I mentioned in another post that in order for me to be a frugal grocery shopper I need to take the time to plan out our meals for the week so that I am not wasting money or spoiling food. I went ahead and got started planning for the entire month but to be honest, it took a while. I have a number of things in my pantry and freezer that I want to use up so I’m trying to get myself organized by coordinating meals around those items. I have to think about what ingredients in a meal can be re-used that week if it’s a fresh ingredient, or frozen for use later if it’s a non-perishable item. (However, I will soon be exploring the concept of blanching/freezing fresh produce.) I also don’t want any meals in a given week to be too similar, unless I’m intentionally eating leftovers. Then there’s the process of researching recipes, first deciding if something sounds tasty and then determining if it is going to meet my healthy standards. (hah) Calling it meal “planning” is no joke. This junk takes some brain power! Of course, I love cooking, being creative and experimenting, saving money and eating FOOD, so the end result is a win-win. I suspect that once I get a few solid months of planning down, I won’t have to do so much of it because I’ll have already done the work.

To save myself a little time, I’ve decided that one night a week we will have a big salad for dinner, one night a week we will have breakfast for dinner and one night a week we will have soup for dinner. We ate a lot of salad dinners last year and as much as Dave LOVES it, as in, he goes BONKERS for the stuff, I feel like we ought to have some tasty hot meals on the table once in a while, as opposed to cold limp rotting lettuce. I plan to include salad with every meal because, if I don’t, Dave will go to the fridge and make himself a one anyways. And then we may or may not argue about it. Haha, I love that man. And he loves his salads. Let’s be clear on that. So salad with every meal, for sure and a big salad as our actual dinner on one night a week. Then a breakfast meal of some kind because breakfast foods never disappoint and soup because soup is MY personal all time favorite. The exception to any of these meals is if I happen to come across a recipe that is as easy or easier/cheaper/more available than breakfast/salad/soup.

As I was planning out our meals for this month, I also began writing down specific ingredients for the recipes I’ll be using. I figured, why not, I have all the info in front of me now. This way, for example, if I know I need tuna for next week and it’s on sale this week, I can go ahead and buy it now. I wouldn’t have known that I needed tuna if I hadn’t planned and I wouldn’t have been able to save $7.50.

Here is my menu for this month so far. Notice that there is nothing planned for Sunday nights because there should be plenty of food to snack on for a light dinner like we always do. And as for Saturday nights, well our budget would like us to eat free Chick-Fil-A this month. And whatever our budget says, we DO. (Yes, we eat at Chick-Fil-A often, and this month weekly and I’m going to defend that place till the day I die because it gives me free food. The end.)

Week of January 4th – 10th
Monday – Broccoli Soup
Tuesday – Salad with Tuna
Wednesday – Pasta and Sauce with Salad
Thursday – Leftovers
Friday – Scrambled Eggs with Veggies and Fruit

Week of January 11th – 17th
Monday – Pork Loin with Sweet Potato and Green Beans
Tuesday – Herb & Cheese Tortellini Soup
Wednesday – Speedy Chicken Potpie
Thursday – Chef-type Salad with Boiled Eggs
Friday – Fettuccine Alfredo with Bacon

Week of January 18th – 24th
Monday -Butternut Squash Risotto with Spinach and Chicken Sausage
Tuesday – Spanish Style Tuna and Potato Salad
Wednesday – Quick Chicken Noodle Soup
Thursday – Dijon Croque Monsieur
Friday – Salad of some kind?

Week of January 25th – 31st
Monday – Roast Chicken with Balsamic Bell Peppers and Coconut Rice
Tuesday – Tuna Panini
Wednesday – Bean Burritos?

That’s what I gots so far. This month we have some delicious food goodies that my mom gave us so I’ll be cooking those up one night a week. Most of the other recipes came for the most recent issue of Cooking Light and I was very impressed with the nutrition stats. Yes, even the Fettuccine with Bacon is from Cooking Light. I try to keep my dinners as close to 40-30-30 as I can but I don’t mind if there are some nights where the scales tip a little off of those proportions. I definitely cannot handle lots of potatoes, casseroles, cream sauces, more than 1 – 1.5 servings of pasta or rice and tons of bread on the side. Not gon’ happen.