Cutting Costs: Beyond Coupons - Meal Planning

Meal Planning?  Yuck!  I know, it sounds boring, but it doesn't have to be.  I would really encourage you to consider the importance of having a meal plan each week.

Now, I am not talking about having anything fancy.  You don't have to plan big meals each day of the week to have a menu plan.

All I do for a meal plan is list out a quick list of what we will have on hand for breakfast, lunch and snacks for the week.  I also write down about 5 meals that I can make for the week.  We usually have about 2 days where we just grab sandwiches or something simple, so I only plan for 5 meals.  Sometimes a meal will be hot dogs and mac n cheese.  Sounds fancy right?  :)

I very rarely plan something specific for a certain night.  Each day, I usually look at my list of possible meals and pick one for that day.  It's that simple and unsophisticated.  If we don't make a certain meal that week, I roll it onto the next week's list.

Here is a list of the reasons I think meal planning is so important to cutting your grocery costs...

• You only buy what you need at the store that week and nothing more.
• It helps dramatically decrease impulse shopping.
• You won't end up a the store many times each week since you will have everything you need.

Tips

• Don't make it complicated!
• Start with looking at what you already have in your pantry/stockpile....what can you make right now?
• The more you stockpile, your grocery list will mainly be perishable items to complete your meal plan and items to buy to increase your stockpile.

Hopefully this sounds a lot more simple than what you think of when you hear the phrase "meal planning".  When you start to do this regularly, you will see how much more money you will save.

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