Meal Planning

My meal planning is very much like my homeschool planning. I wing it! I have a general idea of what I want, am going to spend, etc. I always do much better when I have a complete plan vs just buying what I see while I'm shopping.

Shopping this weekend while I did get some really good deal made me remember how I saved money when I took the time to browse the sale fliers, matched coupons if I could, and wrote out a menu for the week. I know food prices have gone up over the years, but when you realize what you spent for a couple of days in years past would have been enough to last you 2 weeks it's time for some change!

I am happy about the meat deal I got at my local butcher shop. This weekend's deal: free lb of bacon with at least $20 purchase.  The butcher shop I go to has box deals. The box deal I got was $39 for 14 lbs of meat. The box included some pork chops, ground beef, cut up chicken, chuck roast, and round steaks. Plus I got the free 1lb of bacon. So that's 15 lbs of meat for about 2.60 lb. I think that's pretty good. Now just to figure out what to do with the meat! If I plan it out right that should last me 1.5 weeks.

I need to get on and look for more pressure cooker meals or ways to prepare the meats I got in the pressure cooker. I love the pressure cooker. My husband bought it for me my birthday little over 18 months ago. It's the best thing ever!  I cook it in so much and share many of the things I cook that I made a special album with my pressure cooking dishes on my personal facebook page.

Besides, looking up meals and meal planning that way, I need to go back to meal planning before I do my shopping and plan my meals around what's on sale! Or better yet I should get my son to do it! Scout is going to a technical college in the fall to study culinary. I should just encourage him to do those things.

Speaking of encouraging tonight I didn't even cook dinner. I had pulled some hamburger out and my daughter saw it. Instead of asking me what I was going to do with it she looked in the cupboards and refrigerator to see what we had on hand. You see she decided she wanted meatloaf and instead of asking me she just decided to see what we had on hand. She found we had the right ingredients to make meatloaf on hand -- or at least how I make it: hamburger, salsa, and crackers or oatmeal. It turned out pretty good! I love it when my kids take it upon themselves to help out and just do things like that.

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