In attempt to focus on Budgets and Bills this month (February), I have made myself a very strict rule. I will make a menu plan. I will stick with it. I will shop for ONLY those items that I need for my menu plan. There will be NO impulse shopping. I will NOT throw things into the cart because they look delicious or I can't live with it.
I have been making a menu plan for about 2 months now. At first, I took very small steps-- what are we going to eat for the rest of this week? I wrote it down on our calendar on the fridge. Then I went out and bought the stuff I needed. It worked! We kept with it. I think one of the reasons the first couple of weeks worked for us, I scheduled in a day to eat out. We were in the habit of eating out two or three times a week-- when I didn't feel like cooking or was at a loss for what to cook. So, without quitting that "cold turkey", I wrote it down-- we would have a "date night" once a week, usually on Fridays. There were a couple of times that we change our date night to Tuesday or Thursday instead but that wasn't a big deal.
This past week, I decided to take another step. Instead of menu planning for the week, I was going to plan for the two weeks and have only one shopping trip. When I made my menu plan, I put in there the days that I knew we weren't going to be having dinner (Sunday dinners at my parents' house, etc). and then went shopping. Since I have only been doing this menu planning/shopping plan for a couple of months, I have no idea what I spend a week on groceries. So, I just started somewhere. Okay, $50.00 a week-- let's try that. So, for two weeks, that would be $100.00. So, I went to the store this weekend, and came home with $117.00 worth of groceries. Not bad! I bought a few things that weren't on my list. Some ready-to-eat meals (like Chicken Viola) and some extra hamburger and chicken (both on sale!). So, the money wasn't spent on candy or ice cream or something else that didn't hold some nutritional value or wasn't on the menu plan.
I had 3 snow days last week. During those snow days that I was supposedly "snowed in", I made an inventory list of all of my groceries. Pretty much everything that is edible in our house. I made lists on the computer (using Cozi) and separated it into different pantry lists. I have the "Pantry Inventory", "Baking Inventory", "Fridge Inventory" and the "Freezer Inventory". I used the Cozi website and re-titled the Shopping Lists to fit my needs. So, from there I used subtitles (if anyone is interested, you need to type your subtitle, for example-- CANNED GOODS, all in caps, and it will create a subtitle).
There are some awesome pros to this website and system I've created. For starters, I know exactly what I have in my cupboards! I even went to the extreme with the product information. For example, one of my entries looks like this:
tomato paste-- 4 (6 oz.) cans
The reason I wrote that information is to help me in my menu planning. Which brings me to my next fabulous pro about this system. I can access this information from ANYWHERE! And when I say, ANYWHERE, I mean A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E!! I can access it from my home computer (which is where I do all my cooking, duh!), I can access it from my school computer (which is where I do a lot of my menu browsing and planning), I can access it from my parents' house (which is where I do a lot of "stealing" of ingredients!) or best of all, my cell phone (which is where I look when I shop!). Now I don't have to call Whit and ask him how many cans of Cream of Mushroom soup I have in the pantry. Now I don't have to wait to get home to make my shopping list.
Okay, so I know there is that one horrible thing though-- keeping it updated. I know, it will be hard to remember to take off a can of fruit cocktail after we eat, or to say that the ranch dressing is almost gone. But if I keep up with the menu planning, I will be able to know what I have on hand and what I don't. Even if I don't keep it 100% updated, at least I will have a starting point.
I also want to try and post what my menu will be for the two-weeks (as you see I have another page for it on my blog.). This way, I can also access the blog from anywhere (phone, school, home) and now exactly what I'm planning on cooking.
You know me, I love organization. And this just seems to fit me. Stayed tuned for my Home Organizational Notebook. I've been working on that for a couple of weeks.