6.01.2011

New Plans

Well, I have a plan. A "new" one. Its not all that new, but as always I'm trying to start fresh and head in a direction I've been wanting to for a while. Cutting costs! Saving Money! Not stressing about my finances (this may take a miracle, but I'm trying)!

I paid for a subscription to E-Mealz. Just $15 for 3 months worth of weekly meal plans mapped out by a grocery list. I should be able to feed our family of 2.5 dinner 5 days a week for under $50. All other groceries would be on top of that.

So, here is my week 1 attempt. I spent a total of $108.63 on groceries last night. That should cover us for B/L/D for this week.

This means using what is in my house in order to feed my family rather than going out to eat at every moment. We have a small budget for eating out each month and will mostly cook in. This will be a feat in itself due to the size of my closet kitchen, but we're going to make it happen. I have to.

So I'll keep a weekly tally on how much I spend for groceries, how much we spend on eating out, and how it works out.

I felt I needed to make it "public" through my blog to help me stick to it. More motivation I suppose.

And if anyone has any tips on how to make my husband help out with cooking a meal or three a week, I'm open to anything. :)

3 comments:

Eric Weis said...

If you make any meal that you can freeze, make twice as much. Freeze the second portion for another time that you don't want to cook.
As a recommendation to Jose, find meals that he likes to cook or ones that he might be good at making and designate days for him to be in charge of dinner. Without picking it up from some place of course.

Eric Weis said...

Another option is to do one big day of cooking as laid out on this blog ( http://onceamonthmom.com/ ) and have everything ready to go for a big portion of the month. We have never done this but have friends who did it. It was very laborsome doing the cooking for a long day, but it took care of just about all food prep for the month and only required heating things up.

Nathan said...

Hi Leanne - Let me know what you think of E-Mealz... it sounds like a great idea. Courtney and I always struggle to pull together a grocery list and recipes for the week. Courtney wanted to know if the service provided the flexibility to customize to your tastes / eating habits.