Monthly Menu

Weekly grocery shopping is such a time hog that I decided to find a way to shorten the time spent every month. My time in the actual store is only about 45 minutes, but when you add on the driving, putting everything away and pre-planning, you have a pretty lengthy process. I would guess I was previously spending 2-2 1/2 hours per week total, not including cutting coupons. I'm not into extreme couponing and don't stockpile, so I only cut coupons for the items I actually plan to purchase. I also only shop primarily at the commissary with occasional trips to Publix for their BOGO deals. I simply don't have time in my day/week/month to spend cutting, planning, organizing, shopping, storing and figuring out what to do with all of the products I would accumulate if I was an extreme couponer. If it works for you, great! I don't have the brain energy to do it.

I do, however, plan to start making a monthly trip to Whole Foods, Earth Fare or Trader Joe's and a twice monthly trip to the farmer's market. I also plan to increase my order from Bread Becker's to take advantage of their bulk grains and beans. I would love to be able to order from Azure Standard, but it doesn't look like it's a good deal to have it shipped to the east coast.

As always, I started with the internet and began researching monthly menu planning. I've done this in the past, but haven't stuck with it for any length of time. I found that in the past I didn't spend enough time planning everything out before trying to implement it. This time around I'm spending several weeks getting the menu just right, making sure it's filled with foods we won't mind eating on a monthly basis and making sure we have plenty of variety. As part of my healthy eating goal I've made sure the majority of the meals utilize healthy cooking techniques and ingredients.

For now I'm going to try to plan one menu to last us at least 3 months. The menu will simply repeat itself at the beginning of each month. I did not plan for holidays or special events, but figure that should not be a problem as we get to them. Each day of the week uses a different meat or type of dish. Sunday is pork, Monday is chicken, Tuesday is fish/seafood, Wednesday is wraps/sandwiches, Thursday is soup, Friday is beef and Saturday is meatless. With the high cost of grass-fed meats, though, I might find myself searching out more meatless meals. I have already decided to cut back on the quantity of meat in most meals. For dishes that previously used one pound of meat, for instance, I'll cut it down to 1/2 pound or 3/4 pound.

I did not include lunches since those are normally leftovers or sandwiches, but I did include breakfast for six days. Again, I tried to shoot for variety and have things like eggs/toast, pumpkin pancakes or waffles with orange syrup, oatmeal, creamy rice pudding, sausage/egg rollups and biscuits and gravy. My family loves dessert so I included one dessert per week, but will probably make a few more depending on how much of a sweet tooth we get.

To make shopping easier I made a twice monthly shopping list that details everything I will need for two weeks. I did not get nitty-gritty and include things like baking soda and flour, but I did include things like pecans, eggs and buttermilk. I want to make sure I get the correct amount of eggs,milk, cheese, etc. from wherever I decide to purchase them and not run out before I get a chance to get more. Since I'm trying to stay grass-fed and pasture-raised, I don't want to get store-bought milk and eggs if I can avoid it.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do a screen-capture or upload a copy of either the menu or shopping list. If you are interested in either one, please leave me a comment and I will email them to you. I'm bummed because it would have looked so cool in the post.