WooHoo! We reach the magic number again!

As I'm sure you all know I have been meal planning all of our meals for about 3 weeks now. I have also been doing my best to stay in control of the housework ... I have passed the 2 week mark with that and am still doing well.

I am endlessly surprised by how much planning all our meals has cut our grocery bill. J has us on a tight budget of $175 a week with the goal of $150 a week or less if possible. We used to spend about $200 or more a week. Of course we started by only shopping once a week, if something was forgotten or ran out too bad. At that time I also started planning suppers but the rest of the meals were "What do you want?" "I dunno, what do you want?". Shopping once a week helped a lot but planning all our meals has helped even more! J actually said that just my list would have cost us more like $130ish but that he picked up a couple things not on my list that we'll use but didn't strictly need.This week's total bill was $148 for a week of food for our family. I was so happy that we made it under the $150 mark for the second week in a row.

Anyway just wanted to get that down before bed. If you're looking to waste less and spend less give meal planning a try and shop once a week and no more than that. Having to only think about what to cook once a week is very nice, the rest of the week I just have to look at the menu:) The kids are eating better at meal time because they know there is only fresh fruit and sometimes homemade cookies to snack on and nothing else to eat until the next meal is served. I'm seeing a great improvement in their eating.

Cass :)