Monday's Household Assigments-Planning all your meals for the week saves time and money!

This week's household assignment is to start planning ahead for your meals each week! By planning your meals once a week you'll save money and time. I plan all my meals for the week on Wednesdays because this is when the grocery sales flyers come out. Some stores post their flyers online and other only have them in the paper. I always get the Wednesday paper for the coupons and the flyers. I lay out all of the flyers and my schedule for the week. I identify the days that are going to be crazy where I'll need to plan on a crock pot dinner or a fast  preparation dinner.

I then look at the meats that are on sale that week. Last week, there was a great sale at Sunflower Market on their ground meats. Ground chicken breast, turkey and beef were on sale for $1.97 a pound. In addition their Italian sausage and pork loin roasts were on sale.  Once I pick the meats, I go ahead and plan my main dishes around these meats. (I also bought extra for the freezer, more on that later.)  I pull out the recipes and make sure that I have all the ingredients for them either in the pantry or on my shopping list.  I then go through the circular and plan my side dishes. My menu ended up being,
       Wednesday-  Spaghetti with Italian Sausage, salad, french bread
       Thursday- Creole Stuffed Peppers (ground beef), broccoli and
                        honeyed carrots (crockpot)
        Friday- Roast Pork Roast with cranberry chutney, green beans, wild rice and tossed salad,
        Saturday- Tamale Pie, corn, fresh tomatoes and shredded lettuce
        Sunday- Beef Pot Roast- Bought on sale last month used out of freezer,
                       new potatoes, carrots and peas
        Monday- White Chicken Chili on rice (crockpot)
        Tuesday- A family tradition- Srevotfel-  Leftovers- It just sounds more
                                                              elegant when you spell and say it backwards!!!   This cleans                                                                     out the fridge for shopping on Wednesday.
Once week a month- I challenge myself to make all the meals from the pantry and the freezer so that the only things I have to purchase from the store are fresh veggies and dairy items. This helps the budget a lot!!!!!

When you plan ahead you:

• Are prepared for dinners on busy days with food in the crock pot or quick preparation recipes so that you can avoid last minute take out or delivery food that costs so much.
• Avoid extra trips to the grocery store that do cost you extra cash with those impulse purchases! 
• Prepare a broader variety of meals when you write it all down and do a little bit of planning. 
• Ultimately save money!!!!!!! 

Hint- When ground beef goes on sale, buy 5 or 6 pounds and take an extra 30 minutes to brown 3 or 4 pounds of it. Once it's browned completely, cool slightly and divide the cooked meat into separate plastic bags, label with the date and toss into the freezer. With the meat already browned, you can thaw a bag in the microwave and make it into tacos or spaghetti sauce in under 5 minutes- It's a real time saver!