Hi! Today I’d like to share more of the helpful tips for creating a meal plan on a budget that I’ve learned and used over the years. During the next few weeks we will spend more time on some of these ideas as I share in-depth descriptions and methods. We all know that a Meal PLAN done right can be a huge help in our budget.
(Did you miss Meal Planning on a Budget Part 1? If so, you can read it by clicking here.)
Now, let’s get right to it!
1. Create menu categories when meal planning. For example: meatless Monday, taco Tuesday, mac and cheese Wednesday, casserole Thursday, crockpot Friday, and grilling weekends, like burgers, pork chops, or chicken. You can repeat this cycle week after week, plugging different recipes into most categories each week. My categories tend to change with the seasons, but this a great way to keep up with meal planning. During our non-grilling months, I choose at least one new recipe to try each week.
2. Stretch your meals as far as possible. If you are really in a bind financially, and you know you have to trim and budget your shopping list, include ingredients for meals that will give you leftovers, such as a roast. While the roast might be one of the higher cost items, your family will likely be able to eat on it at least twice. Rice and potatoes are very affordable and are another way to stretch meals. Hey, why not have a baked potato night?! Don’t forget about rotisserie chickens!!! It’s easy to get 2 to 3 meals out of one. Again, having a meal PLAN in place and doing your best to follow it, will absolutely help with your budget too.
3. If you clip coupons, make sure you check for any match ups to your meal plan before heading to the store, especially if you shop at a store that doubles coupons. If you are a devout coupon user, then you probably already know how to meal plan according to weekly coupon match ups. This can be a fantastic way to save money!
4. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks – keep to your meal plan, schedule, and portions. Lunches for my family are usually economical sandwiches or leftovers. Snacks can be a big budget killer, but if you plan it, and make your children stick to portions and snack times, you will save money. If you have teenagers, well they really do try to eat us out of house and home, don’t they?! Bless their hearts! There are two stores that I rely on for affordable teen approved snacks (aka junk food!) – Aldi and Dollar Tree. Again, you have to watch them like a hawk! Do you cook breakfast for your family? If so, you can apply this planning technique to that meal as well.
Below are some other tips that I’ve picked up here and there:
• Buy a bag of onions when they’re on sale. Chop all of them. Place in freezer bags. Flatten and squeeze out the air. then freeze. You will have chopped onions on hand for anything and save on prep time! This works well with bell peppers, too!
• Cook up ground beef and freeze in 1 pound portions. Cooked ground beef thaws fairly quickly. You could even store half pound portions. *See next tip.
• If you cook meals from a box such as Hamburger Helper, use a half pound of ground beef instead of a whole pound.
• Spaghetti and taco soup freeze really well. When you make these, reserve half (especially if your family tires of leftovers easily) and freeze it.
• Freezing tip! Let warm food cool down on the counter. Next, place it in the refrigerator to cool overnight. Thirdly, place it in the freezer. This prevents icing caused by condensation that builds in your container.
• Now time for my favorite tip! Rotisserie chickens! Pull all the meat off, not just the white meat. If you know you will use it up in the next few days, there’s no need to freeze it, but it can be stored in the freezer, too! Freezing it will dry it out a bit but for many recipes it won’t matter.
So let me know what you think! I’d love to hear what tips you have discovered over the years for meal planning!
From my nest to yours,
Jo
All good suggestions.