Just grab the phone and call for pizza right? Wrong....at least in our house. Right now, we're running two households with hubby stationed in CA. Every single dime counts and I don't have money to throw away on pizza. It can cost up to $30 to feed our crew......how many pizzas can I make at home for that?
I plan out every single meal and snack, but need to be flexible. So, I grabbed a calendar wipe off board from the store and put it up. Now, I use sticky notes to plan our meals on. Breakfast is blue, lunch is pink, dinner is yellow....or whatever I grab to write on. If I need to switch meals around for some reason, I use move the sticky notes around. I also plan out snacks and desserts, which I list on the side of the board. Cookies, breads, and bars are also listed and made whenever I have time.
I don't buy any ready made snacks or junk food anymore. Honestly, we don't have the money and let's face it, although its convenient, they're horribly unhealthy. We eat yogurt, fruit, veggies and dip, and cheese and crackers. I won't even buy chips anymore......they just devour the bag in a single sitting!
I go grocery shopping once a week. I'd love to switch that to two times a month. I hate grocery shopping after all. I'm going to work on doing this and try to shop at Hyvee the second week for fruits and fresh veggies. I usually shop at Walmart because I get more bang for my buck and with all of these mouths to feed, I need to save where I can.
I plan 2-3 crockpot meals a week. I can get the meal in the crockpot in the am and forget about it the rest of the day. This is fabulous because three days a week, I'm running around with the kids. One night is pasta and one night is usually pizza (we usually do pizza on Sundays). This means realistically, I only have to plan other meals on 2-3 nights a week. Depending on our schedule, I might do a casserole. The casseroles can be prepared during lunch break and put into the fridge until its time to pop it in. Its such a relief knowing that I'm not trying to throw together dinner at 5pm.
Once I get a new camera, I'll show you the calendar so that you can see it.
We got about ten inches of snow on Monday night. The kids are loving it. They played in the snow most of the day yesterday. It was a blast for them. I put a pot of homeade chicken noodle soup on the stove for them and they ate a bowl every time they came in.
Hope your week is going well.
Michelle
You're doing great!
ReplyDeleteLove to have a pot of soup going in the winter. Nothing quite like it.
I use a pocket chart and have our meals written on halves of index cards. I just flip through the cards and lay them out in the chart. Very easy to move around and the cards last for me to use them over and over again.