Meal Planning, Forms, and Checklists???

I realize I am a complete dork, however, I am still more excited than I could possibly express in this website. You can find checklists to take stock in your pantry, freezer, and cupboards. You can also find charts to help you organize your meal planning. Keep up the good work!

More Meal Planning Tips

It seems as if everyone in blogland is recommending meal planning as a cost effective way to strengthen your budget during this economic crisis we seem to be in. You can read more tips here from Stretching a Buck as she goes through step by step how she does it.

One thing that's been buggin me about so many recent posts I've read about meal planning is that it seems like there are tons of families that are scrimping on food that they really enjoy just to save money. I just don't like that -- I want to eat what I want to eat...so I just find a way to do it. For us, if we avoid eating out or buying Starbucks/Caribou often, then there is more money in our budget to buy food products we enjoy and just eat them at home. As I read some food blogs out there, it makes me so grateful to have a husband who will eat leftovers or a bowl of cereal as an add-on to his dinner.

In the Cleveland area, there are tons of places to buy good food and ingredients from and not have to go without. I've found that at the rate I go through flour/butter/eggs/sugar/brown sugar, it's cost effective for me to buy from Costco. Well, actually my mama buys from Costco and I pay her back. (do this with girlfriends who have a wholesale membership) Sometimes my mama and I will buy something together and split it (think spices). Also, I buy all of my spices either from the Mediterranean Imported Foods stand in the Westside Market or from the Berlin Bulk Foods store in Amish Country. The Mediterranean Imported Foods stand has all sorts of exotic spices that you can buy as much as you want (like only 1/2 an ounce) and sells vanilla bean pods for $2 a piece (and they're usually 8 inches long). With those prices, my food budget remains in tact!

Meal Planning

To read about different types of meal planning, click here. That site gives one of the most detailed and thorough explanation of how to meal plan, or how to better your meal planning.

If you're looking for a one-stop-shop to organize your meals and shopping, check out Recipezaar or MenuPlanningCentral. (sidenote -- Recipezaar is my absolute favorite recipe site because it organizes the recipes so much better than any of the other sites)

MenuPlanningCentral is a website where you can buy recipes and shopping lists for those recipes for a determined amount of time. You can also load your recipes onto that site, which can be incorporated into your customized meal plan. (this costs about $20/month)

Recipezaar is a site where you can upload your recipes and browse thousands of other recipes. Each recipe gives you the option to add it to your Menus, and add the ingredients to your Shopping List. This service costs $25/year.

Menu Planning can really trim your grocery budget even slimmer, as you primarily use the ingredients already in your kitchen/pantry and supplement with items bought while shopping. It will also help you to organize your meals and plan around your schedule, so that you're not scrambling on your way home (or on your spouse's way home) thinking 'what am I going to make for dinner in 25 minutes?'