March Meal Plan 2014

We are doing our once a month shopping a little early this month because the day I would normally do it is my due date.  While I love my husband dearly I don't trust him to be able to pull off an OAMS trip without me.  When I send him for a handful of items I get numerous phone calls asking which brand to buy, this price vs. that price, and informed of other goodies he finds that we might "need".   When I told him this he suggested we forgo the big trip this month and instead he would do weekly trips.  I considered this for all of 10 seconds before saying no thanks.


Is that harsh?


Ok, I'll admit I'm a little controlling when it comes to my grocery shopping/list making/couponing/grocery budget.  I know what we need, what we go through, the amount of money we have to work with and how to make it work for us.  To someone who hasn't done a day of grocery shopping by themselves for a family in their life, it's not easy.  With a new baby coming and already having a very active 3 year old I want as few things to worry about as possible.  One of the things I don't want to worry about is food and meals.  I want everything I need for the whole month so I don't have to wonder if I have all the ingredients for this meal or that.  I've come accustomed to that luxury since I started OAMS.  It also might be selfish but I don't like the idea of sending my husband every week for groceries knowing it will take him a couple hours minimum and me stuck at home alone with 2 kids.  I would rather us all be stuck at home together.


When I started thinking of meals to make this month and the fact that I would be recovering from childbirth, the idea of doing a lot of from scratch cooking started stressing me out.  I have not one desire to make the meals I normally do.  This past month I had already slacked with the homemade cooking and resorted to some frozen family size meals which I hadn't bought in forever.  I decided my sanity and stress level was more important than trying to be supermom, so this month is full of quick, easy, and some store bought frozen meals.  I want to be able to focus on bonding, recovering, and establishing a new normal routine for our growing family not what to make for dinner.  The from scratch homemade meals will come eventually but no need to do it now.


Week 1
Sunday:  Lasagna (homemade by my mom)
Monday:  Breakfast for dinner- scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon
Tuesday: Tomato Soup with grilled cheese sandwiches
Wednesday: fish stick sandwiches, mac & cheese, and fruit
Thursday:  Hamburgers with tator tots and fruit
Friday: leftovers
Saturday:  Grilled Chicken breast with green beans


Week 2
Sunday:  Stuffed Pepper soup (freezer)
Monday: Breakfast for dinner-bacon with biscuits and gravy
Tuesday:  chicken nuggets, corn, fruit
Wednesday: Spaghetti with garlic toast
Thursday:Salisbury steak, mashed potato, biscuits
Friday: leftovers
Saturday: hot dogs, mac & cheese, green beans


Week 3
Sunday:  chicken nuggets, mashed potato, corn
Monday: Breakfast for dinner- omelets
Tuesday:  grilled cheese, tator tots, fruit
Wednesday: Hamburgers & French fries,
Thursday: fish sticks, mac & cheese, fruit
Friday: leftovers
Saturday:   pulled pork sandwiches, corn, potato wedges


Week 4
Sunday:  Salisbury steak, mashed potato, biscuits
Monday:  Breakfast for dinner-pancakes with bacon
Tuesday:  Spaghetti with garlic toast
Wednesday:  hot dogs, mac & cheese, fruit
Thursday:  Grilled chicken, corn, corn bread
Friday:  leftovers
Saturday: pizza (take-out)


As you can see this months meals are pretty sad compared to previous ones but I wanted to make sure all the meals are ones my husband could easily make without my help, or that I could make with minimal energy and cleanup.  Paper plates will be my friend after my husband goes back to work and I will not feel guilty about it.  My goal is to make everything as easy as possible for the first month so I can focus on our new little one, Grant, and our new normal.

February 2014 Meal Plan

Being towards the end of my pregnancy I have no real desire to stand in the kitchen and chop, dice, slice, mix, sauté, and cook for an hour and a half.  No instead I noticed the last couple weeks I was picking out the easiest meals left on my January meal plan.  The ones I write down thinking I'll use them on a day we are pressed for time for one reason or another, or a day I don't feel good, etc.  Well these days I'm uncomfortable every day, lacking sleep, exhausted by 10am (I have been waking up at 6am every morning without the help of an alarm), and hurting from this baby I feel is running completely out of room and trying to create more by stretching and kicking constantly.

So no, I don't feel like making anything that takes more than 10 minutes prep time, requires me to stand over the stove for extended periods, or that takes extensive clean up time.  Nope fish sticks, hot dogs, throwing some frozen chicken in a dish and in the oven is more my style.

All that being said, please don't look down on me for my lack of great from scratch meals this month.  I feel like our meals have taken a time warp back to when my husband and I first got married, before I got in to cooking and trying new recipes.  So here it is in all it's glory this month's meal plan of 28 meals:





1. *Chili
2. Tomato soup w/ grilled cheese sandwiches (I don't use the sherry & I substitute  a 28oz can crushed tomato for the diced along with half and half instead of the heavy cream)
3. Breakfast- waffles
4. Breakfast-omelets with hashbrowns
5. Breakfast-eggs, toast & fruit
6. Breakfast-pancakes
7. Leftovers
8. Leftovers
9. Leftovers
10. Leftovers
11. Black bean enchilada soup *freezer
12. Spaghetti w/breadsticks (I love homemade spaghetti sauce but this month it's comin' straight from the jar, thanks Ragu!)
13. Hot dogs w/ mac & cheese & fruit
14. Veggie pot pie (I don't use the white wine and I use a regular pie crust.  For the veggies I throw in whatever I have in my fridge and freezer that sounds good when I make it)
15. Hamburgers w/ green beans
16. Hamburgers w/ mash potato & deviled eggs
17. Grilled cheese w/ potato wedges
18. *Beef & cheese burritos w/rice
19. Lasagna with garlic toast (I broke down and took the easy way out buying a frozen lasagna this month, I haven't bought one in a good 3 years but you can't beat the convenience)
20. Onion soup pork chops w/ rice pilaf & corn (rice pilaf is a new recipe I found and I'm giving it a try)
21. Orange chicken w/ rice
22. Chili dogs with potato wedges
23. Pinto beans and cornbread (I'm seasoning my beans with chunks of ham I have in my freezer from the ham I cooked last month instead of bacon.  I use the recipe on the side of the corn meal bag to make my cornbread)
24. Bbq baked pork chops w/ green beans and corn bread
25. *Meatballs w/ meat gravy mash tato & biscuits
26. *Pulled pork bbq sandwiches
27. Fried bologna sandwiches w/mac & cheese and fruit (I love fried bologna sandwiches, it takes me back to my childhood)
28.  Salisbury Steak w/ green beans and biscuits (I've been wanting to make homemade Salisbury steak for a while now but once again I took the convenience route and bought a frozen one, don't judge me lol)





I included meals that for whatever reason didn't get made last month and none of these are in any special order.  I have a calendar I write all the meals.  I always have 4 days of breakfast for dinner and 4 days of leftovers, usually with a breakfast for dinner on a Monday, leftovers for Fridays, and a soup on Sundays.  Then I just try to space the others out with a good balance and variety.

Chili

From what I can tell everyone has a different recipe for chili and everyone likes theirs completely different.  I use the same recipe my mom has made forever.  I don't know where she got it but it tastes like home to me so it's the only way I will make my chili.


1 1/2lb ground beef
1 large onion
2 cans condensed tomato soup
1 large can tomato juice
1T chili powder (I don't normally measure this I just dump some in but it probably comes out to about 1T, you can add more or less depending on your tastes)
salt and pepper to taste
14.5 oz can diced tomato (I throw this in if I have it in my pantry but it's not a must, it's just as good without them)
1/2t cumin (I've made it without this and it's still good I just like the flavor it adds)


brown the ground beef with the diced onion until cooked through.  Season with salt and pepper and a sprinkling of chili powder (not the 1T listed above). Drain the fat from the meat.  In a large pot pour the tomato soups, tomato juice, and diced tomato if you're using them inside.  Add the cooked ground beef to the pot along with 1T chili powder, cumin, a dash of salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and let simmer for about 30 minutes.

Meatballs w/ meat gravy

I make my meatballs like I make meatloaf.  I don't usually measure so all these measurements are approximate and feel free to improvise or adjust according to your taste buds.


1- 1 1/2lb ground beef
about 1/2c bread crumbs (use more if your mixture isn't coming together)
1/4c milk
1/2 a large onion diced (can also use dried minced onion)
1 t salt
pepper
1/4c ketchup


mix together and shape into balls (as large or as small as you want, mine are usually about 1 1/2inches each).  Fry in a pan on medium heat until cooked through.  Remove from pan and transfer to paper towel lined dish.  GRAVY: to make the gravy you will need the leftover fat in the pan from the meatballs you just cooked.  Add 1/4c flour to the fat and whisk.  Add 3t beef bouillon granules and 2c water and whisk together.  cook over low heat stirring constantly until thick.  Once gravy is thick place meatballs back into pan and spoon gravy over the top.

Pulled Pork BBQ sandwiches

4lb pork loin
1 bottle bbq sauce
1 can Dr Pepper, coke, or pepsi (I've made this without using soda and it's still good but the soda adds a lot of extra moisture and sends it over the top)
1T brown sugar
2t dried minced onion
squirt of honey (if you don't have any honey in your pantry just leave this out, it will still be scrumptious)
hamburger buns


place all ingredients in the crockpot and cook on low about 6 hours or until the roast falls apart with a fork.  Spoon onto hamburger buns and enjoy.  This freezes really well so don't waste the leftovers, freeze them for another dinner or even a quick lunch.

Beef & Cheese Burritos

1lb ground beef
1/2 large onion diced
2c shredded cheese
1 package burrito size tortilla shells
1 packet taco seasoning
1/4c water
refried beans (I will be using the leftovers from the pinto beans I'm making this month, If you don't have refried beans or don't like them like I don't, just omit them all together)


brown ground beef over medium heat with diced onion until cooked through.  Drain fat from meat.  Add taco seasoning and water to ground beef, mix.  Remove from heat and assemble your burritos with the ground beef, cheese, and beans.  Use rice as a side dish or add it to your burrito as well.

January/March 2014 Monthly Menu Plan

We didn't do our once a month shopping until this past weekend so my menu plan this month also covers the first week of February for us.


I have to say this month was a tough one to make everything fit into the budget I like to stay in and I'm realizing there are times when I have to bust that budget a little and be ok with that.  One of our local grocery stores was having an amazing sale on ground beef ($1.69/lb) and pork chops ($1.49/lb).  I had already planned on buying some ground beef but couldn't pass up the pork chop sale.  We ended up purchasing 10 pounds of ground beef for about $16 and 14 bone in pork chops for just under $8.  These types of sales rarely come around and usually when they do it's not when I'm doing my OAMS.  So I considered this a blessing and that God was looking out for us since with those purchases we shouldn't need pork chops for a good 2-3 months, and the beef should last us through February, so this will allow for me to make other meat purchases and give us some wiggle room next month.


Anyways, on to the menu plan, I have a plan of 28 meals this month, some of which will change a little since we purchased more beef than planned so we have room to make adjustments without depleting our meat supply.

Monthly Meal Plan

1.veggie pot pie  I use Pioneer Woman's chicken pot pie recipe for a base, I've made it before and love the flavor.  Instead of heavy cream I'm using milk, leaving out the chicken and adding green beans instead.
2. stuffed pepper soup: this is a new recipe I've never tried before but came across it and thought it sounded delicious.  I'm always on the lookout for new soup recipes.
3.breakfast for dinner: biscuits with gravy, turkey bacon, and scrambled eggs
4. pinto beans and corn bread- my husband and son love beans, instead of using bacon to season them I bought ham hock which is much less expensive.  I bought a package of 3 ham hock for $3.52 at my local Wal-Mart and will only use 1 for each recipe of pinto beans I make.
5. deer roast with potatoes, biscuits, and deviled eggs
6. homemade pizza
7. fried bologna sandwiches with chips and fruit
8. meatloaf (recipe below) with mashed potatoes, green beans, buttered bread
9. leftovers
10. chili dogs with macaroni & cheese and fruit
11. orange chicken with rice
12. grilled cheese with potato wedges and corn
13. breakfast for dinner: homemade waffles with homemade syrup & fruit
14. leftovers
15. ham and peppers Stromboli (recipe below)
16. black bean enchilada soup (frozen meal from last month) with corn bread
17. turkey Bolognese with breadsticks
18. hamburger steaks with baked potatoes & fruit
19. leftovers
20. breakfast for dinner: ham and cheese omelets
21. homemade pizza
22. onion soup pork chops (recipe below) with fried potatoes and green beans
23. chicken fried rice
24. breakfast for dinner: breakfast pizza, I love Pioneer Woman's breakfast pizza and made it here.  I decided since I bought all the goods to make homemade salsa I might as well use some for this pizza.  However this one will be a veggie breakfast pizza instead of having the sausage or bacon on top.  I always over cook them and it will be a little quicker for me to whip up this way.
25. baked ham shank, mashed potatoes biscuits, and corn
26. tacos with Spanish rice
27. leftovers
28. pork chop casserole another new recipe I found and thought I'd give it a try.


I don't do daily meal plans for breakfast or lunch since it all depends on what I'm in the mood to cook or not cook and what leftovers we have for lunch options.  Instead I make a list at the bottom of my monthly calendar meal plan of all the breakfast items I have ingredients to make.  This way I can take a quick glance and know exactly what we have to choose from.  Here's the list of breakfast foods for this month:

Breakfast

brown sugar muffins

scrambled eggs with bacon

homemade waffles

pancakes

sweet potato bread

cinnamon swirl bread

baked oatmeal

oatmeal with toast

toast

pumpkin muffins

French puffs

Lunch

egg salad

tuna salad

turkey sandwiches/wraps

pizza wraps

cheese and crackers with turkey or pepperoni

pb&j

grilled cheese plain or with turkey or pepperoni

Recipes:

Meatloaf:  Everyone has a different way of making meatloaf but I thought I'd share my basic recipe and ways I change it.


1 1/2lbs ground beef (I prefer to use 80/20 ground beef because there is less grease)
1 egg
about 1/2 cup bread crumbs (use more if necessary)
1 onion finely chopped (you could use minced dried onion if you don't have a regular onion)
salt and pepper
1/4c ketchup (can use tomato sauce if you're out of ketchup)
1/4c milk (this is just for moisture, I've made it without using milk with good results as well but if I think about it, I try to add it.)
-throw it all in a bowl and mix it up.  Form into a loaf in a 9x13 inch baking dish.  Bake at 350 for about an hour, check for doneness just to be on the safe side.


*I don't actually measure any of my ingredients for meatloaf because there's really no wrong way to mix it up so don't be afraid to add more or less of the ingredients above.




CHANGES:
*add green, red, and/or yellow bell peppers that are finely chopped
*add shredded carrots and finely diced celery. 
*add 1t minced garlic
*I've read where people advise to sauté any of the veggies (bell peppers, onion, carrots, celery, garlic) in a separate pan before adding them to the meat mixture.  I don't do this because I'm lazy and have no desire to add in extra steps unless I find it necessary.  I haven't every made a meatloaf where the veggies I used tasted raw or hard so I don't do this step, you can if you wish.




Onion Soup Pork Chops:
4 pork chops (bone in or boneless)
1 packet onion soup mix
water


place pork chops in a glass baking dish.  Sprinkle onion soup mix on top.  Add enough water just to cover the bottom of the dish (this is just for moisture so the chops don't dry out).  Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30-60 minutes.  If you are using boneless wings they tend to be smaller and thinner so you will probably only need to bake them around 30 minutes.  Bone in tend to be a bit thicker and I usually bake them about 45 minutes to an hour.




Ham & Peppers Stromboli:
1 pizza crust.  Recipe I use can be found here.
1 green bell pepper chopped
1 red bell pepper chopped
1 yellow bell pepper chopped
1 small onion chopped
1c shredded cheese (any variety will work)
1c chopped ham (this can be lunch meat ham or leftover ham from a baked ham)
Italian seasoning
salt & pepper


roll pizza crust into a rectangle shape.  Sprinkle 3/4c cheese on center of crust, leaving dough on either side.  Top the cheese with red, green, & yellow peppers, the onion, and ham.  Sprinkle Italian seasoning on top then the salt and pepper.  Top with remaining 1/4c shredded cheese.  Bring both long sides of rectangle up over your ham/onion/pepper/cheese filling and pinch together covering your filling completely.  Pinch each end closed as well.  Take a butter knife and make three 1 1/2inch slits in the top of your Stromboli.  Place on a non-stick cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 until dough is golden brown (usually about 30-45 minutes).
*I love making Stromboli because you can literally make it a million different ways.  I've made pizza Stromboli with various combinations of pizza toppings, ham and cheese Stromboli, broccoli ham and cheese Stromboli, smoked sausage with green peppers & onion Stromboli, and an all veggie with bell peppers, broccoli & cheese.
*add some dipping sauces like pizza sauce or ranch dressing if you like.

Once a Month Shopping Tips From a Beginner

I am by far no expert as I have just started on my venture of OAMS, however I feel like as a beginner I can share what few things I've learned that have helped me.  Be forewarned this is a long post but hopefully you will find it helpful if you are getting ready to try OAMS.

The first thing I did when I started thinking about trying OAMS was google search it.  In doing so I found dozens of other blogs with statements of how they organize their trips, make their lists, menu plans, budgets, etc.  I read every one I could find to get the concept and tried to figure out what would work for me and my family.  As you will quickly find out, what works for one person fabulously may not work for you and your family in the least.  Most OAMS shoppers have deep freezers to hold their massive quantities of food as well as large pantries.  When I realized this trend while reading multiple blogs I started to get discouraged thinking because we lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with no deep freeze and limited cabinet space I wouldn't be successful.  This is not true.  You may not be able to stock up on a months worth of milk and bread without a deep freeze but you can certainly stock up on many other things with cabinet organization and thinking outside the box in terms of storing items.

I also read many people were doing the bulk of their shopping at Costco and Sam's.  I have never shopped at either so I went online and started to compare prices.  Turns out at this point they couldn't beat what I could find with sale prices and at my local Walmart.  So I started by making a list of items we use often and could buy in bulk, olive oil, veggie oil, flour, sugar, toilet paper, gallons of juice, oatmeal, brown sugar, powdered sugar, etc.  I then went to Walmart, Meijer, and Aldi and wrote down the prices and sizes of each of these items so I could find out where the best prices per size were and so I would know if a sale was actually a great price.  I found that buying a 25lb bag of flour or sugar at Walmart is not necessarily cheaper than buying individual 4 and 5lb bags at other stores, in which case the "in bulk" buying is pointless as I find it a lot easier to find storage for 4 individual 5lb bags of sugar than 1-20lb bag.  I keep my price lists in a notebook along with any other information I come across that might be useful, but I only use this notebook for OAMS info.

Buying the larger package is not always a savings.  My husband and I were recently at Walmart to get non-grocery related items when he informed me we were down to the last slice of cheese (he, of course didn't inform me of this before my OAMS trip and when I did my inventory days earlier we still had plenty).  So we went to the grocery section and he started to pick up the 24 slice package for $2.98.  I had bought this size just a week earlier and told him I had no desire to make another trip to the store in a week for more cheese so I picked up the large 72 slice package for $10.98.  When we started to make our way to the checkout I started doing the math: 3 packages of 24 slice cheese (72 total slices, the same amount in the large package I was planning on buying) totaled$ 8.94, and yet I was getting ready to pay $10.98 for the same amount of cheese. It was the same brand and everything so I of course put back the big package and bought 3 of the smaller ones.  So always make sure to figure up if your actually getting a deal by purchasing items in bulk.

I also started putting dates marked on masking tape on just about everything when I open something.  This way I know how long it takes us to run out of that item.  I keep this written down in my OAMS notebook as well.  The point behind this is so I won't run out of things mid-month and have to do a larger grocery trip than planned.  I will know we go through a bag of sugar in a max of 10 days, so if my main monthly shopping trip is planned for this weekend and I know we have 2 bags of sugar left in the pantry, I know I will have to buy at least 1 more to have enough for the entire month.  Waiting to run out of items before buying them when you're trying to do OAMS defeats the purpose of making a huge shopping trip at the beginning of the month.

I didn't actually have a "budget" for my first shopping trip as I really wasn't for sure how much we had been spending.  I knew how much I had been intending to spend, $120/month, but we were spending that entire amount within the first 2-3 weeks.  I was also using my own monthly "spending money" for small grocery purchases at the Dollar Tree and quick trips to the store which I wasn't counting in my monthly grocery spending.  This unknown is why I chose to pick a month we had a little more wiggle room with finances to start my OAMS.  We had run out of many of the basics and were very low on canned veggies, baking items, and meat, so I knew it would cost more than I would plan to spend.  I plan on keeping a detailed record of how much we spend throughout the month including our weekly  small trips so I will have a more accurate view of what our budget should be.

Before I even made my first trip to the store I made a list of every dinner, breakfast, and snack item I had ever made.  I saved this list to my computer for a quick reference when making out my monthly meal plans.  It will save you loads of time and it keeps me from repeating the same meals because my brain farts constantly and I can't think of anything to cook.  So when making my monthly menu I go over the list and start choosing what I think we should eat that month.  I also write down a few snacks and breakfasts so I don't forget to write down the ingredients on my grocery list and so I don't forget to make them.  I get very caught up in making sure I have everything I need to make multiple dinners that I forget Grant also needs snacks during the day and a home cooked breakfast a few times a week.  So it's a necessity to have these things written down on my meal plan so I know what I have the ingredients to make.

Every month when you are sitting down to make out your menu plan, look back at your menu from the previous month and enter in any meals you ended up not cooking for whatever reason.  Because of holidays and unplanned things I ended up not cooking at least a weeks worth of meals I had planned for November.  I immediately write these meals in for the month of December because I already know I have all the ingredients to make them.  This saves me on my grocery budget for the trip I'm planning and allows more wiggle room to buy bulk items or more meat.

If possible buy more than you need.  If your budget is super small, and sometimes depending on what we need and what unexpected events have occurred, ours is, then you may not be able to buy anymore than what you absolutely will use.  However even if you have an extra $5 you can buy extra of something.  I try to buy large bottles of veggie oil and olive oil even though I could buy a smaller, less expensive bottle to get through the month.  I also buy extra bags of flour, sugar, and brown sugar, along with extra meat than we will typically use.  I always buy the family package of meat and separate it into individual or meal portions.  In November I bought a family package of Chicken consisting of 7 boneless skinless chicken breast.  When I got home I did as I always do and cut them in half making 2 thinner chicken breast (which is more than enough for one person if we are eating marinated/grilled chicken).  So I ended up with 14 chicken breasts from the one package.  There is no way we can use that many in one month so they actually carried over into December and part of January.  This saved me from having to buy that meat and gave me extra meals to make without adding to my grocery list.

If you are planning on going to multiple stores to get all your months worth of groceries make sure you go to all those stores in the same day.  If you don't it will inevitably happen that something will come up or you won't feel like going to the store you put off and you will be lacking an ingredient you need for a meal that month.  There is nothing more annoying with OAMS than spending time making your list and meal plans only to get toward the middle of the month, get ready to make a meal, and realize your missing one ingredient.  I did this my first month (November) and swore not to make the same mistake again.

My biggest tip when starting your OAMS venture is to get real with yourself.  By this I mean, be completely honest about what you use, how much of it you use, and how quickly you use it.  Over the last couple months I have found myself doing what I used to do when I was shopping weekly.  I would think to myself, for example "we have half a bottle of veggie oil, I should put that on my list but my budget is almost maxed out and we can probably get through the month with 1/2 a bottle".  I used to put off buying things for the sake of staying in budget all the time with my weekly trips.  This is how you end up running out of all your basics and you eventually are forced to go way over budget in order to have basic ingredients to cook your meals.  It is better to possibly go over budget by a few dollars one month than to run out of multiple items and have to go over by $20+ another month.  I now keep a list on my fridge and whenever I notice we are running low on any food, spices, cleaning products, or toiletries, I write it on the list.  This will save you from having to do a large pantry inventory every month before your trip.

December Monthly Meal Plan

November went great with my first experience in once a month shopping and a monthly meal plan.  I absolutely loved knowing I had all the ingredients to make everything on my meal plan. not worrying if I needed to run to the store to pick up a last minute item.  The only hitch in my whole plan was an unexpected visit from my in-laws the weekend before Thanksgiving.  We decided to do an early Thanksgiving dinner with them since they would be returning home before the actual Thanksgiving day.  I hadn't planned for this meal and all it's fixin's so I had to do a much larger weekly shopping trip.

Now that it's December it's time for another month of meals.  Due to our Christmas plans and having so many family celebrations I figured up we would need 20 meals planned out for the month.  Because of how my husband's checks fall this month I wont be doing my large shopping trip until later and therefore I made a list of all the meals we didn't end up making during the month of November, but still have all the ingredients to make them, and added them to December.  This should get us through until my large trip.
Here's what this month has in store for us:

1.Potato Soup
2. Chicken fried rice
3. meatloaf with baked sweet potatoes and corn bread
4. breakfast: oatmeal with toast
5. leftovers
6. BBQ crockpot ribs with mashed potatoes and corn *bbq sauce recipe to follow*
7.Sausage bean soup (a leftover meal from the freezer)
8. pasta with turkey Bolognese sauce (leftover sauce from my freezer) and garlic breadsticks
9.breakfast: French toast with fruit
10. leftovers
11.grilled cheese with green beans and fruit
12. deer stew
13. black bean enchilada soup *recipe to follow*
14.Hamburgers with mac and cheese and corn
15. pasta with marinara sauce and garlic toast
16. meatballs with gravy and mashed potatoes and biscuits
17.chickenless spaghetti with mushrooms, peppers, and onions (I'm creating this recipe by adapting this Pioneer Woman chicken spaghetti recipe)
18. breakfast: homemade waffles with fruit
19. leftovers
20. Ham with fried potatoes and green beans

I didn't label this month's meals with dates because of the craziness the month of December brings.  Between holiday get-togethers, visiting family, Christmas shopping, etc I didn't figure there was any need to date each meal.  As long as I know I have the ingredients to make each of the items listed I'll be good to go.

Black Bean Enchilada Soup:
1 can rotel
2 cans (3cups if you make homemade) cream of chicken
2 cans (3 cups if you have homemade or boullion cubes) chicken broth
1 can (1cup if you make homemade) enchilada sauce
1 can corn
3t cilantro (if I have this I add it but if I don't I just leave it out)
1/2 onion chopped
1 can diced tomato
1 can black beans

sauté onions and rotel , diced tomato, and corn.  Mix rest of ingredients in soup pot and heat through.

*this recipe is one I created based off a Chicken enchilada recipe my cousin gave me a few years back.  My husband has decided he doesn't care for chicken much anymore and when I made the chicken version he pretty much refused to eat leftovers.  This prompted me to make a chickenless version by adding beans and diced tomato.

BBQ sauce for ribs:
1c ketchup
2T+1 1/2t brown sugar
2T+ 1 1/2t cider vinegar
1T+ 1 1/2t Worcestershire sauce
1T brown mustard (I've used regular yellow with good results)
1/2t pepper

Once a Month Shopping- Oh the Freedom

I have to say that even though I've only been a OAMS for a week, I am loving the freedom.  As I've said before I have been an avid couponer for 3 years.  I swore by it and for 3 years it was the only way I could keep our minimal $30 grocery budget working for us.  However if there is one thing I have learned over time it's to know when something is no longer working for us and make a change.  That's where OAMS came into play and I feel free.  Don't get me wrong I still coupon.  I have my favorite coupon sites I still check once a day for the best deals but knowing my weekly menu plan and grocery shopping doesn't depend on it is freeing to the extreme.

There was a time when grocery shopping was actually fun for me.  You read that right, I said FUN.  I loved Sundays because the grocery ads would be at my door and I loved seeing what amazing deals I could get that week.  I loved going to the store with my stack of coupons and seeing how much I saved.

I still love seeing how much I save when I use coupons but I  love that if the sales for that week aren't great it doesn't matter to me because I already have everything I need for my family to eat for the month.  I love not having the pressure every Friday or Saturday to have to go to the store, that even if there are good sales I don't have to go to the store if I don't want to.  It's an amazing feeling after years of shopping weekly, fighting for the deals, ordering coupons, etc.

Last weekend was a perfect example.  There were some great sales with coupons at my local Kroger.  Some of them so good, I was kicking myself for already having done my shopping.  As the week went on I had a mental list of a couple things I knew I was gonna have to go to the store for, milk and bread.  They also had Rotel for a great price with coupons, all of $0.22 a can.  I bought 4 of these for my OAMS trip on the previous Saturday and a lot of my recipes call for it so I knew I had to pick a few of these up as well.  As for all the other "Great Deals", it was actually really nice knowing I didn't have to go get them.  Normally I would be preparing a list over a couple days, searching online for coupons to purchase, getting to the store to find out they were sold out of most items anyway, and inevitably pure frustration would ensue as my meal plan for the following week would be ruined because I couldn't get the food with coupons I had planned. 

I don't have to worry about that!!!!  It's awesome!

Now don't get me wrong, I will be a little irritated if the Rotel isn't stocked, because we use it so much, and if the mac & cheese I can get for free with coupons isn't there.  But it's nice to know I can just get a rain check for those items and move on without having to rethink my entire meal plan for the next week.  It's nice to know it's not a big deal this week or any other week during this month.  This is one of the perks of going from an avid weekly couponer to OAMS.

It's also great knowing my weekly small trip to the store for milk and bread is just that, a small trip.  I have spent so many weeks and hours planning my Friday or Saturday shopping trips of 4+ stores, making meal plans, and sorting/clipping/organizing coupons that when Friday rolls around now, I am free to sleep in if I want (that is, if Grant will actually let me sleep in) because I don't have to go on a big shopping trip.  Instead I can spend that time doing something I enjoy, relaxing.

My hope in starting my OAMS adventure was to simplify my life and I think this just may do the trick.  I'm already starting to feel less stressed.
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Once A Month Grocery Shopping 1st Trip & Monthly Meal Plan

A little warning about this post, it's long, like really long, I just thought I should put it all in one instead of breaking it up into a few different ones, so enjoy:

In my dream world I would have gone on my big once a month shopping trip all by my lonesome and been in and out without questions or extra items "magically" appearing in my shopping cart.  Of course this is not my dream world so I assumed my son would be with me since my husband would normally be asleep when I go to the store in the mornings, and I was ok with that, then my husband happened to wake up early and decided he would go too.  This could be good or bad, but figured I should make the best of this "family time".  Plus I knew he would be a big help keeping Grant entertained.

I had a long list and 4 stores to go to in one morning.  The stores I shopped at were Aldi (which is where the majority of my items came from), Carnival Foods, Kroger, and Giant Eagle.

Here is my crappy cell phone pic of all our groceries:

The only items missing from this pic were the 5 dozen eggs, 5.26lbs ground beef, 5lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, 1qt half & half, toilet paper, dishwater detergent, and a large tub of margarine.

 

It took us 2 hours to go through all 4 stores, which was really surprising to me because it normally takes me about an 1 1/2-2 hours to do a weeks worth of grocery shopping at multiple stores.  So if this works out and we decide to continue with OAMS I will definitely be saving some serious time that I'd rather be spending with my family doing something fun, not grocery shopping.

 

In doing all my research of other people who do OAMS I was always curious what they ended up buying during their large monthly trip.  They always included how much they spent overall but it was hard for me to grasp what all they bought because most of their spending was much more than what I had planned to spend.   So I thought I would share a little run down of what I bought.  If this is not at all interesting to you, feel free to skip down a few lines lol.

 Aldi $56.83

• 1 bag pretzels (snacks for the kiddos) $1.29
• 1 box graham  crackers (snacks for kiddos) $1.39
• 1 grape jelly $1.59
• 1 ranch dressing $1.39
• 4 dozen eggs $0.99 each
• 1 baking powder $0.99
• 1 box corn starch $0.89
• 4 boxes stick margarine $0.75 each
• 1qt half and half $1.59
• 16oz shredded cheese $2.99
• 3 pkg tortilla wraps $0.99 each
• 1 small jar olives $0.99 (this was not an item on my list but an add-in per my husband)
• 4 cans generic Rotel $0.59 each
• 2 cans condensed tomato soup $0.59 each
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup $0.59
• 2.04lbs Bananas $0.42/lb
• 1lb bag mini carrots $0.69
• 6lbs onions $1.29 each
• 5lbs boneless skinless chicken breast $1.89/lb
• 2 loaves bread $0.85 each
• 1 pkg hamburger buns $0.89
• 1pkg hot dog buns $0.89
• 1 liquid dishwasher detergent $2.49
• 1-45oz tub margarine $1.89
• 2 boxes saltine crackers $0.95 each
• 1 box onion soup mix $0.79
• 4lbs brown sugar $1.19 each
• 1 large container oatmeal $2.29

Carnival Foods $35.02

• 5lbs+ Ground beef $2.69/lb
• 1 dozen eggs w/coupon $0.88
• 20lbs flour $1.49 for each 5lb bag
• 20lbs sugar $1.89 for each 4lb bag
• 2-46oz tomato juice $1.00 each
• 8lbs russet potatoes $0.98

Kroger $19.29

• 1 small pkg Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix Free with downloaded coupon
• 4 gallons Milk $2.73each
• 2-64oz bottles Sunny D juice
• 1 bottle Hawaiian Punch Aloha Morning $1.19 w/ downloaded coupon
• 2 boxes Barilla pasta $0.45 each with coupon
• 1pkg Eckrich hot dogs $1.00
• 2 banquet freezer meals (another husband add-in item)

Giant Eagle $15.20

• 2-32oz Coffeemate Coffee creamer $1.50 each with coupon
• 2-64oz Welch's juice cocktail $0.50 each with coupons
• 24 double rolls Angel Soft toilet paper $8.89 with coupon

Total Spent a little over $126.  I still need to go to the dollar tree for black peppercorns and a 2lb bag of tator tots.  However I know if I buy tator tots now they will be long gone before I need them for my planned meal.  The total of my shopping trip freaked me out a little because it's $6 over what I was budgeting for the entire month.  Of course as I mentioned before we were going over that budget by the second half of the month it just didn't seem like much because it was in separate purchases.

 

As you can see by the list above I didn't purchase many items with coupons.  There were some ok sales with coupons this week on items I could have purchased. In making my monthly meal plan and thinking about not only dinner meals but also at least 2-3 breakfasts (for the days I babysit), snacks, and a few lunch ideas for variety, I decided I would start making more things from scratch.  Items like biscuits, corn bread, muffins, quick breads, pizzas, etc, are all things I want to keep ingredients on hand for so I don't need the help of Pillsbury Grands or mixes to make them.  Since I'm a stay at home mom and it's getting colder out, which means I leave the house less, I might as well take full advantage of my time and do from-scratch baking and cooking.



Because we don't have space in our apartment for a deep freezer I was not able to buy enough milk and bread to last us the month so those items I will have to buy weekly in a smaller shopping trip.  I'm also a little concerned about snack foods.  I try not to keep much "junk" food like chips, Little Debbie cakes, candy, etc in the house.  For one I don't want the temptation for me to eat them but Grant and my Husband don't need them either.  I used to think Grant needed something sweet for snacks, where I got this in my head is beyond me, and I've come to the conclusion recently that fresh fruit, crackers, pretzels, and similar items are what I'm going to keep on hand and if he doesn't want them then he must not be very hungry in the first place.  As for my husband, I fully look for him to randomly buy the junk I try to steer away from but I'll just have to deal with that I guess, haha.

Before making my monthly meal plan I did an inventory of my pantry, freezer and fridge, writing down everything we had.  I tried to come up with as many meals as possible with just those items then I went through my cookbooks and made a master list of all the recipes we have eaten and like, as well as many recipes we haven't tried but that I've wanted to make.  I saved this list to my computer for easy access when meal planning.  Once I decided on the meals I wanted I wrote down what was needed for each one adding as I went so I would know what to buy.  It was by far the longest grocery list I've ever made.

Here is my Monthly Meal Plan:
November 2-8
Saturday 2-Sloppy Dawgs with potato wedges
Sunday 3-Chili
Monday 4-Chicken Quesadillas with Mexican rice with homemade salsa Tuesday 5-Biscuits & Gravy
Wednesday 6-Turkey Franks with mac & cheese & green beans
Thursday 7-grilled pork chops (freezer) roasted potatoes/corn/biscuits
Friday 8-leftovers

November 9-15
Saturday 9-deer roast (freezer)with carrots, potatoes, corn bread
Sunday 10-chicken Enchilada Soup
Monday 11-fried eggs/fried potatoes/biscuits
Tuesday 12-Spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread
Wednesday 13-Meatloaf mashed potatoes/ green beans
Thursday 14-Chicken fried rice
Friday 15-leftovers

November 16-22
Saturday 16-Hamburgers with tator tots
Sunday 17-Tomato soup with grilled cheese
Monday 18-black bean tomato soup with rice and tortilla shells
Tuesday 19-Sausage bean soup (leftovers in freezer)
Wednesday 20-BBQ ribs (freezer), corn, corn bread
Thursday 21-Poor man’s steak, roasted potatoes, broccoli
Friday 22- leftovers

November 23-30
Saturday 23-chicken pot pie
Sunday 24-Deer Stew with biscuits
Monday 25-Onion/pepper omelets, toast, fried potatoes
Tuesday 26-Meatballs with meat gravy deviled eggs green beans buttered bread
Wednesday 27-Spaghetti with garlic breadsticks
Thursday 28-Thanksgiving
Friday 29-Leftovers
Saturday 30-Thanksgiving 2

I have my meals dated just to make it easier for me.  I'm not really picky about what we eat and when since I like all the meals I have listed, however if for some reason the meal I have written in for that specific day doesn't work for some reason I can easily switch the meals around.
There are a few things I have recipes posted for already and I included those links, I'm hoping I'll be able to post recipes for the other meals as I make them.

Once a Month Grocery Shopping-A New Venture

I have been trying for a couple months to figure out how to handle our grocery budget.  I have had the same budget for about 3 years.  The only problem is my son is growing, while he doesn't eat a lot of different foods (he's quite picky) he eats a lot of fruit, peanut butter sandwiches, milk, and juice.  I also started babysitting another 2 year old 3 days a week so the juice and snacks dwindle faster. I've been having a really hard time sticking within my $30 budget in part because of this, the lack of sales on basics, the increase in food prices, and stores in my area no longer doubling coupons.  It is desperately hard for me to "stock up" on basics like canned tomatoes, canned veggies, flour, sugar, etc, because it seems most of the coupons I've been getting for these items are internet printable (which means I can only print 2, which usually means I can only buy 2 or 4 of the item depending on the coupon). 2 cans of tomatoes will last me about a week and if I'm lucky 2.  So while I might get a fantastic deal on a few cans I don't actually get a huge stockpile that's gonna last me months on end til the next great sale, which is what I have been able to do in the past with couponing.

Milk has also been an issue in our house, making it even more difficult to stay within a $30 budget. We go through about 4-5 gallons a week now and when it's not on sale it's $2.79/gal, that's a max of $14 a week just in milk and when you're trying to work with only $30 and another $10 of it goes to meat purchases, and $2 towards 2 loaves of bread a week (Grant will pretty much only eat peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast), that leaves $4.  Definitely not enough even for this couponer to get everything else we need for a weeks worth of meals.

So I've been looking into changing things up a bit.  Since I have only been going over budget by about $30-$40 a month (so about $10 a week)  I know I don't need to change the amount of money by too much, it's just making that amount work for us without needing more.  I've been looking into once a month grocery shopping and the only thing that's been holding me back is  the couponer in me.  I've helped my mom refine her couponing skills, and taught my aunt how to coupon, it's like it's in my blood now.  I can't bear to pay for toothpaste and paying over $1.50 for shampoo physically pains me.  So naturally this part of me says once a month shopping will never work for me.  It says I will miss out on the great deals and rock bottom prices I typically look for.  I'm fighting that part of myself.

We have a baby coming soon and the idea of grocery shopping with an infant and a 3 year old sends me into a small anxiety attack.  Especially with the idea of how I shop now, meaning the 3-4 stores I go to in one morning.  Getting Grant in and out and keeping him satisfied through each one is proving to be more and more of a challenge.  My patience isn't what it used to be and I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that for both his and my sanity the 3 stores in a single morning, getting a handful of items, and spending hours making and tweaking menu plans and grocery lists only to realize I can't get everything we actually need with our previous budget, is not working and needs changing.  I've seen many woman with 3 and 4 kids at the store, and you are rock stars, I just don't have it in me.

I've been reading how other's do their once a month shopping and I'm trying to figure out how to make it work for me and my family.  I still want to be able to get those stellar rock bottom coupon sales but I want to have the luxury of shopping for the bulk of what we need all in one trip.  Naturally since we live in a 2 bedroom apartment with no room for a deep freeze (oh how I miss our large chest deep freezer) I can't buy enough milk and bread in one trip to last us a month, which means I will have to make at least a weekly trip somewhere to get milk and bread.  But that small 5 minute trip into a store is a lot better than the normal hour or two.  I have noticed my weekly lists have a lot of the same items on it and it's only recently I've decided I'm really tired of shopping for the exact same items every week when I could just buy enough in the beginning of the month to last us until the end.  In the past my attitude has been "maybe that item will be on sale or there will be a great coupon out for it and I can get it cheaper, so I'll just get one this week and cross my fingers for next week".  Buying bulk for the month is one thing that is really difficult to do with a small budget.  Obviously with $30-$40 a week to spend there was no way I could spend $15 on a package of 36 rolls of toilet paper, or $13 on a 25lb bag of sugar.  It was too much of a dent in the budget so I've been buying these items every week to two weeks depending on our use.

So my plan, cuz I always have to have a plan, is to start the beginning of next month by making a monthly meal plan.  I specifically chose November to start this venture because my husband happens to get an extra check so I figure if I royally screw up, we have a little more leeway financially to fix my mistakes.  I also want to start now so if this does work for us I have a few months to master it and get a system down before baby comes, that way my husband will only have to make a small trip to the store for milk, eggs, and bread (Lord only knows what he would end up buying or spending if I sent him to the store with my normal list). 
I have already written down the basics of what we go through in a month.  Those basics being milk, bread, eggs, flour, sugar, toilet paper, and juice.  I wrote down all the meals I've made in the past and a few I've been wanting to try.   I still have to take inventory of our pantry and freezer to find out what we already have and how many of those meals I can make with most of those ingredients.  I'm hoping the list of our "needs" for the rest of the ingredients, and our basics, will be within our budget with enough for some wiggle room for those fantastic coupon sales that pop up throughout the week.

I'm really nervous but hoping this will simplify my life a little, right in time for the holiday season, and eliminate the problem of getting to the end of the month and realizing I have all of $10 left in my budget to buy toilet paper, 3 gallons of milk, 2 loaves of bread, a dozen eggs, and 2 bottles of juice.  I'll let you know how it all goes.