March Meal Plan

I honestly forgot how much fun it is to be successful at the grocery store. I've always viewed it as a personal challenge to get the most, DELICIOUS meals at the lowest price. But when I post my checkout lane victories on FaceBook, I realize this is something that EVERYONE would like to accomplish. So, I would like to help share some of my strategies and procedures to getting amazing groceries at a ridiculously low price.

My first step is to sit down and look at my family calendar. If you don't have one master calendar for your family, I encourage you to start one. Mine is a paper calendar that I keep on my refrigerator. I have a line for each family member, and one for each meal. Now, ours is admittedly more complex, because of our custody arrangement - which also factors into my meal planning, but I'll get into that more later. I write down all the special events that we may have that month, and how that factors into our meal plan. For instance, we have a special event at church this month where we will be eating pizza for dinner. So, I don't need to plan a meal for that day. Write down whatever you need to do that month, where everyone is going to be, etc. so that you get a good idea of what your family will be doing.

Next I figure out how many meals I need to make. This is where custody tends to complicate things. I have my kids 50% of the time. So there are two weeks out of the month that I need to plan on making actual breakfasts, packing school lunches, having after school snacks, and family-sized dinners.  You'll notice on my meal plan that I have categories like "Kid Lunches at Home" - those are the weekends when I have my kids and like to actually make a family meal for lunch for us to eat. Then there are "Adult Lunches" which are all the delicious things that my husband and I want to eat on the weekends that we don't have the kids. 

Below is a picture of my "working list" where I make my notes. Because I am the way that I am, I also type up my list if I have time to make sure that I don't forget anything.

I do not coupon like most people do - I don't go through the paper and clip things out, and I don't compare prices on things at other stores. I just use my Fry's app and will add digital coupons that they have to my shopper card. I do not shop sales. I do not go to multiple grocery stores. I go to Fry's and buy everything because I like to get the Fuel Points. My goal each month is to keep my grocery budget under $500. If I am feeling particularly motivated I will try to keep it under $400. That includes groceries, vitamins, things like shampoo/conditioner/body wash/shaving cream, toothpaste, deodorant, cleaning supplies, paper products. It does not include medicine purchases (monthly prescriptions) or pet supplies - our dog has some serious food allergies and has his own line item for dog food because he is ridiculous.

Several people have asked what we do about produce, and how do we eat produce all month long. I buy a ton of fresh fruit and veggies, but I also buy frozen. When I get home from grocery shopping, I chop some (onions, peppers) and freeze what I can blueberries/grapes/etc. The frozen fruit will be put into lunch boxes - because they will thaw by the time lunch comes around, used as an after school snack, tossed into yogurt or a smoothie for breakfast. We eat a lot of salad and fresh seasonal vegetables for the first two weeks, and then use our frozen stock for the last two weeks. It just takes a bit of tweaking your meal plan to make sure that you are using recipes in the beginning that call for fresh vegetables, and making things like crock pot meals or soups or casseroles in the last half of the month so that you can use your frozen goods.

We are not huge dairy drinkers, so we rarely buy more than a gallon of milk a month, and even some months that doesn't get used up.

When we buy things like bread, tortillas, English muffins, butter, cheese, lunchmeat - we buy in bulk and put it in the freezer. Same with our meat - I buy a lot of chicken, portion it out into what I will need for each meal (chop, slice, or flatten beforehand) and then freeze it. Don't forget to label your frozen meat with information like when it was frozen, what it is, what meal it is for - so that you don't get it mixed up.

Here is how my plan is so ridiculously easy: after I have a list of all the meals that I am going to be making, I write down every single thing I will need to make that meal. That way I end up with a very comprehensive grocery list. Next I open the Fry's app on my phone and in the "Shopping Cart" section, I add everything on my grocery list. This gives me a very accurate guess as to what my final grocery bill will be, and what's great is that it does not include the coupons that I have loaded to my card, so my bill is usually lower. It also tells me what aisle the items are on, so I can just use it as a list, aisle by aisle, to go through and grab what I need.

It really is pretty simple, and I am sure that I could add some steps in to save even more, but right now this is what has been working for us. This month's grocery total was $302.

Who Knew? Fish!

I was just reading through the scripture for my lesson in Kinder/1st this morning.  First of all, I have to say that I am so blessed to be able to call this my job.  I literally get to pour the Word and Love of God into the lives of these sweet children in the most creative way that I can.  And it's called "work".  Of course there are always challenging days, or times (*squints at SUMMER BREAK*) but it is so rewarding and FUN!

I digress.  Today I was talking with a co-worker and I said, "You know, the kids call me a teacher, but I really never thought of myself as one.  Sometimes I wonder what God was thinking when He placed me here, because it is so different than the path that I was on that I was SURE was the right one."  Newsflash: studying criminal profiling and psychology does NOT translate into teaching kindergarteners on Sunday morning.  Those skills and knowledge are now useless.  Although still highly entertaining.  And expensive (student loans are NEVER a good idea, folks!).

She gave me some reassuring words and we went on happily about our day.  How could you not go on happily about your day when the next few things on your to-do list were "1. decide on a game for Sunday, 2. get craft supplies ready for Sunday, and 3. read Bible story for Sunday"?  Well, I moved on through my list and landed on #3.  The story this week hit me. In the gut. Hard.

Let me expound on that.

Our theme this month is Friendship, and this week we are focusing on how friends forgive one another.  Pretty straight-foward.  But the story is from John 21:3-14.  Peter has been through a lot, this is right after the crucifixion AND his triple denial of his relationship with Christ.  He decides to go back to what he knows. Fishing.  He's going to go fishing to relax, recenter himself, whatever it is that he needs to do.  Now, if I remember correctly, he was a professional fisherman.  And they NEVER fish at night.  Which leads me to believe that he was just going to go through the motions as a way to soothe himself.  When he hasn't caught anything after being on the water all night (no big surprise there) he sees a man on the shore who asks if they have caught anything.  Um, no, sir, they have not.  The man proceeds to tell them to throw their net on the right side of the boat.  K, weird, but OK.  They do, and they haul in so many fish that the nets were full to bursting.  When Peter figures out who it is, he jumps in the water and swims to shore to see his friend - Jesus. 

Here's the sneaky little line in there that just nailed me to the floor.  It happens in verse 9.  "When they landed they saw a fire of burning coals.  There were fish on it.  There was also some bread (NIRV)".  Did you see it?  "There were fish on it".  They haven't dragged their catch in yet, guys.  But Jesus had a fire with FISH ON IT.  Which means, He was ready.  He really didn't need their catch in order to have breakfast.  He didn't need them to supply anything.  They weren't expecting to catch anything, and had accepted the fact that they didn't.  But they were obedient to his directions, even when they didn't know that it came from Him.  And when they saw the level of the blessing they received they realized it could ONLY have come from Him.  Jesus was prepared to have them come, sit, and join Him in a meal whether they had caught fish or not, whether they had listened to Him about the fishing or not.  The fact that they DID listen to Him only increased how much blessing He had to give them.  They were going to eat fish either way.

Isn't that so true of how He works in our lives?  He is ready to bless us all the time.  He is ready to sit and fellowship and engage in relationship with us at all times.  Sometimes we aren't even looking to accomplish anything, and yet Christ can do amazing things in our lives.  All we need is to be obedient and open to his voice.  While we may feel that what we bring to the table is lacking, or less-than what He deserves, we need to remember that it isn't about how much we do, how much we bring, etc.  It is about the step of obedience and faith to His words.  THAT is what He values. 

Christ loves us so much.  It sounds like a Sunday school line, but let it sink in.  He loves us.  And He wants to spend time with us, and He wants to bless us.  If we love Him, and listen to Him, and obey Him, He promises that He will be with us.  We are going to sit down to eat fish with Him - the question is, how much fish will there be?  Are we going to allow Him to work through us, even when we don't think that we are in the right place at the right time, or doing the right thing?  Are we going to listen to His voice from the shore telling us to cast our nets to the other side of the boat?