Wednesday, 24 September 2008
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Grocery Shopping and Meal Planning Strategies
In my constant quest to find ways to simplify and consolidate my life, I've decided to try something different with my meal planning/grocery shopping habits. In the past, I've tried to sit down on Sunday afternoons or Monday mornings and make a meal list for the week and make a grocery list in preparation for my grocery shopping outing on Monday afternoons. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. Sundays are our family days and usually the last thing I feel like doing is thinking about the week to come. Mondays tend to be hectic as laundry from the weekend needs done, it's my grocery day and the first day of my work week. If I don't have a plan by the time I need to leave for the store (in between A's naps), I often end up just winging it in the store and only getting enough food for about 3 days, and it isn't always the most cost effective or practical way to plan meals. I really hate those days when it's 3 in the afternoon and I have no idea what we're going to eat for dinner and I am standing there staring at the freezer or pantry not having a clue what to do. Another dilemma that I have is that there isn't one store that I like for all that we need. We live within 10-15 minutes of a Walmart, Target, Costco, Aldi's, 2 other discount grocery stores and a small local grocery store that's about a mile from my house. There are things that I like and dislike about each store, so I find myself often loading and unloading both kids multiple times and going to various stores throughout the week to get the best deals and the products that I like. Honestly, it's just a lot of work and a lot of time spent to plan for food. And so, I'm trying to better strategize and plan to more effectively use my time and money.
I sat down on Saturday and perused my cookbooks and recipes and made a list of all of of the meal ideas that I make on a regular basis. Everything from breakfast for dinner, to casseroles to grilled cheese and tomato soup was put on the list. I figured out that in any given month I make about 15 or so meals during the weekdays (figuring on having nights that we have plans and leftover nights) and on weekends I try to have 1 or 2 "easy" meals to make (i.e. chicken nuggets and boxed organic mac & cheese, etc) since weekends tend to be busy and we're often making last minute plans or eating leftovers from the week.
With all of this info in mind, I sat down and figured out 15 meals to make for the month of October and about 4-6 easy weekend options to have on hand in the freezer. After I selected options, I put them together by week so that I could reuse items. For instance, one night I am going to roast a chicken and then another night that week I'll use the leftover chicken to make quesadillas. Another week I'm going to make potato soup and I'll use the rest of the bag of potatoes for a side dish another night. After I had my weeks listed out, I made one long list of non-perishable ingredients that I'll need for the whole month, and then made mini lists for each week of the fresh ingredients that I'll need for the dinners those weeks. I plan to buy the meat all at once and freeze it, so my mini lists were literally 3 or 4 items for the week, not a lot at all. I am going to attempt to take one evening, let the kids home with hubby, hit up Walmart and the discounted grocery stores for all of my groceries for the whole month of October (including cereals, breads, snacks, juice, etc for the month) and do the majority of my grocery shopping in one night. I'll still do my Monday shopping for produce, milk, lunch meat, etc, but I get all of those items at Costco and my local store down the road and I can do those two stores in a little over an hour and be done!
So, perhaps this all sounds complicated, but the planning really only took me about an hour and I cannot explain how relieving it is to know that I probably will not have one day in October where I'm standing in the garage staring at our deep freezer wondering what in the world to make. I absolutely love cooking and hate that I feel that it's something that's slipped by the wayside lately and I'm looking forward to saving the time running to the store and use that time to actually cook. Also, our local market is awesome for fresh meats and local produce, but the prices on everything else are really high, so although it's convenient to run there to grab ingredients for supper, it's certainly not the cheapest and I'm anticipating saving a bit of money on food. I'm excited to try out my strategy and see how it works.
In case you were wondering, here is my list of meals for October - maybe it'll give you some ideas!
Week 1:
Roast Chicken, homemade mac & cheese, peas
Minestrone soup, salad, corn bread
Chicken Quesadillas, Spanish rice, refried beansWeek 2:
Baked Ziti, salad, green beans
Potato soup (with carrots, celery and sausage), salad
Baked "fried" chicken, roasted potatoes, mixed veggies
Week 3:
Baked turkey ham w/ pineapple topping, homemade mac & cheese, peas
Hawaiian pizza, salad
Black Bean soup, corn bread
Week 4:
Veggie pita pizzas, salad
Homemade version of Hamburger Helper, peas
Baked RavioliExtra Meals to have on hand for weeks that we need them:
Chili & Rice
Spaghetti, greenbeans
Beef Barley Vegetable SoupDo you find that meal planning and preparation is a challenge for you? Do you have any strategies that help you save time or money?
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Comments (20)
I do my meal planning and grocery shopping on Saturday mornings, then I blog about it Saturday afternoon. I only do dinners, because we don't eat breakfast, and my husband and I both work during the day, so I don't need to plan lunch. I love my meal planning "rituals", with the recipes, and the coupons, and the hurrying to the grocery store as early as possible before all the other Saturday shopping nutjobs show up. It's really motivating for me to blog about my menu and my grocery list, because I can see where I'm saving/spending money, and I know I'm helping my readers see where they can save money too.
I'm a guy. So I am going to admit I didn't read that much of your blog. Just curious thought. What is this word "Grocery" you speek of? Should I inform my wife. Will she be able to adjust religions. "Grocery". Is that like hidden manna?
Who sells this "Grocery" and is it legal?
Will it keep as long in the refrieditorator as long as carry out?
Will my wife have to buy pots and pans, tuper ware, and clean dishes?
This morning we had Star Bucks for breakfast, Carl Juniors for lunch, and dinner hasn't been decided yet.
Everytime I mention the words, "home cooked dinner" my wife thinks I am praying in tongs.
We might be able to try this "Grocery" thing if stuff comes in boxes or frozen.
Please help me. Someone call 911 !!!!!!!!!
I like this idea about planning for the whole month! I usually buy all my meats and a lot of non-perishables from Sams/costco once every 4-6 weeks, then I use those to plan meals but I do them 2 weeks at a time. I plan for around 5-6 dinners a week and then one day we are out of the house and eat out, another day we usually have leftovers (though my husband uses leftovers for lunch most of the time) so I plan 10-12 meals at a time and use the perishable stuff first (some meals require more canned and frozen foods than fresh)...but I LOVE the idea about doing it all for the whole month! It does seem like it would save time and it would save me the time in figuring out what we have left over from our Sam's club stash, I could do it all at once! Have you heard of OAMC.....or Once a Month cooking....google it and you'll find tons or recipes, you can double recipes and freeze them so you can have the left overs but you don't have to have them in the same week...good stuff!
I just did that the other week too. I also thought about kind of making a map of the store (if not a real map, then a mental one...i'm still pretty new in the neighborhood). Then you can make your shopping list according to how you go down the aisle, so you don't ever have to backtrack. in and out....
I think I might start planning out meals, and making grocery lists. It will also make it easier to search for coupons in the paper too.
I plan my menus for the month, but I shop on a weekly basis for the fresh stuff. We live within two miles of Wal*Mart and Sam's and while I don't completely like those stores, it's worth the convenience of not having to drive to other stores, unload the baby, etc, to just get it all in those two places.
When my SO lived in the same town, we would plan our meals by the week (we're both too indecisive to plan weeks in advance) and make a grocery trip every other week. Now that I live by myself, I usually just get frozen veggies and this has cut my grocery cost and trips. I don't know if you get frozen or fresh veggies, but it's definitely helped me.
My mom did the same thing as you when I was a kid--she'd also take me to multiple grocery stores in search of cheap and quality grocery. I hated it, because I'd rather be doing something else with my Sunday...especially since she did this almost every weekend.I make a menu and list for an entire month and shop on a Saturday morning (usually) while my husband is home with the kids. Then I go back as needed to get things we run out of or needed to buy fresh, such as milk, salad, fruit, etc. I know here at Wal-Mart they will sell stuff for the sale price at other stores so I go through the sale ads during the week to see if there's anything on sale cheaper than I already get it at Wal-Mart
We make a list of meals and then make a shopping list from that. Breakfast food is always kept on hand (eggs, frozen waffles, fruit, etc) and we have a few options for lunches although my husband usually has me roast him a few chicken breasts Sunday night and then takes those during the week.
I have found that the list of meals, usually about 15, lasts about a month. We have a separate list for perishables that have to be gotten fresh, like shredded lettuce for tacos. So we do a big shopping trip once, maybe twice, a month, stopping at different stores to get exactly what we need. And then we usually stop at the store once, maybe twice, a week for perishables and more fruit. My son eats bananas, oranges, and grapes like they are going out of style!
My husband and I plan two weeks of meals then make a grocery list based on that list. We allow ourself extra things each for that special something that catches our eye while in the store. We stick to our list and save a lot of money.
Right now, I plan about a week at a time. I am a bit restricted from shopping around to get the best deals as my father-in-law owns a grocery store - so we are kind of expected to shop there (and no, we don't get a discount).
I do some where I will cook a double batch of something and freeze it for a later date. I really like doing that and wish I could do more, but right now our freezer space is quite limited. It is a dream of mine though, as I am not a huge fan of cooking. Plus, it works really well to have something to run over to a friend or something in the case of an unexpected problem (i.e. death in the family or emergency surgery).
Being a college student with an apartment and seeing as it takes a few hours just to go out and buy cheap groceries (since I can't afford anything else) I will typically buy enough stuff to last between 1-2 months. I will buy a little bit of "fresh" stuff that lasts a couple of weeks and that's usually it. When something is gone, it's gone. Occasionally I am able to make a mid-month run to buy something like milk, eggs, butter, potatos or things for specific meals I want to make. Other than that, I pretty much have a list of "staple" foods to always have on hand...this all boils down to easy, cheap shopping though the downside is that mealtimes are often bland, boring, unhealthy, skipped, or a combination of these things. But I do get a weekly full homecooked meal from after our Saturday night church service...and other random times...so all in all it's not so bad. (this was longer than intended, my apologies)
I am big into meal planning.
I usually plan on Saturday night while watching SNL and then clip my coupons to my list in my home managment binder, so that th ekids will not make them into airplanes or paperdolls or confetti and the dog or cat will not tear them into unreadable shreds.
I also have one night where I use up all left overs (usually Monday which is generally shopping day). I do adjust my menus to fit what we need to use up and what is on sale. I shop half at Albertsons with sales and coupons and half at Trader Joes.
I usually make double on things like Lasagna or enchiladas and freeze for later in the month. That saves time, money and planning.
This has been an inspiring post for me! Trips to the grocery store used to be no big deal and I would be there once or twice a week. I never thought twice about my shopping habits. That was when I had only one child to deal with in the check out line and my hubby was usually available to accompany me. Now that I have a two year old and a four month old and my husband got a job that keeps him gone all the time, well, I need to rethink my shopping habits. I live in a small town, so there is really only one grocery store to shop at, but still, shuffling my two kids in and out once or twice a week is really exhausting and nerve- racking for me (not to mention that it is really hard to manage both kids and the shopping while I am in there). Once a month shopping (aside from a few parishables) sounds fantastic. I think I might sit down and plan my month right now!!
I try to shop at only one store per week. Sometimes there are good deals at other stores that I would like to have. But I find that if I never go there and buy them, I dont miss them! I save my gas and my time this way.
I never know when I will actually cook - because my schedule and my husband's are so different at the moment. I try to cook at least a few times a week. One of those I try to have some leftovers to take to work for lunches.
There is a grocery store that is very close to my sisters (and not too far from me, but farther than I want to go every week) that has an AMAZING selection of locally grown produce and meats - which are all fantastic. They are MUCH cheaper than any other store in the area - the regular prices are often better than sale prices of my local grocery stores! And there is an AMAZING smorgasbord (with the same name as the grocery store!). So I will treat myself to breakfast and then head over to the grocery store. I buy almost all of my meats there. I will spend between $100-150 on meat (and some produce) and it will last me for 3-6 months, depending on how I cook. As my stash of meat dwindles, I plan my meals based on what I still have left.
It is also nice because the weeks that I dont feel like going grocery shopping, there is usually enough in the pantry/freeze that I dont have to. So I guess, in some ways, I do things similarly to you, I just dont plan it out as well!
@bubbadirt@xanga - This is EPIC!!
We don't really plan meals, they just happen. Most of the time after work we don't really want to deal with making dinner and cleaning up so we grab something on the way home.
I had been thinking about starting to plan meals more but then our power has been out for 2 weeks. I would like to make more food because it will save us money and is probably healthier. I need time to sit down and look through recipes and figure out what I would like to start making. My mom and my grandma bought me cookbooks and gave me recipes in an attempt to get me to make more food at home. I haven't really started yet...
I have tried planning my meals several ways. Including setting up a biweekly rotating dinner menu in google calendar. That was a fail. I have found that I do better to have a well stocked pantry. I watch sales and but our 'staples' via them or from the known lowest price. I also tend to plan some meals because I want them. This weekend my sister and bro are driving into town and we are gonna cook up ourselves a week or so worth of food to keep in the freezer. I don't expect to use the food within a week but on days when I have to go to the doctors, run errands, and be somewhere in the evening its nice to know I have something in the crockpot or microwaveable thats not full of things I don't want myself or my kid to eat.
there's a nice group on yahoo called pantry challenge. They help out with stuff like this. I've learned a lot there.
That is really great. I'm pretty terrible with this stuff, so we now opt for ordering groceries online (once a week), then getting fresh produce and milk once a week when we run out. We still end up throwing groceries out - my husband does most of the cooking, and he's not a "let's make a casserole out of the leftover veggies" kind of guy... The online store saves my regular grocery list, so I just click and go. When I do go to the grocery store, I have list that is divided in aisles - it saves me a lot of time!
What has helped me in the past, is to look at the sample menus on www.savingdinner.com and of course http://www.flylady.net/pages/FoodForThought1.asp . I'll have to get back to menu planning so we can save some money! We're trying to save for a downpayment on a house, and every little bit helps (packed lunches instead of buying lunch, that kind of thing)!