Click the image to enlarge

Let’s face it, school starts in a few days, the summer is coming to a close and you need to get back into a routine for the fall and winter months. Why not make it easier by getting started on your menu planning now? Here are some tips to get you started with some recipes from a previous post on saving money by utilizing your kitchen pantry staples.

1. Start with the current year spreadsheet, just make sure that it has tabs for each month for easy navigation.
2. Decide how often you want to cook dinner during the week. Personally, I don’t cook everyday, even though I like cooking, I just don’t have the time as I’d like to at this point. So I cook every other day, leave leftovers so that we can have something for the in between days. IF you choose to cook everyday, great, if not that’s fine too.
3. Enter your meals in each day/cell of the spreadsheet based on your time schedule and level of difficulty. During the week I like to add meals that will take no more than 1 hour to completion because I truly hate slaving over a pot.
4. Research meals that take no more than 30 minutes from start to completion, these will be a life saver when you have those unexpected derailments and just need to whip something up quick and easy.
5. In the notes section, add your WEEKLY shopping list of the things you need to purchase. You can start by adding Week 1…Week 2…and what have you…this way you know exactly what you need to buy at the start of each week. You can also find print shopping list templates here.
6. Extra: Add recipes to your spreadsheet like this: Right click on your day/cell, click on insert comment, a text box should pop up, then copy and paste your recipe or make adjustments as needed. Hit enter and your done. Hover your mouse over the cell and VOILA you now have your recipes within the cell for easy reference
7. Email your spreadsheet to yourself or print it out to put in a folder for safe keeping. I like to email mine since that works best for me.

Now for the good stuff:

Click the easy button, pass go and collect ready made recipes!

I found a neat site where users can find recipes by entering an ingredient or keyword. This can be the main ingredient in your recipe or if you have a few items in your pantry and not sure what to do with them. The results give you the recipe and the fat calories, carbs and protein count for each serving. You may need one or two extra ingredients but overall the recipes are pretty basic.

Here are two of the recipes I came across:

Baked Garlic Lemon Chicken

Homemade Beef Stew

Check out a search I performed here for of all things “basil” and “tuna”, I got some pretty tasty results:

(Click to enlarge)

Why menu planning?

• Saves time and money
• You put more thought into creating healthy meals and not last minute fast food options
• You can buy in bulk knowing what you’ll be having for dinner two weeks from now
• Discover new recipes that are healthier and faster to prepare

Here’s the previous post where we shared the basic kitchen staples. Now it’s your turn, share your favorite recipe that you can whip up within 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Most Popular Posts

• Grocery Bill Doubled In 9 Months: We Have A Problem
• Aldi: Cheap Thrills And Even Cheaper Groceries
• 4 Ways I Hacked $1300 From Our Budget
• 7 Savvy Ways To Be A Financial Asset In Your Relationship

My husband and I are pretty busy during the week. This makes it hard to come home from a long day at work and classes to cook a healthy meal. Especially one large enough to last for the next day or two. This past fall semester we fell off the menu planning bandwagon but we plan too get back when the semester starts again in January. I have today to complete the planning for January and February, March and April might be pushing it.

Why menu planning?

Save Money

Last year we got Microsoft Money Plus and I realized that we’d been taking too many unnecessary trips to the supermarket. At one point I was at Harris Teeter 3-4 times a week for things that I could have gotten over the weekend and spending more money thereby putting us over the allotted grocery budget. By planning our meals for the week I was able to spend only what we needed for the week and in most cases that means the basics like chicken, fish and vegetables. We stocked the basics like milk, bread, cheese etc etc bi monthly but would shop weekly for the menu depending on the recipes. This way I wasn’t running to the supermarket like a maniac after work and/or classes buying things I probably would cook that week but wanted to have options. If you’re also a fan of the envelope method, this plan works perfectly in that you’re able to break down your grocery funds weekly and remain under budget. I’m a visual gal so the above calendar works very well for me.

Save Time

As I mentioned above, Ive spent many a evening in the supermarket roaming the aisles trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Since I would often have no idea about what we already had I would spend more time trying to cook up a recipe in my head and then hunt for the ingredients. With menu planning I am able to print out my list of ingredients for the week, go to the supermarket (ex: Saturday or Sunday) and shop for the rest of the week.

Lose Weight

Ladies I know I have your attention! When you plan your menus, you’re not roaming the supermarket aisles on an empty stomach. And we all know that you don’t go grocery shopping on an empty stomach because that leads to impulse buys that will often sabotage our diets. You can also extend this to include breakfast and lunch. This way you can pack your lunch and plan what you will have for breakfast and avoid those midday snacks that’ll bust your diet or healthy eating plan.

How do I get started?

For the techies you can just open up an excel sheet and enter the dishes on the days you plan on cooking. Excel also allows you to place the recipe in the COMMENT section of the cell so that when you hover the mouse over the cell, the recipe pops up.

Example:

Otherwise I’ve seen notebooks, whiteboards and the like. Still the calendar is the most popular from what I’ve seen. You only need something that will enable you to write down your recipe and the ingredients along with the day of the week.

Here’s a printable one from FrugalVillage:

Given my schedule it isnt possible for me to cook every day of the week. So when classes are in session I cook every other day with enough to have left overs. My husband then cooks on Fridays, Saturdays in the summer. This semester he’s volunteered for 2-3 days in the week because I won’t be home until 10pm on those days. This system works pretty well for us because again we’re so busy so we have to share the duties in this area.

Happy Planning!

Most Popular Posts

• Grocery Bill Doubled In 9 Months: We Have A Problem
• Aldi: Cheap Thrills And Even Cheaper Groceries
• 4 Ways I Hacked $1300 From Our Budget
• 7 Savvy Ways To Be A Financial Asset In Your Relationship