Chase and I have always been keepers of a budget. Mr. Spreadsheet always can tell me how much we have and together we decide how we should spend it. When we become married we set a 75 dollar budget for ourselves for our weekly grocery bill. For the first few months we did REALLY good in keeping with this budget. However we would find ourselves buying things we did not need on impulse and end up going over budget even though we planned our meals out one week at a time. When the new year rolled around we decided to get serious about our grocery budget. Of course that meant I spent way too much time on Pinterest researching how to meal plan for our family of two. It also meant I found way too many recipes that I wanted to try out.
It ended up that i found an article and a blog post that explained the pros and cons of monthly meal planning. The more I read about it, the more it sounded like this plan would work for us. We talked it over and decided to give it a try. If it didn't work out that month, we didn't have to stick with it, and the following month we would simply try something different.
Four months of groceries gave us a 300 dollar spending limit at the store. I printed out a cute monthly menu planner I found online and went to work. I planned out what kinds of breakfast we would have each week, as well as what dessert I would make for the week. We always have some sort of little sweet treat. We eat a small portion each night as we watch a TV show together and talk about our day! As for lunch we buy some bread and sandwich fillers, but we try our best to just eat leftovers. There is normally enough left over that both of us can take some to work with us the next day with no issue.
I then decided what days would be leftover days and what days would be our date night eat out days. We try to have a date night at least once a week. We know that sometime down the road we want to grow our family and then date nights will become rare. So in the meantime we are enjoying our time as newlyweds and taking advantage of date nights!
I then grabbed my Pinterest board, and filled in the rest of the days. This is what my monthly menu plan for the month of January looked like.
I then went day by day and figured out what ingredients I needed in order to make that meal. Some ingredients I had on hand, others I did not. I divided my grocery list into: Produce, Meat, Pantry, Drinks, Bread, Dairy, Frozen, Snacks, and Other. This was my finished list for the month. Of course fresh fruits and veggies are not going to last the entire month. So at the end of the second week we went and refreshed those as well as milk and eggs. There was room left over in the budget for these so no worries there!
Once we had the finished list we went shopping! We used a few coupons, we bought most generic brand items or items that were on sale that week, as well as used our store savings card. It was a bit overwhelming seeing our cart at the end of it all, and even more overwhelming watching them ring it all up. I was for sure that we would go soaring over budget since the recipe was as long as my leg. However we ended up under budget with room to spare.
After we went back after the second week to reload on fruits, veggies, and milk we were still under budget by 10 dollars. That means that we were able to feed our family of two for a month for an average of about $4.60 per person per day. I would day that was pretty awesome! And we ate good too. No ramen noodles or pre-packaged pizza for every meal (although I love to eat both of those things from time to time!).
How does your family plan their meals? Do you have any tips or tricks? Let us know!
Now get outside and enjoy some sunshine. I know I am!
- S&C
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