Meal Planning part Deux

In my pursuit to plan perfect meals for 2-4 people (myself included) every week I work hard on my meal plan every Sunday morning, while trying to at least make one new recipe per week to "broaden my horizons".

Usually I write it down on some little random piece of notebook paper that I find somewhere or a piece of printer paper that I messed up the print on just to "conserve" (like my green effort there?) Most of the time I write both my meal plan and my grocery list down on one piece of paper (once again going with the conserving method) but by the end of my shopping trip the list is all bent torn and marked all over and not something pretty that I want to display on my refridgerator!

So, thanks to Kimberly Michelle I have found the ultimate meal planning/grocery shopping sheet! How awesome is this handy dandy little piece of paper?


Courtesy of Russell & Hazel

Not only does it have a slot for every day of the week, but a slot for every meal of every day! Very nice! Also, my favorite part is the "detachable" grocery list that is seperated into categories. Oh my organizational mind is going bananas over this little beauty!

Meal Planning

I've recently been trying out meal planning after reading that it will help you stick to a budget and a list while grocery shopping because I will be the first to admit that I am not one that likes to go to the grocery store and buy whats on the list I see things I pick them up and put them in the cart which ultimately leads me to spending way more than I should have. So I've been giving this a try, it seems to help me stick to the list but it's still not cheap.

You see we get $192 per month in BAS (Basic Allowance for Subsistance aka Food) so we add $8 to make it an even $200 for the month so we break that down by 4 weeks because we shop on Sundays every week and it comes to $50 per week. But most of the time our bill comes out to $70-80 per week which is frusterating. Plus our commissary on base has a surcharge which you never know how much it is going to be we've had it anywhere between $3-$6 it just varies which is frusterating because 1. it's higher than taxes and 2. it always makes our bill higher and makes it worse when we go over and 3. you can't tell how much it is going to be there is no way to tell.

But anyway...here is my menu for the week

Sunday- Tuna Casserole with veggie
Monday- Salmon with pesto and veggies
Tuesday- Fried Steaks with baby potatos and veggie
Wednesday- Chicken and cheese quesedillas with beef rice and corn
Thursday- Baked chicken wild rice and veggie
Friday- Eat out or order in Pizza
Saturday- German keilbasa with stir fry veggies and saurkraut

It's probably because of all the meat we eat that we go over....