I posted this on another blog but, I thought that I would ask this here on this one as well. I am trying to restructure my budget to one that is more realistic to the needs of my family. One of the things that I am looking at is groceries. I have been looking at people’s weekly menus and it got me thinking as to how others do their meal planning. So, I am going to ask some questions and I would love everyone and anyone to respond to give me an idea on how YOU do it. There are a couple of questions that may be a tad personal so, feel free to skip them if you wish. However, it would be EXTREMELY helpful to me if you could answer them.
1. How do you plan your weekly menus? Do you do it willy nilly, whatever sounds good (I do this a lot)? Do you base it on the ads and plan meals according to what is on sale? Do you use your food storage? Do you plan your menus weekly, bi-weekly or monthly? Do you have any special tricks or tactics that you use?
2. How do you budget your groceries? Do you buy a week at a time? A month at a time? Do you budget cleaning supplies, diapers, prescriptions, etc into your grocery budget? Do you price match? What is your average budget for groceries? Do you budget weekly, bi-weekly, monthly (sorry this one is personal but, I want to see what others do)?
3. How do you budget in food storage?
4. A cousin of ours spends Sunday afternoons making several meals for the week and then freezes them or put them in the fridge. That way she is done for the week with her meals. Another friend (I try to do this too) cooks in the morning when energy is up and cravings are low. Do you do any of these things?
5. Do you price match? Do you comparison shop? Do you do the coupon clipping thing? How do you manage that?
Again, I am trying to figure out how most people do this. I would appreciate any info. Thanks friends!
3 Comments
I'm no great example lately, I just haven't had time. But a neighbor of mine says she will only pay for groceries in cash. She sets aside the money from their budget and by paying cash, she can't go over. She involves the kids so they can see how far their money goes.
She also spends one day each month or so cooking something like 30 meals. She uses those disposable pans and multiplies recipes so she can maximize her time, budget, and ingredients.
She also has 5 kids, works part time, and runs marathons. I don't know how she does it. I'm going to her house when disaster strikes and my food storage runs out after a week.
Hi Darci!
We only have a small family of three so I don't know if my way will help at all, but it works good for us.
First of all, we don't do credit. Nothing on a credit card. We pay cash (debit card) for everything.
We go grocery shopping once a week. I buy the necessary items for 5 meals (I don't plan which days for which meals), because we usually have left over night one day in the middle of the week and we always go out to dinner on Fridays. If something is on sale, I buy a few so I don't have to buy it next time and I call that my (sad, little) food storage. We usually spend more on lunch items (Princess takes home lunch to school), because it's usually fresh stuff. We only have Walmart so price matching doesn't happen.
My dad, who lives in UT shops the ads and goes several places for several things to save money. I don't have that luxury. All items that we buy at the store, prescriptions, cleaning supplies, etc… is in that weekly budget, again if it's a cheaper price, I buy more than one.
Now, we are really scheduled people…we make dinner together when we get home from work and sit together around 630ish every night. So, I don't make up meals ahead of time. Plus, I don't have the freezer space.
Wow, this is long…sorry!
I hope that it helps!
Darci email me. You'd die at how cheap I am making meals and building a food storage. It might sound overwhelming but you'd love it. I would love to hook you up nad help you out. I have posted some shopping trips on my blog if you want to check them out.