Menu Planning

A month of trying to work off of a planned menu has just ended. For the month of January I decided to plan out all of our dinners and buy groceries  based on a very specific list. I didn't know how it would go, but wanted to at least give it a shot. We wanted to save some money (little trips to the grocery store always add up to at least $50) and I never know what to make for dinner so this seemed like the perfect experiment for our family.

Here are the results:

Cons:

• It took about two hours to plan our dinners for the month and make the grocery list.
• Our schedules often change, so on nights I thought I had time to cook, I really didn't, and that meant I didn't follow the plan and things got mixed up.
• Because of those schedule changes, we really didn't finish the month well.

Pros:

• I felt GOOD planning - I am a planner so it was a huge success to just sit down and write everything down.
• We saved a lot of money not  buying out as often and not making as many small trips for extra ingredients, etc.
• On nights we were able to stick to the plan, Sam was able to get things started before I got home and we ate dinner at a decent hour. This led to dishes getting done earlier, and us having our evening with David and then ourselves once he went to bed, without doing as much work.
• I tried new recipes! It was my goal to try 3 new recipes. It was really fun!

My plan moving forward is to create a list for about 20 meals (leaving room for some busy night where we eat leftovers or go out), and to just have the shopping done so that we can decide what to do the night before. That might help with the change in schedules. I think it was totally worth it - despite the initial planning time - because it saved a TON of time in the end. :)