Tuesday Menu Planning

This is the first week I am trying my own menu plan. I will let you know next week how well I stuck to it! Lol. :) I am using a lot of the wonderful tips that Tori gives HERE at sheshopssmart.

First of all, menu planning is so vitally important to saving your family even more money above and beyond what you are saving with coupons. Not only does it let you plan meals around a given week's sale items, it also ensures that you will use all food before expiration. I hate throwing things out that I forgot about and they expired before being used.

Alright, so here is my menu plan for the week. I have decided to do my menu plans on Tuesday so that I can take advantage of the new weeks' sales at Albies (I just look at the preview list). This coming week, there really aren't any truly great deals going on that I'm interested in, so I will be using up some of the items I have bought in previous weeks. I do not plan which meal I will have on which day. Just seven of each meal (breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, and dessert) and I can pick and choose them during the week as it fits in our schedule. Also, even though you see multiple meals with some of the same items, I would not do those meals in the same day.

As Tori mentions in her meal planning tips, don't forget to plan around your families schedule! If you know you have a football game to go to on Thursday night, don't plan a big fancy meal for that night. Make that the quick and easy meal night.

Also, leave room for adjustment. Things come up, people run late, you know the drill. Being flexible allows you to not get overwhelmed. Just having these meals planned out ahead of time, though, will usually help take that stress away any way, as you're not frantically searching the kitchen trying to figure out what to throw together because everyone's "


:Breakfasts:
Cereal w/ milk, Del Monte Fruit Naturals fruit cup
Bagels w/ cream cheese and jelly, orange juice

Grapes, watermelon, and strawberries w/ cottage cheese, milk

Toaster Strudel, watermelon chunks, milk

Yogurt w/ strawberries, toast, juice

Breakfast burritos (using up some bacon and tortillas before they go bad)

French toast, eggs, sausage, orange juice (a big, hot meal for Weston on his first day of first grade!)

:Lunches:
Totinos pizza rolls, salad, carrot sticks w/ ranch, milk
Chicken fingers & french fries, juice
PB&J sandwiches, chips, grapes, milk
Progresso soup, salad, & Rhodes Warm-n-Serve rolls, chocolate milk
Kids Cuisine (for kids), Healthy Choice (for me) frozen meals, juice
Lunchables, grapes, tea
Hot Pockets, milk

:Snacks:

Fruit snacks

Grapes and cheesesticks

Crackers and cheese

Watermelon chunks

Orange slices

Pretzels and peanut butter

Jello

:Dinners:

Macaroni Grill dinner kit, asparagus, Rhodes rolls

Pork Ribs Country-style (bbq'd on the grill), pasta salad, baked beans, watermelon

Bertolli Ovenbaked meal, green beans, bread-n-butter

Steak (on the grill), steamed broccoli, baked potato

Chicken, rice, steamed veggies

Pasta w/ Ragu alfredo sauce, cooked carrots, cheese toast

Sloppy Joes, onion rings, mustard potato salad

:Desserts:

Marie Calender's peach cobbler

Klondike bars

Sno-Cones (my vice in the summer, and have to take advantage before summer's GONE!)

Banana Splits

Strawberries-n-cream (with vanilla coffee-mate creamer....SOOOO yummy!)

Fruit salad (watermelon, grapes, strawberries, bananas, oranges, the works!)

Pilsbury cookies (from the refrigerated dough)