Meal Planning 101

About a month ago, Michael and I decided to do something we've been talking about doing for the past year:  Meal planning.  We both knew it was a great idea that would help us save money on our grocery bill, but it took both of us being home to really get it started.  I have a few friends who do it, and seeing their meal plan blog posts inspire me to keep it up.

From time to time I'll post a week's worth of scheduled recipes here and fill you in on how it's going.  One thing we try to do every time we sit down to fill out a meal plan is to keep an eye out for recipes with ingredients we already have.  Part of the reason is so that we can start cleaning out our cabinets better before we move.  That part is really working, and there's less random stuff for the movers to pack up.  An immediate result I've seen is the time we spend in the commissary.  We used to just go down every aisle, picking up stuff we'd like to try.  We still do that a little, but the meal plan grocery list really cuts down on mindless grocery shopping, thus getting us in and out with no tantrums and a smaller grocery bill.  Now, the "extras" we pick up are things like crackers, fruit snacks for Jericho and spices.  So far, it's coming along really well but we did only just begin.  We'll see how we're still doing in a few months.

These are our go-to planning resources.  We use them a lot, especially the Good Housekeeping Cookbook.  I got the Rachael Ray one for Christmas - we use that one more for lunches because it includes recipes to feed less than four, and they're very easy.  Pioneer Woman's cookbook is my personal favorite, but that book is better for supper because they feed so many and take a while to cook.  I love sitting down to look for new recipes I haven't tried before, and I would definitely recommend these cookbooks!  Most of the recipes are very basic and require typical ingredients you'd already have on hand.  Rachael Ray's does call for some odd stuff once in a while, but it's easy to substitute or omit the things you don't have or can't get.  That should also be easier for us once we are living Stateside.

Happy planning!