I am really liking this pre-planning stuff!

[FruGal]

Dinner has become so easy since I’ve started pre-planning it! Granted, I don’t always follow the plan exactly (stuff happens, you know!) but I mostly do, and this week has gone well. Here is my menu for the week:

Sunday – Roast Beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, Italian bread

Monday – Corned Beef, sauteed cabbage, parsley potatoes

Tuesday – Italian “steak” & cheese on buns, fried potatoes (the “steak” was left-over roast beef, sliced thin and marinated in Italian dressing before reheating and adding to the bun with sauteed onions & peppers)

Wednesday – Spaghetti & meatballs, salad, garlic toast

Thursday – Reuben or Rachel Sandwiches (made from left-over corned beef) and potato chips

Friday – Home made pizza & bread sticks

Saturday – Stuffed cabbage, mashed potatoes, Bread or rolls

I tried to creatively recycle the leftovers this week. So far it has gone quite well! The cool thing about pre-planning my menus is that when the family asks the inevitable question, “What’s for dinner?”

I just tell them to go and check the menu!

I have tried to do this before, but I never really stuck with it. Thank you to all who post to this forum for the inspiration to try again, and I’m sticking with it this time.

[JoAnn]

Sounds like a good plan here. Good luck with your week.

[Ms Gee]

Sounds good, motivates me to plan too.

[mbabb29340]

Great menu! I love planning ahead. It’s one less thing to worry about.

[redring]

I havent managed to do this yet. I wish I could. as close as i get is I want to make this sometime soon.

[mos]

great menu and recycling the meals! isn’t so much easier now?! you can plan and save time and money!

[mos]

Redring — just keep reading all of the great ideas posted and maybe it’ll help you to get motivated and more organized. go ahead and cheat! LOL!

that is, copy someone else’s menu(s) until you get comfortable planning on your own. take it slow if you need to and just substitute a couple of meals that you know your family realy enjoys until you can completely write your own. then you better post ’em so we can get some fresh ideas from you;-)

[FruGal]

Redring, I know it’s tough getting started with menu planning. Why don’t you try planning for just 3 days. It’s a start, even if you only plan 3 menus a week!

Once you start to realize how much smoother mealtime goes you will probably be motivated to plan out even more! I have been trying to plan out a month at a time, but leaving room to rearrange the menus, and concentrating on just one week at a time. I have had so much more time since I started doing this that for the first time in a long time, my house is clean and I have had a little free time!

I love it! 🙂

[naturalmommy]

Thats so great!

I plan meals for 2 1/2 weeks, and its so easy to do more when you have a plan!

I agree with the others. When I would buy stuff to have meals (I knew I had) I had plenty of meals… but It was so much harder to cook because there was no real plan.

if i didnt have something, we ended up doing fast food, or i ran to the store again for something…and spending more. our food budget went through the roof!

i started planning just a week at a time, and it got so easy that i started doing 2 plans a month ( roughly 2- 3 week span) Depending on how much I needed to buy, or what we are having. Its been wonderful. Both my husband and I work 2 jobs, and we have 2 kids that keep us running..

We STILL have home cooked meals every night, and 1 night/ month that we go out to a SIT down place of our choice and have a really good Meal out.

Its worth its weight in gold.
Good luck and congrats! keep it going! 🙂

[redring]

When I sit down and try to plan a menue I get menue block. Or ill decide I dont what I planned on that day. I have planned menues for during the week now…..kinda.

I know monday will be sheperds pie in the crock pot for dinner and lunch will be sanwiches. tuesday will be tex mex chicken and sanwiches for Dh sushi for me. After that well I know there is stuff in the kitchen.

I did look at my cabnits this weekend and realised If i planned our meals I could probably go weeks only spending $20 for gaeroceries. I have most the items for a lot of meals.

[naturalmommy]

I know what you mean, redring. I get the same way… i just look in my cookbooks, online, and sometimes even call my mom for ideas!

A lot of times, I build the menu starting with the stuff I have. Once those meals are in the week, I look at stuff I have left in my cupboards, and see what I can make with those, and just add to them to make a meal… once Im all out of meal Ideas with what I have at home already, I look in the weekly store ads to see what’s on sale, and get what i need, after receiving input from the family.

[pup22]

The week really does go much smoother when you have a plan, doesn’t it? I waste more time and energy if I do it on a daily basis.

[brchbell]

Okay, I plan a menu for the whole month but we take turns making meals so things get mixed up all the time. I look at each week and say this is what we’re having but one of the kids might offer to make dinner and do something different (usually because they don’t want what we are having.) Or I’ll have a day I don’t want to cook and say we’re having”X” anyone got a problem with that can make dinner. “X” is something several will have a problem with and 95% of the time someone will quickly volunteer to fix something for dinner relieve me of cooking that day.

But over all we stay fairly close to the menu it just might get mixed up a little over the month. Like it’s the middle of the month and we still have something from the 1st week we skipped. We’ll get to it eventually but it might not be until the end of the month.

if it’s something that we totally skip the entire month then we evaluate whether we should remove it from our menu system and add a new recipe. We recently removed Salmon cakes from the menu. We had it on the menu 2 months in a row ans by passed it both times and had to confess none of us cared for it so off it went.

We use our menus to plan our years supply of food. So we have to stay fairly close to it so we have what we need.

[FruGal]

I do love having the menus planned out ahead of time, but you are right about switching them up. Sometimes what is planned just doesn’t work, or there is just no time to prepare it because of schedule changes or whatever. But there is always something planned that can be easily substituted on those hectic days!

It’s just that when dinner is already planned, you know that the ingredients are there, you don’t have to substitute another ingredient or change out the menu to something else, or worse yet, blow the budget on dinner out! I would much rather enjoy a planned dinner out than a spur of the moment one!

[mdowdy]

@redring 102296 wrote:

When I sit down and try to plan a menue I get menue block. Or ill decide I dont what I planned on that day. I have planned menues for during the week now…..kinda.

I know monday will be sheperds pie in the crock pot for dinner and lunch will be sanwiches. tuesday will be tex mex chicken and sanwiches for Dh sushi for me. After that well I know there is stuff in the kitchen.

I did look at my cabnits this weekend and realised If i planned our meals I could probably go weeks only spending $20 for gaeroceries. I have most the items for a lot of meals.

Try this it takes a little bit but it helped me with my planning. I went through the pantry, cabinets, and refrig and made a list of everything I had. I then took the list and divided it up into meats, veggies, mixs, etc.

I then just went through the dates of everyday I needed it to last and started filling in meats, veggies, etc. the menu pretty well made itself.

[redring]

Thanks all for the tips! 🙂 I think ill try this weekend.

[mos]

then you should get to planning red! try a pantry challenge! that is, ONLY prepare meals with the items on hand. you’ll feel really good about saving the money AND being pretty creative.

[mos]

then you should get to planning red! try a pantry challenge! that is, ONLY prepare meals with the items on hand. you’ll feel really good about saving the money AND being pretty creative.

[redring]

done! Ill post. Up my menue. Its not all stuff i have on hand but mostly.

[redring]

done! Ill post. Up my menue. Its not all stuff i have on hand but mostly.

[mos]

I saw that! great job on your planning and frugality!

[mos]

I saw that! great job on your planning and frugality!

[Author]

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