Menu Planning

I'm going to spend the next couple weeks drawing a picture about how we afford to feed our family of 5 on a budget. My budget is 150$ a week for food. I also spend $4 a week on 1 gallon of raw milk, and $30 a month on our nature box. I am going to spend this week walking you through menu planning, what we buy, and each day I will post a menu of food that we eat. Also keep in mind that my boys eat lunch Monday through Friday at school currently. I am excited to show how we do what we do in hopes that it will help any of you trying to eat healthy, do so on a budget. Typically, in a week,  I make a baked good (i.e. bread, muffins, or "cookies") a homemade snack (i.e. granola bars, power balls, fruit roll ups, or crackers), a soup, s salad, a pizza, a pasta dish, a veggie burger, and something new for dinner on a weekly basis. This helps me provide variety in our nightly meals.

MENU PLANNING.


I have a system in place that works very well for my family. I currently am on a 6 week cycle of pre-made meal plans. (when I get board I make up a new menu, preint it out, and send it through the laminator. Pretty simple. I have a list of meals and baked goods for the week as well as a shopping list including staple items. This list includes anything and everything that the specific recipes call for. Each week I grab a laminated plan and the day before I shop, I first go shopping in my house. I cross of with a wet erase marker all items that I already have in our stash. I also add any items that we need. My meal plans focus on dinners mainly because we eat raw primarily  for other meals and snacks. I usually look at the sales fliers for the week and choose produce that is on sale or shop the farmers market when they are open. My Menu plan for this week looks like this....

Meals:

Zucchini Pineapple Bread (whole food binder p191)

Granola Bar

Onion and Veggie soup

Vegetable Lo Mein (Vegetarian Family Cookbook p104)

Mushroom Burgers with Sweet Potato fries(Happy Herbivore p89)

Chick Pea Strawberry Mango salad (Peas and Thank you p59)

Pizza

 

Shopping list:

8C Romaine Lettuce

14 oz Chickpeas

1 Mango

2 C Strawberries

1/2C dried cranberries

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1/4c Fresh Mint

1 tsp Dijon Mustard

3 Tbls Lemon Juice

3 Tbls Apple Cider Vinegar

1/3c Agave or pure maple syrup

Cinnamon

Ground Ginger

Sunflower oil

Hamburger buns

8oz cremini mushrooms

15 oz kidney or pinto beans

Braggs Amino

3 sweet potatoes

Linguini

8oz pre-shredded coleslaw mix

1 1/2 C mushrooms

1C snow peas

Scallions

Whole wheat pastry flour

Baking soda

Baking powder

Nutmeg

Allspice

1egg

Pineapple

2 Zucchini

1.2C raisins

I make these by checking out my cook books, recipes I have made up and pinterest, note that the sources are noted with page numbers for easy reference.

So I first search my kitchen and see what I already have and cross those items off. Then I take my laminated sheet and head to the store. Tomorrow I will show you what I get in a typical week.