a try at

Meal Planning...........

I'm so used to just having a food budget but with our house not selling yet we're now down to specific meal planning.

But it's working so far.

I'm writing out actual lunches and dinners.

Last weeks menu was created using up our pantry/freezer items and then shopping for what was needed to make them into a meal.

Granted I also needed breakfast- which was easy with 3 boxes of cereal and 2 dozen poptarts but I needed to think of snacks & hubby's lunches which would differ from the kids and I due to him not being home when I cooked.

But over all not to shabby at $120 last week with plenty of cereal,potatoes,eggs,snacks & hubbys sandwich supplies leftover for this week.

So my grand total for this weeks 5 lunches & 5 dinners was $43

Can you believe it! I was so ecstatic when I looked up to pay.

Please note:

meat will be skipped every other night but beans are replacing it.

Nobody complained last week- which was nice,snacks are the biggest hurdle for the kiddos but slowing they seem to be getting that snack is snack which is at about 2:30 - 3:00 between lunch & dinner. Not after breakfast, not after lunch, not after dinner, or even at bed time.

I'm very interested to see what this totals out to on food for the 15 days, normally we spend $300 every 15 days, so far we are at $163 with 8 days to go, but then I have to remember that we had stuff left over from last month, so my true budget/value/cost will be the next 15 days following payday.