Jumping on the Meal Planning Bandwagon

I used to be one of those grocery shoppers that would hit up Wal-Mart every two weeks only to walk the aisles aimlessly, (usually hungry), throwing whatever looked good and was semi-healthy into the cart.  This amounted to lots of instant rice, pasta, and low-cal microwavable dinners.  Anyone else have the same strategy?  I didn't realize how much processed food I was consuming (um, everything!) and that while cooking from "scratch" was more time consuming, it actually costed less.  My aimless grocery shopping got me through undergrad and grad school, so I can't hate on it too much, but now that I have a family, I decided it was time to make a change.

I started off slowly by planning a few days in advance and just keeping a note on the refrigerator with my "ideas".  These ideas started off with things like Monday: Hamburger Helper; Tuesday: Spaghetti; Wednesday: Pizza.  Like I said, I started slow.

Now, my menu looks more like this:

(Excuse my Mariah Carey-esque butterfly magnet and ugly handwriting, I'm a mom now, ok?)

The page numbers next to each meal correspond to one of our cookbooks.  I found that after trying out too many less-than-desirable blog recipes (no offense), it was easier to stick to an old-fashioned cookbook.  I still use the internet (Yummly is the best!) when I want something incredibly specific, though.  We still have our fair share of straight-to-the-trash recipes (ahem, Monday's soup), but we've gotten better at looking at a recipe's ingredients and preparation methods instead of just judging it by the title.  This method works great because I take one day a week (usually Sunday) to go through the recipes and jot down a grocery list for things that we don't already have to complete the recipes.  Then we head to Wal-Mart (last weekend it was after church) and grab what we need.  Last week we spent ~$100, but it included paper products that should last us about two weeks, so I'd say we were under $100, which I consider a success.  If I need anything fresh for a meal towards the end of the week, we will just run by our local Kroger to grab it that day since Wal-Mart is 15 minutes away.

Cooking healthy and affordable meals gives me a sense of purpose while I am a stay-at-home mom and also something to look forward to each week.

I'm glad I jumped on the meal planning bandwagon and I'm secretly kicking myself for not doing it earlier!