What is on your menu?
@happythoughts (4109)
United States
April 9, 2012 12:19pm CST
I did my best budgeting when I was on a 30 day menu. The savings were great but the time I didnt have to spend at the store was even better. Breakfast and lunch are simple or leftovers so I dont plan them out just dinners. I quit for a while when things got tough around the house and we ended up going out to dinner a lot more. Now were getting back on the savings and the planning.
I plan out a menu for the calendar month with two simple floater meals to fill in. The floater meals are things I can throw together in a few minutes so that if we have a roast that takes 3 hours to cook planned that day and something comes up we can use a floater meal and eat the roast another day. I dont stay to my calender firm but we do stay firm on the things that will spoil.
This month we are planning two weeks and then repeating the weeks. Today we are having Beef Enchiladas so I will cook them for dinner tonight plus make an extra pan for two weeks from now. Tomorrow we will have Chili Verde and so I will make extras of that too. I love my freezer! (I will actualy be making 6 beef enchiladas and chili verdes to carry over to next month as well but it wont show up on this months menu again.) The rest of the week is Chicken Pot Pie, Meatloaf, Spaghetti, Breakfast Burritos, Baked Chicken and rice, Bacon Pasta, Steak Soup over Rice, Lasagna, Tacos, Jambalaya, red beans and rice, and BBQ burgers.
Do you plan a menu? What are your plans for dinner this month?
3 responses
@cher913 (25782)
• Canada
9 Apr 12
i plan by the week what meals we will have at night and then i buy accordingly. i generally go by what i have on hand and what will go with what. i love the freezer as well but the key there is to make sure you have it cleaned out every few months to see what gets shoved to the bottom.
@happythoughts (4109)
• United States
9 Apr 12
Isnt that so true. I lose stuff in my freezer all the time. I found a turkey in there today. It was a small one but still a whole turkey snuck in there. Turns out my Hubbys parents found one on a great deal and got us one. Hubby brought it home and never told me. Its been there since november behind a bunch of frozen vegis Im just getting around to using. It was like finding $10 since it will save us that much in dinners next month. Maybe even more.
@GemmaR (8517)
•
24 Apr 12
In supermarkets in our country, there are brands of food that the supermarket have made themselves, rather than the branded items that are in every shop. Although they don't taste very different, they are a lot cheaper and this means that you don't have to spend as much money in your weekly shop as you might have had to if you bought the same brands that the majority of people choose to. This is something that I have discovered in the past couple of weeks, and I will admit that I don't plan to change this habit again anytime soon.
@marguicha (215179)
• Chile
9 Apr 12
I don´t plan my menus like that as I like to think day by day what I would like to eat. Sometimes, when a veggie is asking to be used in a hurry, I make a dish using it. But normally it depends on my wants at a certain moment. But as I have to live frugal, I know that there are ingredients that I cannot buy and others that I must use in one way or another at least once a week. Now that Autumn is starting, I make casseroles at least once a week. I also like an awesdome onion and potato soup that is a meal in itself. There are meals with little meat and season veggies. I will eat pasta once a week, either with pesto (made from homegrown basil) or tomato sauce.
