Grocery Shopping

It's the beginning of a new month.  Do you know what that means?  Grocery shopping.  I have a confession, I HATE grocery shopping.  I don't know why, I just do.  When Anthony and I first were married, I planned meals for a week at a time and then went shopping for what I needed for the week.  I hated spending time every weekend grocery shopping.  I eventually started going every other week and then I went twice a month.  Now though, I go once a month (for the most part, I'll tell you more about that later).  That's right, I plan my meals for a month and then go shopping for them.

I know what you are thinking.  "I can't even decide what to have for dinner tonight let alone for an entire month at a time."  I bet if you give it a try, you might find it to be easier than you ever expected.  I hated planning meals just a week at a time.  I usually would plan the same things over and over, and I would get bored with what we were eating.  Other times, I wouldn't be in the mood to cook (or eat) any of the meals I had planned for the week.  Planning for an entire month and writing it all down helps me see what I'll be making and plan a better variety.  The worst would be when I would plan a bunch of time consuming meals and not have them time to cook them.  Then we would end up eating take out or frozen meals, neither of which are usually good for the waistline.

Two things I am good at and like are being organized and planning things out.  I use both of these to my advantage.  Here's how I make this work for me.

1.  I figure out how many days in the month I need to plan meals for.  For example, looking at the calendar, I'm going shopping September 3, 2011 and know the next time I will go to the store is October 1, 2011.  I don't cook Sundays, so I don't count any of those days.  I also take into account any days when I know we will be eating away from home.  This month, there aren't any.  So my total for the month is  24.  I know, it sounds like a lot.  Most of the meals I make, however, have leftovers and they feed our family for two days (so those meals get counted as two meals).  In reality, I only plan out about 12-13 different dishes.

2.  I start writing down meals I know I want to make.  To create a variety, I pull ideas from different categories.  Usually for a month, I try to cook 2-3 pasta dishes, 1-2 Mexican dishes, and a breakfast dish.  To fill in the rest, in the summer I tend to do more sandwiches and food on the grill and in the winter I do more soups and "meat as the main dish" meals (i.e. ham loaf, meat loaf, poor man's steak, etc.).

3.  Once my list is completed, I start making my grocery list.  I go down through my list of meals one at a time.  I look at my recipes and figure out off the top of my head what I already have on hand, and what I need to buy.  The things I need go right onto my grocery list.  If I'm not sure if I need something, I write it on a separate sheet of paper.  At the end, I go through my refrigerator, freezer, cupboards, and pantry to see if I have these items or not.  So I go through this process (being sure to write down any ingredients I will need for the sides for my meals as well) for each meal I plan.  Then I add any items I will need for breakfast, lunches, and snacks.  VOILA!  I'm nearly done for an entire month.

4.  The only exception to this, obviously, is fresh produce.  What I do is, next to each meal, I write down any produce I will need for the meal.  Once a week, I pick the meals I'm going to make over the next week and write the produce I need for them on a shopping list.  Then I go to the store, once a week, to get fruit, produce for my meals for the week, and milk.  I'm in and out of the store in about 10 minutes.  It's wonderful!

I realize this isn't for everyone.  Most people would say I'm crazy!  It does take some planning.  In addition to planning and buying for an entire month of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks, I also buy any cleaning supplies, health care/beauty items, etc. for the month.  Since I only do major grocery shopping once a month, I go to three different stores (Buehlers, Save-a-lot, and Walmart) to get the best prices (I have learned over time where things are cheapest so this has become pretty easy).  It sounds like a lot, but in the long run I save time and money, and am less stressed.

Here is what I have planned for the month of September in case you are interested.  The two in parentheses means we are either going to have it two days in a row (because of leftovers) or it's a one day meal that I plan on having twice throughout the month.  The stuff that follows the meal is the produce I need from the grocery store each week for that meal.  This is how my meals list looks.

Stromboli (2), salad
Taco Soup (2)
Chicken Parmesan Sandwiches (2)
Soup and Sandwiches (2), salad
Stuffed Peppers (2), green peppers
Easy Ravioli Bake (2), salad, Buehlers fresh Italian bread
Chicken Noodle Casserole (2)
Breakfast Bake (2), green pepper, onion
Sausages (2), corn on the cob
Enchiladas (2), homemade salsa ingredients
Lasagna (2), salad, Buehlers fresh Italian bread
Chicken Tortilla Soup (2), garlic, cilantro
Hot Dogs (2), corn on the cob

Well anyway, it works for me.  Maybe it will work for one of you out there!

Sincerely,
The woman who everyone gawks at in Walmart because my cart is so full items are falling out of it .
a.k.a. Jenni

P.S. - For those of you who gawk at me, no, I do not have twelve children at home whom I am feeding, at least not yet anyway!  ; )