Day 22 of 31 Days to Slash your Grocery Spending: Plan this week’s meals and shopping trip.
Meal planning is really the cornerstone of smart grocery spending. If you do just one challenge this month, make it meal planning. When you walk in the grocery store with a plan, you will avoid duplicate and impulsive purchases, but walk away with enough food to get you through until your next planned trip.
Meal planning will save you time. You’ll spend about 30 minutes each week planning your meals, but that time will make your grocery trips go much smoother. It will also reduce any extra trips to the store during the week. Also with a pre-planned menu, dinner hour is spent preparing the meal, not wondering, “what are we having for dinner?”.
Meal planning will save your sanity. You will avoid the “what’s for dinner” chaos that happens at 5 pm when you don’t have a plan.
Meal planning will save you money. You will be planning your meals around the store sales flyer and what you already have on hand. Also, with less trips to the store and a pre-planned list, you will eliminate any impulse and duplicate purchases.
To get started, please read: 11 Simple Meal Planning Tips
This informative post will walk you through step by step how to plan your weekly menu. You will plan for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, and beverages and while you’re planning your meals, you will also be making your grocery list. The goal is to make just one grocery trip a week, so be very thorough.
Good luck with your meal planning. Every Sunday during the challenge will be the day to plan the upcoming week’s menu. Also on Saturdays, I’ll share what we ate for the previous week and also include pictures and information about my week’s shopping trips.
Let us know in the comments how your month is going. Also if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I will respond.
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