October is just days away, do you have your meal plan ready? Did you follow your September meal plan? If your answer is yes good for you! If your answer is no I have only one question for you….why not? We all have to eat. September has thirty days, that’s ninety meals that you need to eat, never mind snacks. That’s ninety opportunities to either save money or blow your budget. The other day I stopped to get my daughter a breakfast sandwich as a treat and spent about $3 on it…. One sandwich! I could have purchased a package of bagels , cheese, and eggs for about the same cost at Aldi and made six sandwiches at home. Imagine how much you could end up spending if you did that every morning all month. I love Chinese take out, but its hard to swallow that I could make about five meals for what I’d pay for one dinner.

Meal planning is one of the best ways to save money. Food is a necessary part of your budget. You and your family need to eat. Convince foods and take out will quickly add up if you rely on them to feed your family. Busy days? Use your crockpot. I make most meals for under $10 and I usually have leftovers. I actually have two crockpots,and I’ve been known to have both running with either lunch and dinner, or a meal and a sidedish. Right now I have chicken tacos and rice&beans going at the same time. My kitchen smells amazing!

Meal planning is not hard. It really doesn’t take that long. When I first started I would spend about two hours per month making a monthly menu. I was new to Pinterest  and got lost scrolling through more recipes than I knew existed. Now I could do a whole month in much less time.  I plan out every dinner for the week and the lunches for the weekend. I don’t make it overly complicated, but I also don’t make it so simple that we get board. I do leftover night every Monday and Thursday. Over the weekend I cook a lot and we have leftovers to user. Plus Monday’s can be busy so this simplifies life. Tuesday and Wednesday I also cook meals that tend to produce a good amount of leftovers so I do another leftover night to make sure no food goes to waste. What happens if there aren’t enough leftovers? I either do breakfast for dinner or I usually have extra frozen chicken that I’ll pull out the night before for an easy crockpot meal. I keep some back up items on hand at all times incase we need something quick and easy to pull together. Tuesday has been Taco Tuesday ever since we watched The Lego Movie. We thought it was fun and stuck ever since. We vary the kind of taco meat we have keep it from feeling redundant. Wednesday I make spaghetti sauce and meatballs. Since the school year has started we get pizza on Fridays as a treat. The weekend meals vary. I try to do simple to make on Saturday and a nice dinner on Sunday like ham or meatloaf. Breakfast is usually free choice from items I have or can easily make like eggs,oatmeal, French toast, pancakes, etc. Lunch is usually leftovers, sandwiches, or something simple. And to make my life easier I do most everything in the crockpot, even my ham and meatloaf. Much easier with a baby and toddler who need my attention.

My best tip is to do the whole month at a time. Sit down with your calendar. Plan meals based on your life . Do it in pencil so you can modify it as needed. I don’t plan my month based on sales. I plan based on what we like. Knowing the whole month I buy extra meat and freeze it when its on sale. If I find a great deal  on something I can easily modify my menu , but I don’t plan only based on sales. I’ve found it most helpful to plan and be prepared to pay full price that way I’m not thrown off on months that I can’t find good deals. Keep your menu after the month is over. It makes future meal planning easier, especially if you’ve modified your menu to reflect what you’ve eaten. If I plan meatballs and we have burgers I’ll mark the calendar .Let yourfami!y give their input. My nine year old son sat and helped pick out some meals for my October plan.

Meal planning is a blessing to you and your family. It takes the stress out of an activity that you do ninety plus times a month. Your family will appreciate a nice meal, and your wallet will appreciate it too!