited.
So why a month of a menu and why will I be doing nearly the full months shopping tomorrow? Well this is an experiment I had attempted to start before but never completed it so I'm trying to keep up with it. January I did not do this and the first two weeks we ate out a lot and some meals didn't get made and it was a bit of a mess. February I started my menu/buying for one month experiment again. The idea is the less times I have to go to the store the less chances I have for impulse buying or just buying things that are on 'sale' because they are. That is not to say if they don't have a really awesome deal that I won't do it but I have to really want something and it not being just because I'm in the store anyways. It sounds silly but I did the figures between January and February and here is how it worked out.
Groceries Eating Out = Total
Jan 483.60 224.54 708.14
Feb 361.22 154.64 515.86
(Note: This does not count school meal cost.)
Notice the difference? I sure did and I was shocked. I try to budget $400/mo for all household cleaners/food/pet supplies and I found it a struggle every month to keep to it. I budget $120/mo for eating out mostly for my husband but I was finding every month this was being blown away. Now we did go over on the eating out because one night his parents and my husband's brother from Louisiana came in town so we went out to dinner and then last week when the Daddy/Daughter dance was going on I decided not to cook so that I could have more time to worry about getting things read for Katherine and Peter. If you take my budgeted totals though I still was under my ideal budget! This month I will be trying the same shopping habits though my husband told me I shouldn't focus so much into the eat out budget this month or at very least not count my birthday dinner. I guess for his sake since it is the families gift to me I'll leave it off my totals and put it down as 'gifts'.
Monday 4
Chicken
Rice
Stir Fry Veggies
Tuesday 5
Baked Penne Spaghetti
+ add pepperoni
Wednesday 6
Sloppy Joes
Chip
Thursday 7
Hamburger Helper
Green Beans
Friday 8
Chicken Bake
Saturday 9
Pizza
Sunday 10
Grilled Steak/Chicken
Baked Potatoes
Corn on the Cob
Monday 11
Tacos (taco seasoning)
Rice
Beans
Tuesday 12
Cheesy Chicken
Wednesday 13
Breakfast for Dinner
Thursday 14
Spaghetti
Italian Sausage
Friday 15
Eat Out - Birthday Dinner
Saturday 16
Pizza
Sunday 17
Pot Roast
Mashed Potatoes
Corn
Monday 18
Chicken
Pasta
Peas
Tuesday 19
Grilled Cheese
Tomato Soup
Wednesday 20
Spaghetti
Meatballs
Thursday 21
Turkey Bake
Mashed Potatoes
Corn
Friday 22
Hamburger Helper
Green Beans
Saturday 23
Pizza
Sunday 24
Balsamic Chicken
pasta
peas
Monday 25
Meatloaf
Mashed Potatoes
Corn
Tuesday 26
Pulled Pork
Chips
Wednesday 27
Pigs in a Blanket
Tater Tots
Thursday 28
Spaghetti
Chicken
Friday 29
Chicken Nuggets
French Fries
Saturday 30
Pizza
Sunday 31
Breaded Pork
Mashed Potatoes
Peas
Wow, that is a huge savings! I may have to re-evaluate my once a week shopping after looking at this. I started up the once a week because I felt like I was spending too much going monthly since I was routinely forgetting something or having to run to the store to get some obscure ingredient for making dinner.
ReplyDeleteI think the big thing for me is making sure I have a pretty set menu and as much as I may hate it, really sticking to it. Though I won't lie I forgot things too like I forgot buns for sloppy joes tomorrow so I'll have to stop by to pick that up. I still plan to go into the store about once a week but it should only be for little things. This is a total experiment for me since I used to think people that only did one big shopping trip a month were crazy (and in truth half of the people I knew were because they didn't make menus). I'm really hoping to see how this progresses over the next few months so I can make a good determination if this is a good fit for our family or not.
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