The way I meal plan & budget!

So I had a request to make a blog post regarding how I meal plan and budget. Some of you may know we are following Dave Ramseys plan for getting out of debt. If you are familiar with Dave he always says while following the debt snowball you have to sacrifice things such as going out to dinner a lot, expensive meals etc, and to "eat beans and rice, rice and beans" while paying off debt if you have to. So I have to get creative with finding some less expensive meals than I may NORMALLY make if that makes sense. Having some meals be meatless help with cost, as well. So its not often we grill up some steak! Sometimes I do better than other times, its a process and something you have to learn and practice.

The way I meal plan is every two weeks. I sit down on the days my husband gets paid (bi weekly), and I figure out a menu. Then, I go through my kitchen as I am writing my shopping list and see what ingredients I may already have (for instance, I may already have rice or carrots leftover from the last shopping trip). So essentially I only grocery shop twice a month. It works for us. We shop at Trader Joes almost exclusively and its not around the corner from us, so I would rather only go twice a month than 4 times to save on gas. I also occasionally have to go to Stater Brothers to get the few things Trader Joes does not carry and Costco for some other things, although Costco is only every month-two months give or take.

What we also do is add EVERY SINGLE ITEM into our calculator as we add it to our cart. That allows us to know whether or not we are on budget, under budget or over budget. This is KEY. This last shopping trip we were really under budget, so we splurged on a couple little items, and still were under.

So for instance, I will share my most recent menu, shopping list, and cost for everything.

For the next two weeks I budgeted for $160.00 at Trader Joes and $60 for Costco. Normally I don't go to Costco often, so I wasn't quite sure how much I would need to spend. We needed compactor bags as well as a couple food items. So I over budgeted to be safe.

My Menu-
Cheese Raviolis & side vegetable (something I have frozen in my freezer)
Lemon Chicken & Vegetable bake
Vegetable Burritos
Salsa Chicken in the crockpot (can be tacos or burritos)
Creamy Chicken & Broccoli Casserole
Italian Vegetable Soup
Toastadas
Homemade Spaghetti Sauce, double batch to have once per week
Breakfast Frittata with Chicken apple sausage
Taco Salad
Chicken Scarpariello (basically chicken, cooked with onions, garlic & stock over brown rice, served with vegetable)
Homemade Apple Muffins
Homemade Blueberry Waffles (husbands weekend Sunday tradition)
Crazy Bites (little snacks, balls made out of different nuts, flax seed, coconut, dried fruit & a little chocolate chips)

Ok so in general thats my menu that I made. My husband usually has breakfast at work, and I will normally have either cereal, frozen waffles, oatmeal or eggs. I dont really meal plan for these things since its staples I always have in my home. But its still ingredients I need to buy (ie cereal). So when making your shopping list you still need to remember these staple items and account for them in the budget. Lunches are generally leftovers, sandwiches (ie lunch meat or tuna) or I will throw something together random that I have.

Shopping list for Trader Joes:
Brownie Mix-splurge item
Mint Chip Ice Cream- Husband splurge item
Turkey lunch meat
Frozen blueberry waffles
Baked Alaska-splurge item, new dessert for TJs to try out!
Crackers
Shredded Coconut
Sliced cheese
Tortilla Chips
2 packages ground turkey
Salsa Verde
2 cans Tuna
28oz can whole Tomatoes
2 containers of chicken stock
2 packages cream cheese
2 small cans Tomato paste
Frozen Peas
Oatmeal
Frozen Blueberries
Cheddar Cheese
2 cans of corn
Pancake Syrup
2 jars of Marinara
1 can white beans
Sour Cream
1 can salsa beans
2 gallons milk
Dried Mango
2 packages tortillas
Cereal
1 can Tomato sauce
Package of Organic tomatoes on the vine
2 Organic Bell Peppers
8 Bananas
Half & Half
Sour Dough Boule (for homemade croutons)
Garlic
Fresh Green Beans
Celery
5 Lemons
Head of Lettuce
Package organic carrots
3 Limes
3 Potatoes
7 Onions

Total: $137.30

Shopping List for Costco:
Cheese Raviolis
2 packages eggs
Frozen Chicken Breasts (which last us WAY longer than two weeks)

Total: $35.60

Total for two weeks (even though the frozen chicken will last us more than two weeks) $172.90. Average per week $86.

So there you go! You just have to get creative, and figure out what you can make that is not to expensive, or unhealthy. I make ALL my meals. No boxed processed meals. That stuff is EXPENSIVE! And bad for you! Make cooking fun, and easy for yourself.

I hope this helps those of you who are having trouble either menu planning, or sticking to a budget. Its not easy, but with time it gets easier. Just remember to stick to your list and your menu, and to add up what you put in your cart. That way when you get to the register, you won't be surprised with going over your budget.

Update- Birthdays, Homesick, Canning & Not feeling well.

Well, I am now writing to you as an official 24 year old. :) Couple days ago it was my birthday, and strangely enough it was the FIRST day in almost 2 weeks I didn't get sick during the day AND even went out to lunch! That morning my Dad brought me a sprinkled doughnut, which was nice, and told me if I was feeling up to it he would take me to my favorite little mexican place by our house for lunch. So we went and I didn't get sick the whole day. Thank goodness! Unfortunately I got a little too cocky and ate a little too much that night (even though it was hardly anything, it was more than my stomach was used to) and I ended up not feeling well that night, it was my own fault.

Yesterday I hung out with one of my best friends Heather, and my friend Brittney who I hadn't seen in YEARS and her 2 year old little boy Atom. We had a great day, we went back to that little mexican place for lunch, and came back to my house for a couple hours and hung out. Atom had never seen a horse in person, so he had plenty to see in my backyard. Unfortunately, he was a little scared, every time the horse would look at him he would say "no mama!" It was pretty cute. So we drove around on our little John Deer cart, and he got a kick out of that. Later that night once Louie got off work we went to this Sushi restaurant, and it was really good! It was really nice to be able to just hang out with friends on a whim again. Before living an hour away, it was an ordeal to plan and drive somewhere, and it didn't happen very often. It was nice.

In regards to the homesick feeling I was having, it is slowly fading away. I knew it would. It just takes time. I think now that I'm feeling better, seeing friends, and the house is getting together more, I'm starting to feel more myself and happier in general. I'm definitely happy about that.

For my birthday my husband got me two things, one was something I had no idea he was getting...when I was little my mom used to collect Precious Moments for me, and we are big big Disney/Disneyland people and I noticed that Disney has a Precious Moments collection. I've always wanted to get them for our child one day. So my husband saw they had some at Hallmark apparently and wanted to get one to start the collection. He bought me the little snow white on a rocking horse. Its adorable.

The other thing he bought me, is what I asked for. I have been REALLY researching and watching a ton of youtube videos on water-bath canning foods. I originally started to look into this because I wanted to make a large batch of my marinara and have a ton on hand. So I started researching and seeing how to do it, what supplies I would need, and I realized I really wanted to do it. So he bought me a set that came with the large pot, and all the utensils I need. I am very excited, I also want to try to make some jams, salsas, and pie fillings. I figure they would be great gifts too.

Saturday is my family birthday get together. It is supposed to be OVER 100 degrees here tomorrow though, and originally I wanted my dad to BBQ, but, I changed my mind lol. So we will be going out to lunch. I am excited about that. Then Wednesday I'm going to my best friend Amandas house, who happens to only live a street over, and her boyfriend who is the king of BBQing I have decided, so I'm really excited to that also.

So things are looking up. I'm so thankful I'm finally feeling better, now I just need to get my craft room/office put together so I can start doing my crafts again! :)

Adjusting

So its been about 5 days since we've been in the new house and that I have been learning the ropes of being the "farm manager". Its been an adjustment to say the least, but, I think I'm catching on pretty quickly. Its not difficult, just dirty, and time consuming. lol. The dirty part is the part I'm having to get used to the most. I have hay everywhere. Seriously. I have never sneezed so much in my life either! First day feeding at night with my dad, we were in the feed room, and he was showing me how to do it all, and I gasped to sneeze and as I breathed in before the sneeze I sucked in a FLY! Yes, a LIVE FLY! It got stuck in my throat. I was sucking down water, trying to throw it up so bad. Oh gosh, it was disgusting!! But, hilarious none the less. My dad had no idea what the heck was wrong with me! lol!

 Still feeling pretty sick. If I don't feel better soon I'm going to have to make a doctors appointment. I've hardly eaten in like, 4 days. Its not good. Last night I tried to eat chicken noodle soup and toast, and all I could eat were the veggies out of the soup, and the toast. The rest I couldn't stomach. But I was STARVING. lol. I was watching TV so angry because it seemed like in everything I was watching people were eating the most delicious looking food and I was so jealous lol! I can't wait to eat. BUT, with being sick I've lost a few pounds, that's a plus right? lol. Anyway, the point of this blog, is to say that I am adjusting, slowly but surely.