Monthly Meal Planning - My technique

 Over the last few weeks, I have been brainstorming ways to meal plan.  I hate feeling boxed into one set meal for each day, I never know what I really want until I get to about 3:00pm and have to start thinking of dinner anyways.  To have a menu means much less time thinking, but it also means much less creativity. 

I've thought of things like, what if I have company?  Or what if it's too hot outside to roast a chicken for hours in the oven?  What if it's cold and rainy, and I just want soup?  What if we are scheduled to have spaghetti and I really want perogies?

Meal planning has sounded very boring to me, something I wouldn't be able to cope with.

After giving it much thought though, and making a massive list of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that I like to make, I came up with a plan.  I picked 35 dinners, 35 lunches, and 35 breakfasts, (yes, there were many duplicates, especially for breakfast and lunch), and wrote them out on index cards.  For dinners, I had 30 "regular" dinners, which are all fairly low-priced, and 5 special dinners that may cost a little more.  I listed the ingredients on the cards, as well as any side dishes I could choose from. I then gathered every ingredient off of those cards and created my monthly shopping list. 

I put the index cards in a small box and separated the cards into each meal.  Instead of being held to a certain meal for each day, I can now choose from the box of cards, and make meals based on what I've planned for.  I made 35 choices so that if I have guests, I can expand the meal without going short at the end of the month.  If I have no guests for meals, I'll save money next month because I'll still have some left over groceries. 

Usually, our grocery/household items bill is $600 a month.  This is broken up as follows:

• $130 - Costco diapers, Huggies Wipes.  (Huggies wipes are the same price at Costco as the Kirkland wipes are, and I far prefer my Huggies.)
• $100 - Goat's Milk.  (I keep this as it's own category because it's SO expensive, and my kids are allergic to cows milk, and I won't feed them soy milk.)  Sometimes we get almond or rice milk to cook with, as it's just a little cheaper than the goats milk.  We do no other diary, so no yogurt, cheese, or anything like that, unless we get goat cheese on a very special occasion.
• $320 - Food
• $50 - Other household groceries (paper products, cleaning products, etc.)

This month, our aim is to do the following budget:

• $100 - Diapers etc. (Using less wipes, trying to potty train my son)
• $80 - Goat's Milk (I've been watering it down just a little and using it less in cooking)
• $230 - Food
• $40 - Other household groceries

We'll see how we do, but so far, it's been pretty good!  I'm hoping to gather coupons for diapers and cash in on London Drugs coupon stacking this month as well, and that would free up some more cash.

I'll keep you all posted, we'll see how it goes!