I've been doing this for 3 or 4 months now and I think I'm in love. It's saved me so many hours of time that I can use to do something enjoyable instead of getting a headache about meal plans. If you love cooking creatively, or if you're the type who hates reading the directions or sewing from a pattern this method is probably not for you. If you want something healthy, cheap and fast with as little effort as possible you might like it.
I said to myself "Self, why don't you accept the fact that a big part of your work is as a glorified lunch lady and copy the professionals." I thought of the old school lunch calendars my mom used to post on the fridge, that repeated every two weeks. I've been doing Sparkpeople for several years now and used their free meal plans as a starting point. I've figured out that Andrew and I and Lucy eat about the same amount of food, Benjamin eats about half of that, so I plan for three people, it's about 1600 calories per day. I wrote down all the meals that I would actually consider eating, substituting things I hardly ever buy, like cantaloupe, for things like bananas. This gave me about 15 breakfasts and 15 lunches to work with and maybe 20 dinners.
This is where it gets a little wonkish. I had made an Excel spreadsheet and had been keeping track of the price of things that I buy regularly, and figured out the lowest and highest cost per serving that I typically pay for each item. Using a little "lookup function" wizardry I pretty quickly came up with the cost I would pay for each meal if I got the items on sale. Then I picked out the seven cheapest breakfasts and lunches, and the fourteen cheapest dinners. I made a menu repeating breakfasts and lunches every week and dinners every two weeks, I was worried that we would get tired of them after a while, but we really haven't.
The beauty of this system is that I NEVER have to think about what to make, for any of our meals. I know exactly how much we're going to eat and can shop accordingly, which drastically cuts down on the amount of wasted food. Of course there are days when we eat more or less, but I'm surprised at how it usually evens out by the end of the week. I can cook food, for example rice, ahead and then freeze it in 1 1/2 cup portions which is the exact amount I use for all my recipes involving rice. I do a big shopping trip every two weeks where I buy all the nonperishable and frozen stuff that we'll need for the next two weeks, as well as stock up on anything that's a really good sale. Then every other week I just need to do a quick run for produce, milk and any other random thing we need. If a store is having a case lot sale on something I just multiply the amount on my list by 6 or 12 and I have a 3 or 6 month supply.
The breakfasts are all less than 50 cents per person, the lunches except one are less than 1 dollar per person, and the dinners are between $1.20 and $2.10 per person. We make our own bread, so you'll have to add that to the list if you don't. And I usually get some snacks for the kids that vary by week.
Here are the documents if you want the nitty gritty
Menu plan
Grocery list
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3 comments:
Shannon, what a great idea! Thanks for posting everything too so I can be an even lazier mom. The best part is that It is stuff we will eat! Thanks and hope all is great.
That is really cool.
I have a friend that has put together a cookbook of 6 weeks' worth of dinners complete with the weekly grocery lists. It doesn't include breakfast and lunch, though. I've been trying to go along these lines and getting a list of 5-6 weeks worth of dinner ideas that we like and just rotating them. Thinking about what to eat every day does get time-consuming and is so not fun. I've also been thinking about different breakfasts, too. For lunch we usually eat leftovers from the night before.
Wow. I'm totally impressed!
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