Ever since my husband and I were married 15 years ago, I've been planning our weekly menu. Even if I don't take the time to write things down, I still have a few meals in mind that would get us through the week. It's in my nature to be a planner so planning a menu was obvious for my own sanity.
But, even if you're more of an impromptu cook, today I'd like to touch on the importance of menu planning, or why planning a menu is important, no matter what your situation is. We're all busy people so the power of a plan can help each of us tremendously!
Here are four reasons on the importance of menu planning:
Our health
Our health should be one of our main concerns and one way to ensure good health is to eat well. Having a menu plan in place helps you avoid take out and those quick pre-made meals that may not be well rounded. With planned meals, you'll end up with a more balanced and nutritious diet.
Keeps the budget in check
Groceries cost a lot. Save yourself some financial stress by planning your meals and your shopping list based on what's on sale and what you already have in your pantry. With a menu plan in place, you only have to purchase the ingredients you need create the meals you've picked. That's how I only spent about $33 this week on groceries. (Though, I'm anticipating a quick trip to buy more milk and fruit later in the week.)
Your time is important too
Whether you work outside the home or you're a stay-at-home parent, we're all juggling a ton of activities on a daily basis. While planning a menu in the first place takes a little bit of time, it will definitely save you time in the end.
You will always have the ingredients you need to create a meal from your planned menu. No running to the store for a last minute item or opening the fridge and cupboards 500 times to figure out what to make for dinner.
Or realizing it's 5pm and you just spent an hour trying to find a great recipe when dinner could have already been on the table. With a plan in place, all you have to do is pick a meal from the list and make it!
Reduces waste
Have you ever bought food from the grocery store thinking you'll use it for something, but end up throwing it out instead? If you stick to the grocery list that you created based on your planned meals, you won't be purchasing anything that you won't use. In turn, you'll be creating less waste, both in the food sense and financial sense!
I believe that the importance of menu planning cannot be stressed enough. Menu planning has made my life so much easier and I've heard the same from many others! Sometimes, the menu plan is the only thing in the day that goes as planned!
If you really struggle with menu planning, then try out $5 Meal Plan. It happens to be my favorite meal planning service. It’s just $5 a month (the first two weeks are free!), and you get menu plans sent straight to your email along with the exact shopping list you need in order to create the meals. Each meal costs around $2 per person or less. This service allows you to save time because you won’t have to meal plan anymore, and it will save you money as well! If you are interested in joining for free, click here.
What are some other benefits of menu planning that can you add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.
Buying groceries week after week can get extremely expensive! However, you can cut the cost of your grocery bill if you know what to buy and what to cook. Cooking on a budget doesn't mean eating just rice and beans. In fact you can prepare some amazing meals on even the smallest budget! Today's post will give you several tips for cooking on a budget.
7 Tips for Cooking on a Budget
Buy a Whole Chicken
Chicken breasts are significantly more expensive than purchasing a whole chicken. Look for sales on whole chicken and you will be able to stretch your dollar a lot further. Make sure to use all parts of the chicken. To make your money stretch even further, be sure to make chicken stock as well! (Here's a recipe for vegetable stock. To make chicken stock, just add the bones to this recipe.)
Look for Marked Down Meats
When purchasing steaks, pork or ground beef look for meat that has been marked down on clearance. Grocery stores have to sell all meat by the sell by date or throw it away. Stores would prefer not to throw away food so they mark it down low. When you see these clearance sales, stock up and cook it right away or freeze it to be used at a later date.
Use Fillers
You can make your meals stretch further by adding in potatoes, rice, beans, tortillas or whole-grain bread. All of these items can help to fill you up without incorporating a lot of meat.
Buy More Eggs
Eggs are less expensive than buying cereal and provide better nutrients. Eggs are high in protein and you can do so many different things with eggs. You can hard boil eggs for a quick snack on the go or an egg salad sandwich. You can also have a breakfast for dinner night with eggs, toast and some bacon.
Meal Plan
Meal planning is a great way to cook on a budget. Knowing what you will be eating in advance will prevent you from running to the store to pick up items that are not on sale. When you plan your meals in advance you have the opportunity to shop the grocery sales, which can also help save money.
Stock Up
When you find a great price on items your family eats on a regular basis, stock up as much as you can within your budget! Keeping a well stocked pantry means less trips to the store. The less often you have to go grocery shopping, the more money you will be able to save.
Buy the Cheap Cuts of Meat
People tend to avoid buying meats like pork shoulders or a chuck roast because they are a tougher cut of meat. However, both cuts of meat are quite inexpensive and you can make some very tasty stews with these cuts of meat. I suggest cooking these meats in the slow cooker on low for six to eight hours to make them as tender as possible.
What tips do you have for cooking on a budget? Do you have any go-to recipes you can share in the comments?
The following is a tip from Tammi about how to make a roast chicken stretch into many meals! Enjoy!
We have a family of seven. Five boys, my husband and myself. My guys sure know how to pack the food away and now that the 2 oldest are extremely close to becoming teenagers, we are finding that the food bills are going through the roof. Our favorite way to save $ is to purchase a roast chicken from the deli. (I believe we pay $7.99 at Costco?)
The first night we have sliced chicken with a salad and a veggie with a ‘artisan’ type bread while my boys fight over who gets the drumsticks and wings.
Day 2 – strip off as much chicken as possible off of the bones and shred it. We do a couple of different meals with this. Sometimes chicken quesadillas with some chopped onion and peppers, cheese and salsa. It depends on what veggies we have available in the fridge that day. Sometimes we do chicken Caesar wraps with tortillas, romaine lettuce, Caesar dressing, croutons and shredded chicken and chopped tomatoes. After wrapping, we throw them in a hot cast iron pan to sear them and give them that ‘restaurant’ wrap feel and taste.
Day 3 – throw the bones and leftover chicken bits and pieces in a large stock pot along with veggie scraps that I have been saving in the freezer to make chicken broth. Boil for a few hours and add water as needed. By the time you are finished, you will have a lovely chicken broth. Drain the stock through a colander and discard the bones and veggies – but make sure to strip off any more chicken that you can find. Take the remaining stock and split it in half. First we make chicken spaghetti with one half of the stock. (my kids FAVORITE meal!) Here’s how to make chicken spaghetti:
Put half of the stock back in the stock pot and add a few cups of water.
Add a few handfuls of spaghetti to the stock and boil for about 10-15 minutes. What is nice about this casserole is that you do not have to drain the spaghetti and you get a wonderful chicken flavor that soaks right into the pasta.
Add 2 cans of cream of mushroom (or any cream soup you happen to have around), some chopped onion, peppers and shredded cheese on top.
Bake in a preheated 400’C oven with the lid on for 25 minutes or so and then 10 minutes with the lid off and the broiler on.
I guess the trick to this is to not make the chicken the star of the meal, just a side-kick. It’s cost effective, it saves loads of time and it’s easy. Love our deli chicken meal stretcher!
I recently discovered that using cruise control can save a lot of money in gas! I’ve started using it whenever possible. I live rural, with a lot of highway driving, so it’s very easy to implement and it has saved us in fuel consumption. It’s hard to say how much this can save a person, depending on how often you use it, and the make/model of your vehicle, use of air conditioning etc…. This CNN article states that there is an average fuel savings of 7% while using cruise control: http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/09/pf/gas_myths/
This frugal tip was brought to you by Leah who submitted her tip for the Best Frugal Tip giveaway. The contest is still accepting entries through the end of July 12, 2013.
Pizza. So many ways to enjoy it. Homemade, frozen or delivery. Cheese, Hawaiian or meat lovers. If you love pizza as much as we do, you’ll want to read on for some tips to help you save on delivery pizza if you’re trying to stick to a budget. Actually, these tips can apply to any take-out restaurant!
Get Social
Find your favourite pizza delivery places on Facebook and Twitter. Follow them for updates on specials they will have throughout the year. Quite often, they’ll offer subscriber-only deals that aren’t available anywhere else but on Facebook or Twitter.
Sign up for Emails
This is most likely my favourite way to save on pizza! Head over to the websites of each pizza delivery place that you enjoy and sign up for their email newsletters. Often times, you’ll get an email within a couple of days of signing up with a great offer. Or you’ll receive regular updates on specials they’re running.
Junk Mail can be Good
Don’t disregard those junk mail flyers! Before you recycle them, take a look to see if there are any coupons or specials that interest you. We’ve been “sucked in” a few times by offers we couldn’t refuse!
Look for Coupon Codes
If you order pizza online, be sure to do a search for a coupon code. Search “pizza” on Retail Me Not. Or, as I mentioned above, take a look at the recent posts on Facebook or Twitter for any coupon codes that may be available.
Peruse Daily Deal Sites
Following daily deal sites like Goupon, WagJag or Living Social may be a great way to snag a discounted gift card to a local pizza delivery place. Once again, sign up for the emails sent out by daily deal sites if you don’t want to miss a great deal!
Look for Deals on the actual Website
Perhaps obvious, but this tip is worth noting! Make sure to look for deals on the actual pizza delivery website. As an example, Pizza Hut has a Deals tab that features an offer for a medium 3 topping pizza for only $10. Then, right on the homepage, Pizza Pizza has a couple of combo deals that sound tasty.
I’m not sure about you, but I really want some pizza right now!
How do you save on pizza delivery? Do you prefer delivery, homemade or frozen pizza?
Here are Lorraine’s suggestions for healthy meals in a hurry:
1) Make homemade vegetable soup with a beef bone for the broth and then add bags of frozen vegetables such as carrots, green peas, yellow and green beans, broccoli and cauliflower and cut up some onion, cabbage and celery. Make a big batch and freeze portions for later use. (In the fall, I freeze vegetables such as leek, zucchini, celery, peppers, shallots, broccoli, cauliflower) Add a can of crushed tomatoes with either quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, pasta and different types of legumes and there you have it, a meal in a bowl that is quick to heat up and very healthy. You can also make cream soups with almond beverage and chicken broth using a variety of frozen vegetables and once cooked, blend the mixture together for another quick meal.
2) Make casseroles such as chili’s, cabbage rolls, macaroni, tomatoes and cheese, Italian spaghetti sauce. You can buy frozen vegetables that are identified for spaghetti sauces (Arctic Gardens brand). You can also use frozen vegetables to prepare a stir fry with the left-over meat that you cooked in the slow cooker.
3) Buy a slow cooker and start a roast of beef or pork or chicken before leaving for work. You can add a couple of potatoes, carrots, rutabaga in the pot and once you arrive home, the meal is ready. Make enough to freeze for other future meals.
4) For desserts, eat fresh or frozen fruit with plain yogurt and a bit of maple syrup or honey. Make batches of healthy muffins.
5) For breakfasts, boil eggs while you are getting ready and have a muffin and a piece of fruit. Make smoothies with field berries, bananas, pineapple, plain yogurt and vanilla almond or rice beverage.
6) Grab a bag of spring mix vegetables, wash these thoroughly and add nuts, boiled eggs, left-over chicken or ham and have this with a whole grain bun. Quick, easy and healthy.
7) Some nights when we are tired, we make oatmeal with fresh fruit and whole grain toast and sip on a great cup of green tea.
8) We buy bagged coleslaw, broccoli slaw, shredded carrots and add those to the spring mix for a quick and healthy salad. We will sometimes add kidney beans or chick peas to our salad and grab a bagel, bun or muffin to eat with the salad.
Note: you can boil eggs ahead of time and keep them refrigerated or pickle them with vinegar. We always keep cheese on hand for a quick snack. We also buy vegetable juice and sip on it for extra vegetables when we don’t have time to cook.
We typically eat five to eight servings of vegetables and fruit per day; drink plenty of water and use lemon juice from real lemons and olive oil or balsamic vinegar in our salads instead of the prepared salad dressings.
I hope that these suggestions will help in making life simpler and healthier. It is also a frugal way to stretch the food budget by using for instance a roast one night and making use of the remaining meat in either a salad or a stew or stir fry. We also have soup, salad and sandwiches such as ham, lettuce and tomato, grilled cheese, chicken salad sandwiches, hummus, cucumber, lettuce and tomato sandwiches, roast beef sandwiches with chutney, all natural ham or wieners on occasion or fried egg sandwich with sweet onion (fry the egg in oils such as canola, grapeseed oil, sunflower oil, almond oil or any other first cold pressed oil that is unsaturated and healthy.
