A month of meals

Those of you reading who have me on Facebook have probably seen my bits about my Costco meal plan and shopping/planning for a month at a time. I figured it was time I organized my random posts into one nice article.

I saw someone else post a link about doing $5 dinners, shopping for 20 meals at once. I have been wanting to do this for quite sometime so in February I took the plunge. I paid the couple of bucks to download the PDF file because it made things SO much easier rather than printing or bookmarking 11 different recipes.

http://www.5dollardinners.com/20-meals-from-costco-for-150-recipes-printable-shopping-lists/

Initially I spent about $160 at Costco and another $40 on pantry items at Wal-Mart. I labeled and froze the meat and rolls, then filled out a calendar for February.

Most of meals were kid-approved. However, the beef stew dishes did not come out that great. Maybe being a vegetarian has something to do with my lack of meat cooking skills. 😉

Following this meal plan, we found there were family favorites that we were all missing like pot pie or even just BBQ burgers. So I decided to give it another go, but do it MY way this time. Using what I learned in February I created my own monthly menu. We shopped at Costco and did an entire month of shopping for $200, plus left myself another $50 per week for perishable items like milk, bread, and fruit.

Month 2 is more than halfway over and I am so relieved at not having to think about what I’m going to cook every night, or what I need to shop for. Worth the time I put in at the beginning of the month.