Budgeting: Meal Planning Side Effects
When I tightened the budget, I knew we’d save money, I knew what we spent/where we spent money would be more purposeful, what I didn’t realize was how much time I’d get back in my life.
Since I’m working off a meal plan, the question of “What’s for dinner? What’s for lunch?” has already been answered. When I plan my meals for the following week, I know what I need to buy, I know what I have in my pantry and the freezer. There’s a week full of meals, snacks, lunches and breakfasts all ready to be cooked. My husband’s lunches are packed on Sunday night, so he’s not spending $10-$12 a day on eating out.
Saturday morning over coffee I take 30 minutes to review the budget, fill out my meal plan and shopping list for the following week. Tuesday or Thursday is my shopping day because that’s the day my local store puts it’s meat at the lowest discount price. You can save a lot of money by shopping the “Manager’s Special” section and the local circular ads. Since I know when I get home the meat will be either used that night, cut up for freezer packs of stir fry or just put in the freezer for a later meal, it doesn’t matter how close the meat is to the pull date.
Having a plan means all my grocery shopping is done for the week in two hours while my son is at preschool. The food in my freezer is added in to the weekly rotation and there’s no food being wasted. My fridge isn’t overflowing and I’m not running out to the store to get the one ingredient that turns into $50 of impulse groceries I didn’t really need.
We have slashed our monthly grocery budget from $800 a month to around $350 a month for a family of three. It’s not even a big change. There hasn’t been a huge change in our lifestyle and other than the time spent planning, it’s the same as it ever was other than I get back an extra 4-6 hours a week in shopping time and wondering what I’m going to make for dinner.
Now that is a big change.
