This Week’s Menu Plan (buying ahead saves us SO much money!)

I went to Kroger and Aldi last night and was SO excited to get nine pounds of ground turkey for just $12 total! I came home and browned it and added some seasonings to it and am freezing it in 2-cup bags to use in some of the recipes this week and over the next few weeks.

We didn’t need the ground turkey, but at this price, I couldn’t pass it up. This is why I try to leave a little extra grocery money every week — so that I can use it on deals like this when I find them.

The more you focus on buying ahead — a little bit at a time — the easier it is to stick with a lower grocery budget. Having meat in the freezer that I purchased at more than half off makes it much easier to plan next week’s menu… because I already have some ideas to work with based upon what we already have on hand. Plus, it makes our menu plans much less expensive when we are basing them off of staple ingredients that I bought ahead when I found them marked down.

Here’s our menu plan for this week:

Breakfasts

Breakfasts are a big deal at our house. Not necessarily because of what we eat, but because this is the one meal we’ve committed to eat together around the table pretty much every single day.

Dinners are often somewhat grab and go or brown bagged — especially on the 3 nights a week the girls have swimming and skating. But breakfast, it’s a given. We eat, we talk, we read together, we pray together, and we linger around the table. It’s been a beautiful addition to our schedule + a great way to start the day!

Choose from:

Oatmeal

Smoothies

Bacon/Eggs

Lunches & Snacks

We’re trying something for lunches during the school year. Our extra refrigerator is going to be 100% devoted to lunch items.

We’re making up a big batch of freezer-friendly PB&J on the weekends and, in addition, I’ll have 4 different bins of items that the kids can choose one from — cheese sticks, snack packs, veggies, fruit, applesauce, chips, cookies, etc.

Each bin will have something different so that when they choose one item from each, they’ll have a well-rounded lunch. I’m hoping this makes things super simple and easy for them to put together their lunches at night.

Kathrynne helped me set this up and she took the initiative to write a board with details on how to put together the lunches. So far, we’re one week in, and I have literally done NOTHING for lunch prep other than help set the system up and make sure we had the items on hand for Kathrynne to get everything into baggies in the extra refrigerator.

And then the kids have been entirely in charge of each making their own lunch every night. I haven’t had to remind anyone and no one has yet to forget their lunch. I know we’re only a week in, but I’m pretty excited at how well this has worked so far — especially because the kids seem to be loving it!

Jesse and I are in charge of our own lunches and I’m going to have items on hand to choose from: fried eggs, toast, chips & salsa, yogurt, refried beans & cheese, salads, fruits, veggies, and/or leftovers.

Snacks:Egg & Sausage Breakfast Bites; Pumpkin Spice Bedtime Drink

Dinners

Jesse and I splitting up the cooking responsibilities for dinner this week. He’s in charge of the first two nights (since I have busier work days on Mondays and Tuesdays). I’m in charge of everything else.

Chicken & Cherry Tomato Bolognese, Fettucinne, Fruit

Hamburgers/Sausage on the Grill, Veggies, Fruit

Breakfast for dinner: Pumpkin Spice Waffles, Scrambled Eggs, Fruit

Slow Cooker Rotisserie Chicken, Fried Potatoes, Veggies, Fruit

Crockpot Baked Potatoes, Bacon, Sour Cream, Broccoli, Cheese

Dinner Out

Haystacks, Fruit

Freezer Cooking

I’m doing a Freezer Cooking session on Wednesday where I’m combining dinner prep with freezer cooking. This means that I’ll really only have to bake/cook one day this week. I’ll be making Pumpkin Spice Waffles, Crockpot Baked Potatoes (I won’t be freezing them; I’ll be saving them for dinner the next day.), Slow Cooker Rotisserie Chicken (I won’t be freezing this, either. I’ll be saving it to reheat for dinner two nights later.), and Egg & Sausage Breakfast Bites (we’ll be using turkey instead of sausage), Look for more details on how that goes later this week!

We spent $80 on groceries this week from Kroger and ALDI. Look for my post tomorrow with full details on what all we bought and how much we paid for everything!