Menu Monday

Monday: BBQ Chicken Skewers, Potato Salad, and Corn

Tuesday: Spinach and Cheese Manicotti and Green Salad

Wednesday: Turkey Tacos

Thursday: Leftovers (Frugal Mister is working OT)

Friday: Rootbeer Pulled Pork Sandwiches (A new recipe! We'll see how it goes!), French Fries and Green Salad

Saturday: Corned Beef and Cabbage (One of Frugal Mister's favorites. It's not a cheap meal, but he deserves the Thank You after working 55-65 hours of OT the past 2 months).

Sunday: Fish Tacos

Menu Monday

Seeing as how I am 37 weeks pregnant, family and friends are sweeping in and saving my tired body from having to cook a couple nights this week! I'm not sure I'm going to be able to deal with not having to cook all weekend long! (oh, who am I kidding?? I'll manage!)

Monday: Beer Can Chicken

Tuesday: Baked Penne (making an extra night's serving for the freezer)

Wednesday: Spicy Tuna Melts

Thursday: Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole (a new recipe! If I like it, it'll be a staple OAMC)

Friday: Chicken Taco Salads

Saturday: Dinner out with Frugal Missus' Parents

Sunday: Friends bringing our favorite pizza to share!!

Menu Monday

Here we are... another week, another menu! This week was hard for me because we've decided to make our budgets go from the 10th of the month to the 10th of the next month becuase that's how our paychecks roll in. That means that we had to stretch yet another week to keep things under control until August 10th.

It's a funny thing... writing down the menus each week, and being held somewhat accountable to them via the blog and readers we've gathered, I notice how often I make adjustments to the menu! For example, we had a family member over for dinner last Thursday, so instead of having to use twice my freezer stash of the Sweet and Spicy Kielbasa (costing me twice as much, obviously), we moved our Pizza night to Thursday. We ended up having enough pizza left over to have yet another pizza night on Friday! YAY!!! So, that means I have another night of Kielbasas on this weeks menu :)

Monday: Burgers

Tuesday: Angel Hair and Italian Sausage

Wednesday: Turkey Tacos

Thursday: Sweet and Spicy Kielbasa

Friday: Chicken Spinach Salads

Saturday: Honey Glazed Chicken

Sunday: Salsa Chicken

Menu Monday

This is my menu for the last week of July. We've been living by our budget as much as possible for the past 15 days, but have a new one all ready to go for August. I'm excited/invigorated/ slightly nervous about adopting our new budget for a full month, but I'll save all that for another post later this week.

Because we didn't live by a written budget for the first half of the month, I found my grocery budget was GONE before the last week! So, I took stock of what I had in my freezer and *voila*! An entire week of menu without having to buy any ingredients! Seriously. I'll go to the store for milk (we drink a ton) and some romaine lettuce because we eat an insane number of salads, but past that, we're good to go!

I encourage you to take stock of what you have already in the weeks you find your wallet tight, but encourage you even more to have a realistic written budget and menu plan accordingly!

Monday: Steaks and French Fries

Tuesday: Italian Sausage and Pesto Linguine

Wednesday: Chicken Foccacia Sandwiches

Thursday: Sweet and Spicy Kielbasa

Friday: PIZZA NIGHT!!!

Saturday: Bacon and Eggs

Sunday: Lima Bean Soup (we didn't have it last week because of overtime shifts)

Frugal Missus Makes a Menu

I'm not the worlds greatest cook, by any stretch, but I do take pride in my ability to menu plan, execute a new recipe, bargain shop, and make a semi-decent meal out of what I have in the house on the days when the money just isn't there. However, just because I have the ability doesn't mean I've always put it in to practice! During our "flush months", when Frugal Mister was able to work mass amounts of overtime and it showed in his paycheck, I would go crazy with our meals. I'd buy expensive cuts of meat, buy extra veggies and fruits because they were just calling my name, or "stock up" on toiletries at my happy place, Target.

What I'd end up with was meat that would sit in the freezer for far too long because we ended up not being able to afford to buy all the ingredients to put that nice cut to good use, fruits that got mushy, veggies that spoiled, and 3 bottles of partially used conditioner!

No more. Because of that super strict written budget, our months will look frightening similar from one to the next! Any "extra" money Frugal Mister's paycheck brings us goes directly to paying off debt and watching our snowball gain momentum! Hence, the need for a written menu plan.

There are many benefits to menu planning!

1. The food you buy, you actually USE!
2. You can plan healthy and well rounded meals by seeing what you've eaten in the past week.
3. You save yourself from those irritating last minute dashes to the store in the pre-dinner hour to get ingredients.
4. Gone is the stress that hits you at 4pm when you wonder what's for dinner!
5. It's really REALLY easy. Really.

In the past, I'd plan out the month with exact meals for each day of the week. I know now that it's unrealistic to expect me to know exactly what the Frugal Family will feel like eating/how many leftovers we'll have in the fridge/if we have plans with family or friends/etc. In other words, I was planning meals that most often still went unused! I'm not sure I know of anyone that can say for certain how an entire month will pan out for their mealtimes!

So, I came up with a solution. First, I wrote out Frugal Family's favorite meals (23 so far, but I know I am missing some) and put them into categories.

• Salads
• Pastas
• BBQ (Frugal Mister's nights to cook!)
• Mexican
• Sandwiches
• Once-a-Month Cooking (OAMC)
• Crockpot
• Brinner (Breakfast for Dinner)
• Special Meals (the ones that cost a bit more but are huge family faves)

I then took those categories to Google Calendar and made a new calendar with just the categories. I like that this method gives me flexibility in the recipes I choose for each week, but I don't have to over think what should be on the menu for the week! I just pick from the category on the calendar and TA-DA! A menu!

We very rarely eat out and I am doing the vast majority of the cooking, which means I am one tired Missus by the end of the day. So, I included on the Master Menu BBQ nights when Frugal Mister can do one of his tried and true dishes or find a fun new recipe for us to try! Either way, I get a break from the cooking!

In our written budget, we have $40 for dinners out per month. However, I am going to relish the fact that Frugal mister is making a meal a week and am going to abide by only going to Papa Murphy's Take n' Bake every 3 weeks for our dinner out. Also, I'll only go if we have a coupon. We can get a large pizza for $9.99 (plus tax) which is enough for dinner and lunch the next day! I get excited just thinking about my first no-cooking night :)

So, without further ado, I give you Menu Monday. I will be posting my menu for the week, to help keep me honest and to hopefully help you all out in your quest to reap the benefits of Menu Planning! I can't promise the menus will be anything fancy, but they do the trick and with the right amount of dollars spent (hopefully).

Bon Appetit!

Monday: Beer Can Chicken, Green Salad, Corn on the Cob

Tuesday: Pasta Salad w/ leftover chicken from Monday's meal

Wednesday: Salsa Chicken, Cold Corn Salsa

Thursday: Leftovers (Frugal Mister is working overtime)

Friday: Chinese Chicken Salads, Trader Joes Chicken Fried Rice

Saturday: Pulled Pork Sandwiches, French Fries

Sunday: Swiss Inches (Enchiladas), Mexican Rice