What Do You Want For Dinner?

That question gets asked far too frequently in my house.

And I'm hoping that with some forward thinking I can get it to stop!
Back in August, I had a meal planner, and it worked fairly well. But I fell out of the habit of using it. Well, really, I fell out of using my planner entirely, but that's a different story for a different day.

But, I decided that now is the time to get back to planning our meals. It's easier on us - no asking every day what we're going to be eating. It's easier on our budget - we save money by eating less fast food and delivery pizza. And we end up having more to eat - instead of running out of things from a lack of planning ahead.

This is this week in my planner. Not a whole lot going on, but the purple is what we are to eat each night.
I screwed up a few days; Thursday and Friday weren't so hot for me, so we had a everyone for themselves night yesterday (Friday), and I had the Mister make the frozen pizza Thursday.
Either way, though, the concept is there.

Grocery shopping is on Fridays, per my cleaning schedule, which I managed to get done yesterday, and so my kitchen is now restocked. On Sunday, I will be planning out all of next week's meals (even though the Mister will be away on a business trip for most of the week).

I also made a list of meals we eat regularly. It's not a whole lot of stuff, and most of it is rather simple, but it suits us. There are only two of us, so big fancy meals make no sense. We have simple tastes, so chicken nuggets are a great, quick meal. Every once in a while, there is a hankering for chicken enchiladas (which requires 40 minutes in the oven), but for the most part, I cook dinner when the Mister says he's hungry - I never get a warning that he's going to want to eat until it's "that time", and with his job, when he gets home can vary wildly.

Grocery shopping is fairly straight forward for my household, but sometimes knowing when a sale is worth passing on or not can get complicated.

And that's how I've ended up with 7 cans of refried beans. I had no idea how many I had at home, but I did know that 88 cents a can was too good to pass up!
I've thought for a while that it would be handy to know what I already had at home while out shopping, but never did anything about it.
Until last night.

This is my new Pantry and Freezer Inventory, using a printable I found over at Scattered Squirrel. These are items that we pretty much always need to have.
I went through and wrote out how many of each item we had, with the date on the top.
Next Thursday, I will have to do a check on everything, and update any totals, for when I go to the store on Friday. That way, if I happen to see that Pasta Roni or Frozen Burritos are on sale, I can pick some up. I would rather save money now, than wait until we need it and pay full price!

I don't actually hate grocery shopping.

I find that it's rather an enjoyable process. I don't like paying for it, and I never like the getting there or going home, but while I'm actually at the store getting the groceries, I feel like everything is under control.

This is the list I used on Friday. With sale prices, and how long the sales were to be going on for, as well as how many I purchased.
I separated my list by sale or store coupon, digital coupon (I shop at Fred Meyer, which is a Kroger store, so you can "load" digital coupons onto your rewards/loyalty card), and non-sale items.
I also keep old lists in my planner, to be able to compare previous sale prices and decide whether or not 1.50$ is worth spending now, or wait a few weeks and see if the item drops to 1$.

I'm rather fond of this system!

At just about any one time, I can know how much of something I have in my house.  I can see if a sale price is actually a good sale or not, and I know what we're going to eat days in advance (and can change that, if need be).

How do you handle meal planning in your house? Do you shop sales as well? I'd love to hear how you go about this!

~ Havok

If you liked this post, check out these other posts!

Home Management

The Grocery Store [isn't really that bad] [i promise]

Eating a Rainbow