Is one of your goals for 2015 to stay on a budget? It’s one of mine and I’ve found the easiest way to stay on track is by meal planning. I like to plan ahead for two weeks for a few resasons. One- It gives us more variety when it comes to dinner choices. And two, and the biggest reason, it keeps me out of the stores. If I only go shopping once every two weeks I’m only half as likely to buy all those extras that somehow found their way into the cart. I had the luxury yesterday of going grocery shopping by myself and it was such a nice little break. AND I was able to stay under budget without little hands grabbing every sweet treat they could reach.
Another thing I like to do before I got to the store is plan out about how much I’m going to spend. I know what our monthly budget is for food and I break that up into four trips; two to the grocery store and two to Costco. I have a pretty good idea about what things cost so as I’m planning my meals and making my list I add things up and have a close guess to what the trip will cost. For this trip I budgeted $75 and spent a little under $74; not too bad for two weeks worth of food. Check out what we’ll be eating the next two weeks below.
Breakfast:
Eggs & Toast
Oatmeal
Pancakes
Cereal
Lunch:
Hot Pockets
Corndogs
Chicken Nuggets
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Quesadillas
Leftovers
Snacks:
Smoothies
Fruit
Popcorn
Fruit Snacks
Pretzels
Nachos
Dinner:
Burgers with fries and zucchini
Cranberry chicken with rice and green beans
Brown sugar glazed pork chops with fries and carrots
Southwest chicken salad
Tortellini and spinach soup
One pot tomato basil pasta
Honey sesame chicken with rice and carrots
Asian lemon chicken tenders with fries and zucchini
Tortellini bean soup
(Baked) fried chicken with mashed potatoes and zucchini
I’m trying out several new recipes I’ve been putting together over the last few weeks so you’ll be seeing a lot of this list on the blog the next few weeks. And to help you with meal planning and keeping to your budget I have created a FREE meal plan printable for you to use to plan your meals. Take your pick of colors!
Click here to print the blue planner.
Click here to print the pink planner.
Click here to print the green planner.
Click here to print the orange planner.
What ways do you have of saving and budgeting when it comes to meal planning and grocery shopping?
This is awesome! And such a smart idea. Meal planning is something I REALLY want to work on this year. Pinning this for future reference!
Thanks so much Erin! It’s nice to have one less thing to think about during the day.