This week I am going to start a 3 part series on monthly freezer meal planning. I used to do this every couple months before my family had to move to an apartment for a year to financially prepare for me to stay at home full time. I have been a pretty intense budgeter for a few years now. Even more so once my son was born (baby #3) and I quit working full time. I transitioned to a part time position where I worked 5 am to 9 am, 5 days a week. It was torture, especially with a 6 week old that doesn't sleep. Thankfully in December of 2014, I was able to be a full time stay at home mom (SAHM). Then, like an addict, I found a part time job to do from home. I don't think I know how to not work. Anyway, a year and a half later, another kiddo on the way and in a small house I had the inspiration to start up monthly meal planning again. Living by the pay periods has caused me to meal plan every 2 weeks (ish) anyway. This baby however, has given me an intense paranoia that I will go into labor and there will be no food for my other kids because I'm due around the mid-month pay period. Silly, I know, because I have awesome people who would never let my kids starve and would run to the store for me. But paranoia, especially preggo paranoia can be a strong emotion. It keeps you up a night. It also causes you to spend 13 hours making 30 dinners, 17 lunches and 3 dozen muffins. Oh yes, you read that right.
While we aren't exclusively living on these meals for the next 30 days, I am using this stuff to supplement my usual menu planning to allow me to focus on other projects that creep up on the nesting to do list (like re-organizing my laundry room). Thankfully we have all the major furniture covered and many of our toys and activity playsets have survived 3 kids.
Let me say, I have a culinary background. I worked as a line cook for 5 years and know my way around a kitchen and recipe book. I do still think that anyone can monthly meal plan. Cooking days like this can easily be scaled back to 3 or 4 hours (not 10) and you'd get away with 15 meals or so.
Some books gave me the original inspiration for monthly freezer meals.
I have also been previously inspired by sites like Monthly Freezer Meals on Facebook and a few friends of mine.
The first task to hurdle when meal planning is figuring out what you want to cook. I usually include several meals what use similar ingredients. A couple pasta dishes, a few tex-mex inspired dishes and a few casseroles. I will also try to incorporate meat that is less expensive cuts or can be used in all the dishes, ex: ground beef, chicken tenderloins, ground turkey. Then using Pinterest boards I've made or cook books I have (or recipes in my head) I decide the meals I am going to make and about how many I want to get.
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| Some of these are staples in our house and some are new. |
The total trip for the planned 31 freezer meals, 12 weekly meals, lunches and breakfast cost me $340 using exclusively Winco and Costco. We had to rearrange our budget to make this work but it will make things so much easier in the long run.
I learned a few things this trip,
- I am not taking my kids for this level of shopping again. (I'd rather go at midnight)
- I overbought on things like pasta (I was rusty with my amounts for this kind of volume)
- I need to find a few more vegetarian ideas to help make more meals stretch for less $.
I will be back in a few days to go over the cooking day and freezer storage. I'd be happy to answer any questions on menu planning and hope that you all enjoy this post!
