Monthly Menu Planning

The last month has been a true adventure in the food department. With little money, I had to create a menu that kept us fed as healthily as possible. It scared me to have so little to work with but I did it and I am thrilled!

Now I embark on a new journey: monthly menu planning. We have a very different life here in Colorado. In Arizona, I had Wal-Mart and Sprouts close by and could do my shopping every week and dash to the store to get a missing item with no problem. Here, I have no Sprouts and Wal-Mart is far enough away to make it a pain to go often.

So, I've worked out a new plan that I am very pleased with. We're getting a local dairy delivery each week that will supply me with my milk, butter, eggs and cheese. I had a long talk with the milk man and I'm very pleased with how the milk is processed (low temp pasteurization) and how quickly it gets from the local cow to my doorstep (2 days). The prices are either equal or less than what I pay at the store. Even the free-range eggs are local and they are actually $2 cheaper per dozen. Awesome!

Then we'll have a box of local, organic produce delivered each week. This will be a combination of fruits and vegetables that I can incorporate into any meal plan. Veggies will go into our soups or be used in a side dish. Fruits will be for snacking and smoothies. I have yet to get my first box so I'm not entirely sure what it will be like, but the price is very impressive for all organic.

I am still flexible regarding our meats. I have several local options to check out. I can get grass-fed meats at local grocery stores or directly from the farm. There is a lot available here in Colorado! You should check out http://www.eatwild.com/ to see what's in your area. :) Ideally, I'd get a deep freezer for the garage and buy a quarter of a cow to last us all year! :) That is my goal for next year. Unless we win the lottery, it will take us a year to save up for such a purchase.

To help cut back on shopping trips, we decided to get a Sam's Club membership. We'll get our paper products, cleaning supplies, cat food and cat litter, and personal toiletry items there. Also some canned and frozen foods. Some things, like canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and green beans we go through a lot of. Plus frozen fruit is a must have for smoothies and frozen veggies in case we run out of fresh stuff. I'll be planning to go to Sam's just once a month to load up.

Most exciting for me, in terms of personal accomplishment, has been baking. These last several weeks we haven't had money for cereal or muffins for breakfast. I've been baking up a storm to keep us fed in the grains/carbs department. I've made all kinds of breads, muffins, biscuits, cookies. It's been fun and obviously cooking from scratch is always cheaper and healthier. So I'm buying things like flour in bulk so I can keep this up. I don't even want to buy sandwich bread anymore...my goal is to make it all from scratch! 

Working this all into the budget has been fun. I enjoyed having a whole month's worth of meals all planned out. It saved me so much time once it was all on paper! I'm almost finished with the next month's menu plan and will share it soon. This time I planned out breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

I'm going to blog again next month on how the budget turns out. My goal is to feed us healthfully while staying on a reasonable budget, not necessarily to get our grocery bill as low as possible. But we'll see. I think one area that will look drastically better will be dry goods. No more boxes of cookies, Rice-a-Roni, mac and cheese, etc!