I have to be at my place of work every day this week. I’m working tonight, tomorrow night, have a 1 hour staff meeting Wednesday morning, a 2 hour training Thursday, work Friday night and all day Saturday. I know, I’m lucky, I work part time not full time, but I’m still responsible for getting the kids to and from school every day, making sure dinner is on the table even when I’m not here to eat it, and doing most of the housework. The logistics of this week are nuts. I think I also have my handyperson coming to start working on the shed.

I won’t be here for dinner 4 nights out of 5 this week so I had to scramble to make plans for 4 dinners I can make ahead and implore the gods my kids will remember to put in the oven. Tonight will be vagabond packets, tomorrow I told my husband they can make sandwiches as I got the nice sandwich rolls, deli meat etc, Thursday will be seafood casserole, Friday Lasagna and I’ll be here to cook Wednesday and hopefully my husband will BBQ on Saturday since I’ll be coming through the door right at dinner time. Sometimes I really feel like having to cook for everyone all the time is some kind of tyranny imposed on me. I like cooking, it’s just trying to come up with meals, especially ones that have to be in a slow-cooker or can just be popped in the oven by someone else, is such a thankless task. I’ve had so many slow-cooker cookbooks, and searched for so many recipes online for casseroles, for slow-cooker recipes, etc. and there are millions of recipes out there but a lot of them are awful or variations on each other.

I keep the above list in my Bullet Journal and use it every week to try to plan our dinners. Some of the ideas refer to specific recipes and some are sort of just a theme. Soup and salad could be any of several homemade soups I like to make and any sort of salad, for instance, or tacos and rice could be any kind of meat, veg, cheese, & tortillas, chips, guac. etc. My method is simple, I look at my schedule and see how many dinners I will not be home for and then I pick that many meals I can more-or-less make ahead, fill in the gaps with whatever meals I want to make for the other nights and then make a shopping list based on whatever I’ll need that isn’t on hand already. What I’ll actually purchase is based on the list but gets adjusted to take advantage of any great sales I find at the grocery store. I might have planned to make turkey burritos but if ground beef is cheaper that week, or ground pork etc, I adjust.

I spend $70-$140 week on groceries for 5 of us depending on a few factors. (that figure includes pet food, paper goods, food wrap, and toiletries) I do not consider the amount I spend to be very low, it is less than most people I know spend and I know where I can make changes to spend less when I need to. If you are spending more than you’d like to and want to trim your food budget there is a good chance that you can. There are a few things I do that help me save significantly on food that you can try out or adapt to your needs.

#1. I think the most important thing I do to keep food expenses under control is maintaining a well-stocked pantry. My pantry consists of a decent sized double cupboard in the kitchen and a set of cupboards in my laundry room, I’m not sure what the cubic footage is but I’ll check soon and report back if anyone is interested. (drop a comment to let me know if you feel like it.) My pantry contains many things:

• Baking Supplies: flour, sugar, baking powder & baking soda, brown sugar, molasses, honey, chocolate chips, vanilla, etc etc. (I keep lots of flour sealed up in the freezer too to prevent bugs when storing longer term)
• Canned goods: Vegetables, tuna, all kinds of beans including baked beans and refried beans, as well as the plain kinds, pre-made soups and pasta in sauce, (for casseroles and power outages etc)
• Boxes of pasta. I have a LOT of pasta. Upwards of 40 lbs. most or the time. Plus 10-20 boxes of mac & cheese and 50+ ramen noodle packets.
• Jars of pasta sauce. I usually have 20-30 on hand.
• Condiments and salad dressings. I keep 5+ ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles, hot sauce, siracha, green salsa, red salsa, soy sauce, shelf-stable dressings, etc, etc.
• Quick sides like instant potato packets, or packets of broccoli-cheese pasta that I can whip up easy for myself if I feel unwell or use with other ingredients to make an easy side casserole to go with dinner if I’m strapped for time, unwell, or suddenly have more folks at my table.
• Tea and coffee. I have an entire shelf taken up with various teas, most cheap, some a little special. I like to have something that might appeal to anyone who stops by. I have coffee for my daughter and for guests it’s plain because I know nothing about coffee.
• Cereals both hot and cold. I keep oats for cooking and various oatmeals for my daughter who likes it. I keep 1-4 boxes of cold cereal on hand mostly slightly healthier seeming stuff, no bright colors, no marshmallows, etc.
• Peanut butter and jams/jellies. I keep around 3-12 jars of PB around at all times for sandwiches, snacking, and sauces. I keep a few jars of jam/jelly around in various flavors for sandwiches, baking, etc.
• A mad assortment of spices bought in bulk, given to me by people moving, harvested, dried & jarred by me, or grabbed relatively cheaply at Trader Joe’s.

All that stuff up above? I buy a LOT of whenever it’s on an excellent sale. I almost never find myself forced to pay 4+ dollars for mayo because whenever it hits $2-$3 I stock up. I get my ketchup for $2/bottle at Trader Joe’s because that is very cheap for ketchup without high fructose corn syrup. Pasta I grab at $1 or less per pound, Pasta sauce when it hits $1/quart, etc.

#2 Making use of my freezer. Right behind the pantry in importance is my freezer, or freezers. I have the typical top-of-the-fridge and a medium chest freezer. I keep various types of foods in my freezer to save money.

• Meat. I stock up when anything is super cheap and repackage bulk packs into portions that match the amounts I typically cook with. Ground beef, chicken, kielbasa, bacon, etc.
• Frozen veggies. Mostly broccoli and sliced bell peppers, sometimes cauliflower and other things. I stock up when these hit $1/10 oz package and use when fresh is unavailable/too expensive.
• Butter. I buy butter for $3/lb or less. (Only making exceptions at the holidays if I have managed to run out.) I keep 5-10 lbs on hand if I can.
• Flour. I keep most of my flour, sealed up in layered bags, in the freezer. Flour can get moths in the cupboard and I hate to waste it. I buy when it’s super cheap and use it for AGES. I keep 20+ lbs around and buy when it’s .20-.40 cents/lb.
• Rice. It can get buggy just like flour so the rice lives in the freezer. I keep 30+lbs on hand and buy it when it’s on sale. Prices vary wildly depending on the type of rice.

#3 Farmshare. You may or may not have this option in your area. We are part of a CSA: Community Supported Agriculture, where we pay a local farmer a certain amount in the spring and then stop by the farm weekly to get a share of the produce. Currently our farm share costs $650 and we get 8-9 items per week, June – November. (PLUS “field items.”) To give you an idea of what you might get here is this week’s share: (which I chose from among the available options) 2 lbs potatoes, 4 heads of lettuce, 4 lbs red peppers, 6 leeks, 2 acorn squash, 2 lbs onions, several hot peppers, approx. 5 lbs tomatillos, fresh flowers, fresh herbs: cilantro, thyme, oregano, basil. … I think that’s it for this week. Our farmshare only goes for 6 out of 12 months but it keeps us in winter squash, garlic and a few other things through to spring.

#4, (and lastly for now as I need to pre-make dinner and get myself ready for work) Meal Planning. I do what I outlined above. Check my schedule, pick our dinners, make a list based on what isn’t already in the house, and make adjustments based on killer sale prices. I used to use the weekly flyers from the grocery stores to plan meals around sales but have found my current method to be slightly more effective/less stressful. Meal planning saves us money in more than 1 way. First it takes advantage of the pantry & freezer & second it almost always keeps us from resorting to ordering pizza or grabbing meals out. If there is a plan in place, barring accidents, emergencies or migraines, I fit it into my schedule and it is pretty stress free.

That’s pretty much it. If you start keeping a pantry or stocking your freezer just ROTATE the food, meaning: put the NEW stuff in the back/bottom and pull the Older stuff to the front. Use your pantry don’t just leave it sit. Take the older stuff at the front to prepare your meals and add the new stuff to the back as you go and you should do alright.