Archives for May 2011

How to Implement a Weekly Menu Plan

May 31, 2011 By MelissaB 5 Comments

We talked last time about why you should create a menu plan. Today, we will tackle how to menu plan. Honestly, there is no correct way to menu plan, but here are some of the most common methods:

Assign a Meal to a Day of the Week

Some people make it very easy on themselves and create a designated meal for each day of the week. For instance,

Monday—Mexican
Tuesday—salad
Wednesday—pasta
Thursday—pizza
Friday—casserole
Saturday—leftovers
Sundays—soup and sandwich

Then, they just plug in a meal for each day. Maybe one Monday they will have fajitas, the next Monday they will have tacos, the next quesadillas. Whatever they eat on Monday is some type of Mexican food.

Make a Menu Plan Once a Month

With this method, you look at your upcoming monthly calendar and plan meals accordingly. For instance, in my case, my son has tap dance class every Wednesday night. I know on these nights not to plan anything time intensive. On Wednesdays, I either choose crock pot meals that allow me to do the prep work in the morning and then require no additional work from me, or I schedule that day as a day to eat leftovers.

Similarly, if you look at the calendar and see that you are taking Uncle Joe out to eat on the 20^th and you know he will want to go to a steak house, you probably won’t schedule another beef meal on the 19^th or 21^st.

This method works great for people who generally dislike menu planning and prefer to get a month’s worth of planning done in one setting.

Choose Your Menu Plan Based on What Is on Sale

Probably the most common method of menu planning is to center your meals around what is on sale at the grocery store. So, you get your supermarket ads on Sunday and see that ground beef is on sale as well as whole wheat pasta. Salmon is also on sale. Maybe you choose to make spaghetti (spaghetti sauce recipe) on Tuesday night, lasagna on Wednesday night and a salmon salad for Friday night, for example.

If you don’t regularly stock up on groceries when they hit rock bottom prices, this is the method of menu planning that will net you the largest savings.

Choose Your Menu Plan Based on What You Have in the Pantry

This is the method that I prefer because I regularly stock up on groceries when they are at rock bottom prices. Before I make my menu plan for the week, I look at what ingredients I have at home and make a menu centered around those items. Recently I bought Tilapia on sale, so we will be having a fish meal this week. I also bought imitation crab meat on sale two weeks ago (prepackaged), so I will be making crab cakes. However, I don’t want all of my meals for the week to be seafood based. I see that chicken is on sale for $1.49 a pound, so I plan two chicken meals and also buy some extra chicken to stock up in the freezer. I also have tomatoes and avocado that need to be used up, so I plan on having taco salad another day.

Final Thoughts on Menu Planning

The most important part of menu planning is choosing the method that works best for you and your family because then you will be most likely to stick with it. In addition, remember to be flexible with yourself. If you have a meal planned on Monday that you don’t feel like cooking Monday night, it is okay to jump to Wednesday night’s meal. It really doesn’t matter which day you prepare which meal as long as you prepare all of the meals within a week’s time so you don’t waste ingredients.

Finally, if you are ready to take the leap to menu planning, one of my favorite free online resources is food.com. You can easily search for the type of meal that you would like to make and find hundreds of recipes, many of which have been ranked by other users. I tend to only use recipes that earn 4.5 to 5 stars out of 5.

You may feel as if you don’t have time to meal plan, but often menu planning saves an enormous amount of time. If you don’t do it already, I hope you will try it.

photo credit: Emily Barney

The Benefits of Weekly Menu Planning

May 27, 2011 By MelissaB 3 Comments

Does this sound familiar? It is 5 p.m., and you stop by the grocery store after work. You don’t have much time to make dinner before you have to go to a parent/teacher conference at 7 p.m., so you buy some carrot sticks, a pound of meat, whole wheat buns and sloppy joe mix from a package. Oh, don’t forget a bag of chips. That covers dinner for tonight.

The next night, it is the same story, but this time you have had a really stressful day at work and all you want to do is go home and relax, so you go through the drive through and spend $25 to feed your family of four.

If this sounds familiar and you want to save yourself some time and money, try menu planning.

Life is busy whether you are a stay at home parent or employed full time, whether you have kids or not. A menu plan is the best way to help control the chaos that surrounds dinner time.

The Time Investment

True, it does take some time to create a menu plan, but you will reap the rewards all week long. In the beginning, you can expect to spend about 30 to 60 minutes once a week picking your recipes and making a grocery list. (The time you spend doing this will lessen as you become more comfortable with the routine and create a repertoire of recipes that you and your family like.)

The Time Payoff

If you go to the grocery store with a list of all the necessary ingredients needed to make your meals for the week, you will be focused. You should be out of the grocery store in 60 minutes or less.

If you operate without a menu plan, it is not unusual to stop by the grocery store (or to go through the drive thru) four to five times a week. If your average stop is about 20 to 30 minutes, you are spending 80 to 150 minutes a week. Having a grocery list and shopping only once a week will save you 20 to 90 minutes a week!

The Financial Payoff

Unless you are extremely disciplined, you make impulse buys when grocery shopping. Let’s say you make three impulse buys each time you shop. If you only enter the grocery store once a week, you are only making 3 impulse buys. If you grocery shop 5 times a week, you will likely make 15 impulse buys. Depending on the price of the unplanned items, you could be spending as much as $15 to $30 and upwards a month by shopping so frequently.

If you make a menu plan and a grocery list, you give yourself time to look through the ads and choose recipes that take advantage of sale items, lowering your grocery bill overall. By contrast, if you stop by the store every night and buy what you “feel” like eating that night or what is convenient to make, you will be spending much more weekly.

Even though it may not be something you do now, hopefully realizing the time and financial payoffs will have you thinking about menu planning. Next time we will explore the mechanics of menu planning.

(B.B. Note: ~~Make sure you come back on Tuesday to~~ read about how to implement a Menu Plan!)

photo credit: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

Car Trouble Part 4: Almost Done

May 16, 2011 By Shane 2 Comments

If you need to catch up (It’s been since early March since the last update) here are parts 1, 2, and 3. And this, this is part 4. And yes, there is likely to be at least a part 5.

When we last left off, we had bought the suburban, and the other car had yet to even have the motor torn down to see what was wrong with it.

We finally got an estimate and gave the go-ahead to work on the engine of the Alero. It came back at about what we thought it was going to be. And the grand total of about $3400 was pretty close too. It’s a pretty large number, but we breathed a small sigh of relief for no more surprises there. In order to pay for the repairs, we had to take a new loan out on the Alero. We owned the Alero in full, so it kinda sucks having to take the title in and sign paperwork for a loan on a car that you used to own. On the other hand, it’s nice to have that asset to use when needed. Imagine what the result could have been if we had still owed on the car!

We’ve also taken a couple of longish trips with the suburban. And with the price of gas, we’ve felt every mile of them. But, for those trips, the necessity is there. We’ve now taken two trips that have included the whole family, even the dog. It’s pretty nice to not have to try and find someone to watch the dog while we’re gone, or to find a kennel for him while we’re away. In the case of the kennel, the extra cost in gas easily pays for itself. We’ll be taking a long trip next month to see my parents. It’s well over 900 miles from here, and it generally takes us a full day (with a motel room in the middle) to get there. We’ll take the dog with us. I’m sure the savings on kennel won’t overcome the extra cost of gas on this trip, but it will still be nice to have him with us. Aside from a few pangs of regret when I fill it up, I’m glad we ended up getting the Suburban. And, even the gas isn’t that bad, it’s just that the tank is twice as large as either of our cars’ tanks. It adds up so much quicker.

Since we have the Alero back, and it works, it’s time to thin the herd. We’ve decided to sell the Cavalier. Based on what it books out for, we think we should be able to get enough out of it to pay off the loan we took on the Alero. If that happens, we’ll be back to owning the Alero outright again, which will be nice. We’ll still have a payment on the Suburban, but it’s worth the upgrade. We haven’t listed the Cav just yet, but put a big sign in it’s window and then parked it at the parking lot at work. The parking lot has wonderful frontage to the main intersection in town and can’t be beat, since I don’t have to pay to park there.

Surprise. We parked the Cavalier there Friday night. Today, (Sunday) I went and showed it to a couple who liked it. They’ll be going to the bank tomorrow, and as long as they can get the financing to buy the car, they think they’ll take it. If all of that goes through, it could be nearly the shortest sale time of a car ever! I guess we priced it right!

Hopefully, we’ll find out whether they are going to take the car tomorrow, and if they do, be able to pay off the loan on the Alero on Tuesday. With that puzzle piece out of the way, and barring any unforeseen other car issues, that could set us up for the final installment of the car trouble series later this week! I can only hope!

photo credit: dawnmichele