Meals and Menu Planning in the Household Notebook
The biggest semi-discretionary chunk of most household budgets is for food. You have to eat, but how much you spend doing it can vary widely. This week we're approaching meals from a strategic planning perspective. Trust me, it beats standing in front of the fridge at 6pm with a mob of kids assuring you that if they aren't fed soon they will surely die!
The biggest benefit of a menu is that you'll never have to answer the question "What's for dinner?" All you have to do is point to the menu, posted publicly on the fridge or cork board. You won't have to try to think creatively when you've just had a long hard day and are ready to get dinner on the table so you can relax with your family.
Back in the early days of our marriage, before kids, I used to stop at the grocery store every evening on my way home, and we'd have whatever struck my mood that day. That type of spontaneity is wonderful, but it doesn't work well for a family - unless your kids actually like the grocery store. Mine don't! It not particularly great for your budget either.
How does this fit into the household notebook? Odds are, your family probably eats the same 10-20 meals all the time. Save your menus in your household notebook and you'll build a solid reference to the meals that work best for your family. Within a few menu cycles you won't have to plan any more - you'll be able to pull out a menu from your notebook and build your grocery list from there.
If you're really smart, you've filed your grocery lists with your menus! You'll still have to modify them to include non-grocery items and things you don't buy every week, but you'll have a head start. Before you hit the grocery store - check out this article to save 30% on your food bill!
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I used to plan our menus weekly based on the store sales. With our budget getting tighter and our spending getting less controlled, I decided to work on a monthly plan so we don't end up out of food at the end of the month with no money left (we are working on the budget part as well).
I sat down and everyone had to pick 10 dinner plans. It didn't really work out greatly but in the end I was able to pick out 30 meals that seemed to satisfy the masses. We went shopping for the majority of the items and with some careful planning were really able to do our months worth of shopping. We still will need a few things here and there but the majority of the shopping and menus have been planned. It's a great stress relief to know what is going to happen for dinner. We even planned a few back-ups in case something happens.
I did monthly menus for a while, and they were great - not only did I save money by limiting my grocery store trips, but I saved time as well. And it was so nice NOT to spend 2 hours every Saturday at the grocery store!