Yesterday we talked about meal planning. To consistently get dinner on the table on even the busiest of days, I have found that meal planning is the first step, but it doesn’t stop there.
Right after I make my meal plan and hang it up for my family to see, I make a shopping list. I look at every meal I’ve planned to cook during the month and I consider the ingredients. My meals are not very complicated, so my ingredients are pretty straightforward. If you are trying a new recipe, you might need to review it to make sure you have all of the ingredients.
I’ve been doing this for a while, so I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing how much of each ingredient I will need based on the Costco sizes available at our local Costco. But for the first several months, I used tally marks. For example, if I was cooking spaghetti twice and biscuits and gravy twice, I would have four tally marks beside “sausage” on my shopping list. Once I’ve gone through each day and considered what ingredients I will need to buy, I add things like fresh fruits, veggies, breakfast cereals, granola bars, applesauce, and snacks. It really doesn’t take me much longer to make this one monthly list than it would to make one list for a week.
But, yes, it does cost more in one trip when you make one big monthly trip. The perk is that it keeps my overall monthly spending significantly lower (as in hundreds of dollars cheaper, y’all). Think about it: stores are strategically designed to encourage you to spend money–it’s how they stay in business. So it stands to reason that the fewer times you step into the spending trap, the less money you’re going to spend. So once a month, I go into Costco with my list in hand and I buy everything I will need to make all of the meals I have planned for the month.
I am not perfect at my monthly shopping trips, and the person at Costco who has to check my receipt is never psyched to see me, but I can tell you that it saves me so much time and energy and stress to only have to make that big trip once a month. Honestly, I don’t think I spend any more time in Costco for my one trip than I did back when I aimlessly walked every aisle just to see what they had or what I felt like buying and eating that week. And, let’s face it: we’re too busy to take those leisurely strolls every week.
If I have to make a quick dash into the local grocery store for a
Think about what you average each time you walk into a grocery store to grab “a few things.” It adds up so quickly!
Plus, if you have the ingredients on-hand, and the meal plan posted prominently, you have eliminated your two biggest obstacles! Getting dinner on the table is so much easier when you have the plan in place and the ingredients at the ready.
Tomorrow we’ll look at some easy ways to make dinner prep easier and faster!
