I shared a few weeks ago about how I get inspired to make a menu. Most often, it’s strictly by what I feel like making. I’ll ask Andy if there’s anything he’s been craving sometimes, but mostly, I just try and make a menu based on things I haven’t made in a while. Often times too, in the winter mostly when Andy isn’t working, I’ll make a menu based on what I have in the pantry at the time. But then there are the times where my budget is going to dictate the weekly menu and shopping list. That one I’ll confess freely to still working on it, but I may have a few helpful tips there for you.
The absolute first tip is that if your store has a sales flyer, this is where you need to use it. If you have multiple stores in your area, get all their sales flyers, or look them up online. Set yourself up at your dining table with all the flyers, a notebook, and a pen. Then slowly, page through the flyers, using your pen to mark things that you think are a really good deal. As you’re doing this, particular recipes may come to mind. Chicken thighs are on sale? That makes me think of Butter Chicken- so I write the butter chicken down on my notebook page as a possibility, as well as a note to which store has the thighs on sale.
Now I’ll tell you, with gas prices rising, my fuel dollar is just as precious as the grocery dollar sometimes. So I tend to not make the trek to four different store to do my shopping. Living in a small down, I check our small-town grocer first to see what they have on sale so that I can do my part to support the local business. They also happen to have a very good meat department, so if nothing inspires elsewhere, I can always count on them to follow through with something to put on the grill. Then I round off my list with the stores that are 20+ miles away. I weigh my lists carefully to see if it’s worth a trip into town this week. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes I trim down my list and buy just a few of the essentials here in town. Sometimes its way worth it to make the trip into town, it really depends on what staples we need and how the budget is looking this week.
But back to the menu planning. Let’s say I have four sales flyers here, and I’ve notated a few things on each flyer. Now I flip through them again, looking at the flyer as a whole, deciding whether or not I actually NEED the items I’ve marked, and if it’s worth a trip to this store to purchase these things. Often, the case is no. I’m not adding a few miles to my trip just for some canned soups and strawberries. But sometimes, there will be a flyer that really catches my eye, and I’ll have a list in no time. On days when I have the time and the inclination, I can be found doing my grocery shopping at all four stores. The real secret here to saving money and staying in budget is to only buy the things you’ve written down. This is best to do when I am shopping alone without children, so that I can be quick and efficient moving from item to item.
Some stores have grocery cards which signify extra savings for card holders. Sign up for these! It’s always free to sign up, and even if you only use it once a year-it’s worthwhile to do so. If you get the newspaper or magazines with coupons, you can use the coupons in conjunction with card sales and get items for practically free sometimes. I tend to not use coupons. Every once in a while I will go in a streak where I feel inspired to use coupons, and I take the time to clip them and organize them, but then they don’t get used. Mostly because couponed items tend to be convenience items that I don’t use. Buying spaghetti-o’s because I have a coupon is silly, since we don’t use them at all. That’s simply wasting money. (Although, I should add that this is a great way to do shopping for food pantries and food banks- you can save money and feed the hungry.)
One of the things I’m trying to do with my menu planning is that I’m trying to earmark a percentage of my budget for certain things. Say I have $100 for the week. I would like to allocate $30 to produce, $20 to meat, and $25 to dairy. Then the remaining $25 would be for staples like flour, sugar, and coffee. That way I could look at my list and see that I only have $12 worth of meat notated here, and then I should keep my eyes peeled for a sale on a different meat to put in the freezer. Or I find that bananas are half price this week, so I can splurge and pick up some fennel and asparagus to fill in where I’ve saved. It’s a work in progress, and with grocery prices going up, I’m going to do my best to spend more time here at Menu Planning 101 and sharing any tips I come up with.
I didn’t think it would freeze well, but I didn’t want to be wasteful. So it went in the fridge, and then I saw the green bell peppers, and I knew that goulash would make fantastic stuffed peppers.
