Meal planning got a lot of attention in my last post! Who knew people would be so intrigued?! A lot of people asked for me to elaborate... so here we go! Meal planning comes second nature to me. It's hard for me to explain how I do it, I just do. I don't understand how one would grocery shop without meal planning? Like, what do you buy? Serious question.
So, I decided to post about our budget and our meal plan this month! Here are a few tips on how we keep our grocery budget down.
*** We eat as healthy as our budget allows. We believe in a whole foods, organic diet... but we have caviare taste on a hot dog budget. You make it work. You do the best you can. ***
1. Shop At Aldi.
Alid's allows us to get WAY more for our money and still eat whole foods. Especially with their new Organic and Simply Nature line. It makes eating very affordable for us.
2. Minimal Fresh Fruit, Veggies, Dairy and Meat
Fresh produce is expensive. Don't get me wrong I LOVE fresh produce. Drop me in the middle of Fresh Markets organic produce section and instant relaxation. Its my happy place. I could just camp out in the sea of organic veggies.....BUT our budget does not allow for a ton of fresh produce. We replace as much fresh produce as we can with frozen. Its cheaper and does not go bad. I am allergic to dairy so the only dairy we buy is cheese and we make sure at least 50% of our meals are vegetarian. To replace buying cows milk, we buy almond milk. Almond milk has a longer shelf life than cows milk anyways. Every meal will include protein, it just might be in the form of beans which are cheap.
3. Minimal trips to the store
I used to shop for the whole month in one trip. When you are working its the easiest. Now that I am at home we go twice a month. This WILL reduce your budget. Use what you have in your home. The more trips you make to the store the more you will spend. Simple as that.
4. Get Organized
Write your meal plan, write your grocery list, and stick to it. Do not allow anything in your cart that was not written down. Use self control. Do not let promos and advertising allow you to go out of budget. I write my lists, organize them by isle/type of food, what ever works. The more organized you are the better chance you have to succeed.
5. Use Cash and Bring a Calculator
Here's where you get serious. We run a cash budget. We don't like debt. We are in debt and it sucks. Hopefully, one day we can live debt free. We are huge believers in living within your means. We pay cash for everything possible. Our goal is to have no mortgage, car payments or student loans one day. So, bring your grocery budget money in cash to the grocery store. Get our your phone or calculator and add up everything while going down the isle. When you hit your max, stop. If you don't have everything you "need" then prioritize. "Need" is such an over used term in our culture.
6. Don't Buy Pre-Packaged Food
Super expensive. Super bad for you. Don't do it.
7. Stock the Freezer Not the Fridge.
Some days you will look in our fridge and it will appear we have no food. Usually, we do, it is just all in the freezer. This takes planning but helps prevent throwing away food and wasting food. We freeze things that people don't always think of... like bread, chopped up fresh veggies (onion and peppers), tortillas, all the cheese we buy... ext. We just thaw when those items are needed.
So, thats the basics of how we make this work. Does it always work? Of course not, but we try our hardest.
This is what it looks like in real life for us:
We have a monthly budget of $200 (or $50 a week) for groceries in our home. I meal plan about 15 recipes per trip. These 15 recipes will provide at least 30 meals for us. (Not including breakfast and snacks) That makes each meal about $3.33 which is $1.66 per person. Here are the meals for this grocery trip and we can break it down a little more:
1. Cuban Rice and Beans with Rice and Avocado (v)
2. Ham and Beans with Corn Bread
3. Sloppy Joes and Homemade Chips (Pioneer Women)
4. Spaghetti (v)
5. Broccoli Ham and Cheese Potatoes
6. Cheese Enchiladas (v)
7. Turkey Pot Pie
8. Stir Fry (v)
9. Veggie and Ham Scramble with Biscuits
10. Beef Stew (Iowa Girl Eats)
11. Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese (v)
12. Veggies Pizza (v)
13. Penne a la Vodka (v)
14. Cheesy Taco Soup
15. Bean Burritos (v) (Homemade "refried" beans)
***(v) = vegetarian***
***Breakfast will include Oatmeal or Cereal.***
54% of our meals are vegetarian this time. Let me explain, we have leftovers that were given to us from the holidays and froze them. The left over ham and turkey will serve as additions to these meals. If it weren't for these, there would be less meat featured. So, we actually only bought hamburger meat and stew meat on this trip. We also had a TON of pinto beans and rice given to us so that helps our meals stretch a little further.
We went to Aldi's today and Spent $103.00 of our $200 budget. We will stretch it and make it last as long as possible. At least two weeks. I can get pretty creative though and sometimes make it stretch longer. Any money that we don't use in our cash grocery budget for the month gets put into savings. This is a HUGE incentive to make it last! Save where you can!
Some day when we are not on such a tight budget I want to include local meat and raw dairy to our diet. Until then, we will continue to meal plan this way.
There you go! Hope it helps! Enjoy your future meal planning :)
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