Already in September life in the bakery department has been brutal. Two huge weddings and one to go next week and an unexpected order for 50 cookie cakes this week have put me way behind in my personal life. However, I am still plugging away at our debt!
The thing that gets us into trouble the most with spending money is food. It will suck the money out of your wallet quicker than anything! To combat this you need to be organized and that means spending a little time thinking about meals.
Unfortunately it’s probably the same in your house as it is in ours, the question being, “what’s for dinner?” I ask it every afternoon to my husband and son and my son always says, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t care, whatever you want to make” and my husband says burgers or pizza.
*Sigh* Not too inspiring right?
I have tried meal planning before and I have even blogged many times with “What’s For Dinner” posts which I will link later but I still get frustrated and try too hard sometimes to make the perfect meal for us.
What I am going to show you is just a calendar of dinner ideas for the month of September for us. Each day I can look at it and see just “tacos” or “crock pot” or “baked chicken”. It just gives me something to go by for dinner. It’s not a complete meal plan by any means but sometimes you just need an idea. I even took a photo of the meal plan on my phone so I can reference it when I need to bring home the appropriate ingredients if I don’t have them. If I don’t like what I wrote down or it doesn’t fit our mood I just switch the day out with another. Again this just gives me ideas so I am not just standing there in Aisle #3 wondering what to make.
Here is our meal plan for the month:
Sept 4th Sept 5th Sept 6th Sept 7th Sept 8th
Rotiss Chicken Crock Pot Stir Fry Wing it Tuna Noodle
Sept 9th Sept 10th Sept 11th Sept 12th Sept 13th
Turkey Dinner Grilled Sands. Leftovers Crockpot Tacos
Sept 14th Sept 15th Sept 16th Sept 17th Sept 18th
Wing it Pot Luck Chili Pizza Breads Soup
Sept 19th Sept 20th Sept 21st Sept 22nd Sept 23rd
Meatloaf Big Salads Wing it Rotiss Chicken Pork Roast
Sept 24th Sept 25th Sept 26th Sept 27th Sept 28th
Breakfast Pork chops Crockpot Chix Kiev Wing it
Sept 29th Sept 30th
Pot Luck Spaghetti
I didn’t get started doing a meal plan as you can see until the 4th. Most of these are pretty generic. Soup could be anything that sounds good or that I have on hand at the time. Pot luck is just a reference for me that it is Euchre night at friends and I have to bring a dish to pass. Rotisserie chicken is something easy I can bring home from the store for dinner. Breakfast for dinner is most likely scrambled eggs and toast because it will just be the hubby and I that night.
Friday “Wing it” nights are nights we are just going to figure it out. Probably just a take out night or leftovers. Crock pot and stir fry are also whatever I want to go into the crock or frying pan.
As you can see this is just a reference. Something to look at and go by. It has already changed a lot so far but it helps me.
Hopefully by the end of this week I will have enough to pay our school taxes. Yay!! New York residents got our property tax rebates in the mail last week and it covers almost a third of the bill for us! I was not expecting it and it certainly was a blessing.
By next week we will be back to paying down the credit card.
Do you have a meal plan or any kind of food plan you use to make your life easier? I would love to hear about it! -MM
If you are interested in reading my previous blog posts about “What’s For Dinner” here are the links
The Professional Domestic 
I used to look for one new recipe to try each week, as my DH gets in a rut for meals. We’re still working on that! One thing we do have is pizza on Friday. My dough and sauce is in the freezer, so I just use what I need. Knowing its pizza night saves me lots of time and headaches, and since we make our own, it’s cheap!
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I’ve never been good at meal planning, but always get stuck with the what’s for dinner question. I find myself wandering mindlessly for a terrible amount of time. I like the non-defined nature of this, so thank you for sharing! It has inspired me to try, and I need to more than ever now as I’ve just started work again and don’t have time or the mental space to deal with thinking about dinner!
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I can so relate to wandering around the store not knowing what to cook haha!
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