Save Your Grocery Budget – Be Prepared For The Unexpected
You’ve learned that planning your weekly menu will save you both time and money. However, you’ve run into a few problems lately. You’re working later than expected some days and dinner doesn’t get started on time like you’d like. You have extra errands to run after work and the kids have a special science project that requires a stop at the library. Now, your meal plan is in serious jeopardy.
If you had gotten home on time, as planned, you would have started the Chicken Parmesan, as planned, and had dinner ready at 6:00 p.m., as planned. Well, the plan has been derailed, and now you don’t even have enough time to swing through the grocery store and pick up something quick for dinner. So, it’s the drive-thru tonight. Not exactly frugal or nutritious. Your carefully structured menu is just a vague, happy memory.
Your best-laid plans are an ideal. Certainly, you hope that nothing interferes with these plans, but something always does. Planning for a disruption isn’t something we very often do successfully. The Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” may be your solution to this problem. When the inevitable happens and your menu plan is messed up, you need to have a back-up plan prepared and ready to put into play.
How do you create a back-up plan for a well-staged weekly menu? You need a sort of template for meals that you can make at the drop of a hat. This is a “go to” recipes and shopping list that allows you to create a meal quickly and with very little thought. Because, we all know that once you fall off your routine, the frazzle-factor kicks in and you can’t think about how to tie your shoes, let alone what to cook for dinner. The result? Your brain goes into “drive-thru mode”, which is the easiest route to your family’s full tummies. How do you develop a back-up menu plan? By relying on your favorite quick and easy recipes. Pick out your recipes and get them down on paper. When they’re on paper, you don’t have to think about what’s for dinner, you only have to read a list. Here’s how it works in three easy steps.
FIRST STEP: You’ll want seven of your family’s favorite recipes, preferably meals with few ingredients, but healthy ingredients. Your back-up recipes should be good and nutritious so that you don’t lose all the health and budget advances you’ve made so far in your menu planning system. Try to stay with mostly one-dish meals as you’re already rushed for time when you turn to this back-up meal. Now, just write each of the seven recipes on individual index cards.
SECOND STEP: Pick a cupboard or pantry door in your kitchen, and attach some peel-and-stick bulletin board cork squares inside and pin your recipes to the cork board. If you don’t want to attach cork board inside your cupboards, tape an envelope to the back of a cupboard door and place your recipe cards inside the envelope. Your favorite go-to recipes are now all set when you need to use your back-up plan. Another advantage to having these recipes ready, is you can now call on your family to start some of the prep work if they can just grab the recipe card and begin.
THIRD STEP: A grocery list that is specifically made for your new back-up recipe plan is essential for this method to work. This is a list that you keep in your purse or car. You will create this by first writing your seven recipes down, then list the ingredients needed next to each recipe title. Be sure to simplify the list by eliminating the items that you have on hand all the time, like salt, pepper, butter, etc. When you pick the list out of your purse, you’ll choose your recipe, then go quickly through the grocery store picking out just the ingredients you need. When you get home, just pull your recipe out of the envelope, and dinner will be ready in no time. You won’t have to stop and think when you start down the grocery store aisles. The decisions have already been made, courtesy of your back-up plan.
If having a back-up meal plan seems like a lot of extra work, it’s worth it. Once you choose the recipes, copy them on the note cards, and make a permanent grocery list, you can sit back and relax. Now, the very next time you get frazzled because you’re not going to make it home in time to start your delicious, planned meal, you’ll be glad you developed this quick “go to” meal plan. No more greasy take-out bags thrown on the table in front of your hungry family. You can still have a nice, hot nutritious meal with just a little preparation.
So, who needs a back-up plan? We all do. Won’t it be great to look at your watch when you’re running behind for dinner and think, “oops… Plan B” instead of “EEEEK! Now What”? You’ll enjoy your drive home, you’ll enjoy your time with the family, and you’ll enjoy your own favorite meals… even if they are Plan B!
If you think planning your weekly or monthly menu helps you Live A Frugal Life, you would be right. Everything from watching your food budget to Lowering Your Monthly Bills will help your budget’s bottom line get and stay in-the-black. Good job!
