Meal Planning Monday

Today felt more like Sunday than Monday. We had just gotten back from being out of town & Jake had the day off. I spent a long time today doing some meal planning. I got out a few cookbooks, looked up recipes & made a list of things I wanted to make this month. Then I figured out which ones to make each week. I made my grocery list and cut out coupons. I ended up going to two stores- Target for health & beauty products and Kroger for food. I had some great coupons for Target that I got in the mail. Kroger was having some good sales plus I had more coupons. I even got to "coupon stack" on a few things. That's when you have a store coupon for something & a manufacture coupon too, making it really cheap, or even free! I got a box of jello for 2 cents!

Okay, so it took several hours by the time I did all of this. But, guess what? With sales & coupons I saved a total of $81.56!! I was very excited! And now I have groceries & products for the whole month! I will have to go back for little things each week like milk & produce but I'm hoping this will save me lots of time, stress and money!

I plan on cooking 4 nights a week. We try to have date night once where I don't have to cook & we usually do a pizza night too (order out, take & bake or make our own). I figure one night each week we will be away from home or at my mom's or just want a small meal. Sometimes I plan side dishes ahead of time & sometimes I decide at the last minute.

Here are some of the things I'm making this month:

Potato soup, salad, rolls
Chimichangas (Weight watchers recipe)
Chili, cornbread
Chicken Alfredo, snap peas, garlic bread
Quesidillas
Grilled ham & cheese sandwiches
Homemade taquitos (new recipe, I've never made these)
Porcupines (ground beef & rice rolled up, another new recipe from magazine)
Chicken, sweet potatoes, snap peas, rolls
Spinach ravioli
Chicken enchilada soup
Tacos

That's all I can think of for now. I'll let you know how the new recipes turn out!