Planning The Meals

Planning For The Month

My plan is to post Monday through Friday and take the weekends off.

On Facebook when I post that planned the meals for a month, friends can't believe it! Actually they are amazed that I plan at all especially for a week.  A couple of years ago we decided to use cash all of the time. Dave Ramsey and the Money Saving Mom recommended the cash only part. We are not perfect, but we use cash 90% of the time.  At times it totally sucks, especially when we don't have money for unplanned trip to the movies or a Daily Queen visit. The other times I love knowing that we have money for gas and groceries.  Since we only get paid once a month, planning the bills and money on a monthly basis made sense.

From there I started planning our meals on a weekly basis, two weeks, and finally a monthly calendar.  Later we started buying items in bulk - our chicken from Zaycon, ground beef chubs at Costco and everything else on sale from the Tuesday or Wednesday circulars.  That helps because I take stock of everything in the freezer and plan the meals around the items we have.  I write on the calendar when I won't be there or we have plans with friends.  For instance, I have Bunco tonight and Book Club on the 28th (it isn't listed on the calendar - oops!).

I shared June meals for you to look over.  The calendar is basic not cutesy at all. Of course we don't always followed it. I will say we didn't resort to eating out, because that would be a waste of the food that we have in our freezers.  Yes, you read that correctly we have more that one freezer.  We have three and they are backed with food - meat mostly.  At the end of the month I will put checks on the days that we ate that meal. It might not be on that day, but we ate it.

Now you are probably thinking how does she plan for a month?  I have many cookbooks, cooking magazines and binders of recipes that we tried and liked. Along with the "tried and true" meals I  also try to fix a new recipe at least once or twice a week. Sometimes they turn out great, but other times they are horrible.   I will share the marked off the meals in July, plus tell you when meals are duds.  I will be honest in that respect, plus I will share the good recipes with their links plus my changes. I always change them!

Honestly not all of my meals are gourmet. I am not the kind of cook. My mom was but I am not. I label myself as a home cook and baker focusing on the word "Home".  I can't make yeast breads, stews or pot roasts to save my life. I have tried and they bombed!  I now let Patrick made those.  My husband is a great cook and we enjoy trying out new recipes together.   He would like us to perfect our vegetable recipes. So you might see more and more veggie recipes.  I posted My Greek Salad yesterday. If you missed it, it is there.

Most of my recipes don't have a ton of ingredients and easy to put together.  A lot of them are Crockpot recipes or grilled on the BBQ. Easy peasy!  I have a new toy - a pressure cooker.  Of course I haven't used it yet - yet is the key word. In the coming months I will share those recipes too. On the calendar I have leftovers listed in the month plus hamburgers and brauts nights too. The calendar is on the refrigerator so that everyone can reference it. The calendar is to help me and Patrick not hurt us.  Of course sometimes we don't follow it at all. That happens and we still try to make it easy on us.

I didn't mean to write this much.  I am trying to make them short and sweet. Just like me. I know some of my friends are laughing right now.  Talk to you tomorrow.