The other night Adam took me to the national abstract art opening at the art center I am taking classes at. There we saw several of the ladies who are in my class. It was fun to chat with them out of class and get to know a few things about them. One of them commented how we live so far from town and said “I just don’t know how you do it, living so far out of town you must have to plan ahead a lot and I just couldn’t do it.” I told her it was something you just get used to and I really couldn’t imagine going to the store every night after I decide what i’m having for dinner. We chated a little long and I mae a stop at the store.
As I thought about what I should write next on my blog I decided to write about my menu planning and grocery sopping. I’ve had more than one person tell me they thought I had a talent with this and of course I really never thought that was true so I am sharing this skill that I have learned over the years for someone else who may be just starting with a large family and needs some tips and pointers of getting the huge shopping and mune planning complete.
Most of the time I have a running shopping list. I have things always on my list and most of them go with my THM eating plan. In order to make this list be able to fit each of you whether your eating THM or not I will not mention specifics as you should fill those things in yourself.
First I want to start by telling you the stores I love. I don’t often shop sales. If you do, good for you I totally have always wanted to be able to spend 50 dollars a week on groceries so if thats where your at coudos to you friend. I don’t shop with coupons or try extra to save money. I have never had the energy to do this kind of thing but I have always really wanted to. If you are an awesome couponer start a blog and I will totally read it and learn from you.
I’ve recently fallen in love with Aldi. If you have never shopped there before they have almost all my regular shopping items at a fraction of the cost. The reason they can have such great prices is because they don’t bag groceries and you have to bring your own bags. You also have to pay a quarter for your cart but you get it back when you return the cart. this cuts on cost of these extra workers other store have. They also have raw shelved with stacks of boxes so they don’t stock shelves just the boxes of items. Aldi also carries tons of organic items and gluten free.
I have also fallen in love with Costco. They have tons of gluten free items including the bread we love and frozen pizza. I love their produce because it always seems fresher than other stores. I love using my Costco credit card for gas because we get 4% back. Thats awesome. (I only use a credit card for my gas).
These are my normal store I go to and then I fill in at walmart and the local grocery store chain with items these two store don’t have. usually only one or two things.
Making my menu.
I have a running list of 30 meals my family loves. I usually make a menu for a month. I have a few meals that stay the same. We have Monday taco night and Friday pizza night. we also have Saturday morning pancakes and at noon we eat hamburgers. this is a family tradition since we were married. I then fill in all the dinners with the main dishes my family loves. I learned when I was a cook at a camp that people don’t remember the meals they ate 30 days ago. thats why I have 30 meals.
I then have on hand the sides I need. usually I don’t do a starch like potatoes because we no longer eat those. I usually have the main dish and then a veggie. My kids and husband eat corn, peas and cheesy green beans. When I serve peas or corn I usually sub my own veggie. Broccoli or spiraled zucchini.
So start building your menu. Recently I bought a dry erase menu board. It sticks to the outside of my cabinet. I love all kinds of dry erase boards. You can find this menu board on amazon here.
I usually feed my kids cereal or bread toast and jam for breakfast and our lunches are sandwiches or easy quick meals that I always have those items on hand.
From here I make my shopping list. I look what I have on hand and what I might need for the recipes. You can multiply this for several weeks if you would rather go once every two weeks or once a month. I also have a running list on a dry erase board on my refrigerator. This helps if I ran out of something I always have on hand.
A secret I learned: You can write on a dry erase board with sharpie and then remove it with nail polish remover. This makes it so nothing on my boards can be erased. (stay tuned for explanations about my organization boards for cleaning, schedules and activities.) Here are a few links to these things I’ve mentioned.
A dry erase board
http://<iframe style=”width:120px;height:240px;” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ src=”//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=makingimperfe-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B000Q33LNO&asins=B000Q33LNO&linkId=90c21ea44fd07ac040d07f17948304a6&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff”> </iframe>
A package of multi colored sharpies.
Grocery shopping:
On my grocery trip I usually plan to make three stops. I load up my cooler bags and thirty one bags and off I go. Usually I have two kids in tow. I plan to go to Costco around lunch time for the awesome taste tests and they have super cheap pizza and also I get their huge ceaser salad. I then conquer the stores. With little ones I like loading the groceries right into the bags in the back of the car. I can buckle in the kids and hand them a snack before I start so they aren’t running around aldi stressing me out. Sometimes the weather doesn’t allow this but thats what I hope for.
I hope this has inspired you to make a plan I know it sure has inspired me to get at it again. Sometimes I don’t always follow this strategy. Life gets busy and I get out of the menu planning stages. But it sure does help me when I do it. Now I am going off to make my menu and grocery list for the next time I go to town.
Signing off from one woman to another.
Jenny Ren
If you want to get one of the items I have linked here it benefits me if you buy right from amazon when you click from my website. Win Win because I get a little profit from your purchase and you get products I already have tried out for you! Thanks for shopping too.