Today was a doozy. Well, to be honest, this past week has been one for the books. I’m trying to get back on track and one way of doing that is getting on board with my Menu Planning for the week. This is something I’m trying to master. I’m horribly notorious for attempting to plan meals and forgetting a “few things” here and there and running back and forth to the store all week long wasting time and money. I’m trying to become a once a week shopper and hopefully I can become even more effective and not have to go even that much. Menu planning is something I’m trying to do that. It also helps avoid random meals out which saves time and calories. Now I’m not so much of a stickler that I make a plan that we have to eat such and such on this day and what not. I try to sit down Sunday Night/Monday Morning and make a list of at least 7 meals and everything I would need to make them. This week I tried to incorporate using coupons as well (that was inspired by an extreme couponing marathon on TLC this weekend). I’m still not sure where I stand on the whole couponing thing…. I don’t want to spend that much organizing a huge trip like they do on the show, I would just like to have coupons for the things I actually use and/or need. I got a bunch of coupons together yesterday, but they weren’t very organized and were hard to juggle in the store with an 18 month old who had yet to nap.
I love to research recipes, this is probably where I spend most of my time in menu planning. All Recipes is a great site to search, but I’ve come to really love Pinterest as well. On Pinterest you can visually bookmark different sites. I love love love being able to see pictures of the food I’m looking to cook. Be careful though, Pinterest can be an even bigger time waster than facebook (blasphemy, i know).
Back to the menu… I finalized my list sometime in between taking Delilah to the vet, dropping off tshirts in Old Town St Charles and wrangling a toddler. I headed in to the store and ended up spending nearly 2 hours there…. Shopping with a list, coupons and a previously mentioned not yet napped toddler can be time consuming. But it is done. I’m trying to stay on track with my Menu Planning Mondays and learn from other people also so I’m linking up to Menu Planning Monday over at Organizing Junkie.
Menu For This Week
Chili Cheese Dogs (we had these tonight, easy prep after a long day)
Enchiladas (I tweak this recipe quite a bit, but this is where I got the basic idea from)
Homemade Pizza (This is a great dough recipe)
Shepherds Pie (I just kinda do this on the fly, no recipe)
Crockpot Orange Chicken (New recipe for the week)
Pasta (Still not sure about this, plain old spaghetti is kinda old so i’m gonna try something with the new Philly Cooking Creme I got with a coupon this week)
And my baking experiment for the week……
Pinterestyum.
So here is to a hopefully more organized week!
imperfectly courtney 
Stopped by through Menu Plan Monday and just wanted to give a little tip for not-so-extreme couponing…
When I make a grocery list I put a “Q” next to each item I have a coupon for and an “S” for items on sale. After that, I sort through my coupons and put them in an envelope in the same order that the items appear on the list (which also happens to be the order in which I will see them in the store). That way, in case an item is out of stock or isn’t as good of a deal as I thought it would be, it’s easy to pick the coupons that AREN’T being used for that trip out of the envelope. By the time I get to the checkout, I just have to hand the cashier my envelope’o’coupons for that trip and that leaves me free to watch and make sure everything rings up properly–and can help alleviate the stress of juggling a squirming little person and coupons at the same time. 😉
I hope you don’t mind the unsolicited advice! That method has really helped me use coupons and save money much more consistently.
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Thanks so much Michele! I am open to any advice to help me save money and my sanity in the store! I’ll have to try that one next week.
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new to MPM too and also trying out a new crockpot recipe this week – philly cheese steak (which i’ll show on my blog thurs.) 🙂 I’d like to know how yours went!
I try to write my list according to the store layout instead of just writing it as it pops into my head (does that make sense?!) I end up not going down each aisle or backtracking – makes it easy for The Hubs too!
p.s. the cupcakes? yum! (i can’t stop staring, lol!)
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