I decided that I don't want to think about dinner anymore. I want to know what I'm making, have everything on hand, and have dinner on the table by 5:30 without stressing. I have made weekly menus before, but I wanted to go a lot further because no matter how much I try, I never stick to the weekly menus. I know a lot of people struggle with the same thing, so I thought I'd type up a post to share in the hopes that someone else could use it too!
Pinterest has been a great place to find a lot of really good recipes for me. I made a list of my favorites from there (plus some of my Pampered Chef recipes and some from my Taste of Home cookbooks) to get me through a month. I then divided them up into weeks - 4 per month. I'm going to use this 4 week schedule and start over at the end of 4 weeks. I figure if I make something and the kids don't care for it, I can swap it for something else or just make them eat it... It's only once a month, after all.
Here's how I did it:
I purchased a binder and some sheet protectors. I typed out each weeks menu and put those in sheet protectors.
Then I went through each recipe and made up grocery lists for each week. I typed those out and put in the sheet protectors. When I go grocery shopping, I just remove these from the binder (still in the sheet protectors) and use a dry erase pen to mark things off the list as I shop. It wipes right off when you're done and you put it back in the binder.
And because my kids always think they are starving I seem to have trouble keeping food I purchase specifically for a recipe from disappearing. To aid in that, I bought 7 clear plastic tupperware bins and wrote a day of the week on each one. Now, when I am putting my groceries away each week, I put the dry ingredients I need in the bins instead of in the pantry with everything else. When it's time to make dinner, I pull out the bin for that day and most of my items I need to prepare the meal are already there. And the kids know that the food in these bins are not for snacking!
I also happen to have a separate refrigerator in may garage. So the refrigerated items I need for dinners go out there. I have found that if the food is not inside my kitchen, the kids won't eat it. Going outside and out to the garage is too much work :)
As an added bonus, this has saved me a lot of money. My grocery bill this week (including food for lunches as well) for our family of 6, was just under $165.00. I know this isn't super cheap... I don't clip coupons, but I could definitely save more. I do bargain shop, buy things on sale, compare price per ounce, and buy store brand. This is a great savings for us. In the past I have walked out from my weekly shopping trip spending around $300. And I still didn't know what to make for dinner! Now, I ONLY buy what's on my list and get it on sale when I can.
