I took a break for a couple of days to answer some direct questions that I was asked. I really couldn't see a way to tie those two posts to my efforts at eliminating the grocery store because I recognize that not everyone is at the same point in this journey as I am. I am sure that many of my newest readers have not even considered eliminating the grocery store as an option, in part, because they are simply trying to survive week after week with families to feed and a limited amount of funds. And I totally understand that. Our economy right now is really hard for so many people. Decisions are sometimes made between food to eat and gas to get to work to get that next paycheck. I decided that I would take a step back for a minute and do something that I should have done when I started this process. Whether you are trying to shop on a week to week or month to month basis or whether you are working at eliminating the grocery store, a meal plan makes a difference.
For the family living paycheck to paycheck and shopping week to week, having a meal plan can help you determine what to buy in bulk so you can stretch those dollars that you are spending a little bit more. Sometimes the difference between a one pound box of spaghetti and a two pound box is around a dollar, give or take a few cents. So you spend the extra dollar on spaghetti noodles this week so that you have two extra dollars to put towards something else the next week, like upgrading your flour purchase from a two pound bag to a ten pound bag. The adjustments will be slow and incremental but eventually you can start to have a pantry of staples like flour, sugar, beans, rice, etc. This is the process that I used to transition my grocery shopping from once a week to once a month. Be patient though, because it does take time.
It is my humble opinion that shopping once a week only helps the grocery store because it seems to create a dependency on what is on sale that specific week. You either eat a week of the same thing (yuck!) or you end up buying the higher priced items needed to complete the meal. Let's say, for example, spaghetti sauce is on sale for a dollar a can. And hey, the store is really nice and even has spaghetti noodles on sale for a dollar a box. You think, score! But then you go buy hamburger and it's up fifty cents to a dollar a pound. You just eliminated any savings you might have had. Once I started using a meal plan, I was able to buy only the sale items, when on sale. Since I shopped once month, I would stock up on spaghetti sauce and noodles when they were on sale and put it in my pantry. But I would not buy the meat until it was on sale. And then I would buy two or three of the huge family size packages and break it up when I got home. Shopping once a month also gives you what appears to be a larger amount of money to work with - even though it really is just the accumulation of the funds that you did not spend the previous four or five weeks.
When I decided to try shopping only once a month, I wrote down every single item of food I had in the house. I then put together a meal plan that used what I already had. I made a list of what I absolutely had to have to finish the meal plan. That was my first shopping list. For the next month, I avoided the stores as if they carried the plague except for absolutes like milk or bread or eggs. Nothing else could be purchased. I then repeated this process at the end of the month. What did I have in my pantry, what did I need to make the meals for the next month, etc. Eventually, I developed a meal plan that was good for six weeks.
Here is a copy of that meal plan for your use:
I should explain that this meal plan does NOT get used like a calendar. Even though it has seven boxes, please do not assume that it represents a week. It just happened to be the most that I could fit on one page. The way to use this meal plan is to play a kind of tic-tac-toe. In other words, once you make a meal, using up the items in your pantry, cross it out. You know you made it; you know you used the ingredients you bought for it. This will ensure a bit more variety for your family, because, oh my goodness, if you use this as a calendar, your poor family will end up eating beef for six days in a row! Not good. I do have sides listed, but these are more of a recommendation and some are seasonal. So, we may have a salad or we may not. Like I said, you can use this, or you can create your own. I'll explain how to do that next.
Create Your Own Meal Plan
Obviously you can create your own meal plan like I explained above in the monthly shopping paragraph. But there is another way in which you can go about this whole project. Let's assume that you don't really have a whole lot in your cupboards or your refrigerator other than spices and basics like flour, sugar, etc. Okay? Good.Step 1: Write down everything that you do have, no matter how meager it is, in your pantry and/or cupboards. Estimate how much flour, sugar, etc.
Step 2: Ask each and every family member what some of their favorite meals are. Include them in the process. Trust me, it helps them to actually eat what you cook, especially if you are transitioning from in-the-box processed foods to homemade, as in made-from-scratch foods.
Step 3: Chances are your family will give you 8 to 10 meals. You now need to come up with the rest. I happen to be an avid book collector, and cookbooks are, to the chagrin of my husband, a huge part of my collection. No, really. I have something like 100 cookbooks in my kitchen. Anyway, you want to start perusing through the cookbooks looking for feasible additions to your meal plan. Now, what defines a feasible addition: something that is easy to make, not time intensive preparation-wise, does not require anything that you are not completely comfortable doing, and that does not require any crazy weird special ingredients.
Step 4: This next step is to write down every ingredient that you need to make every single recipe, even if it is only one tablespoon of flour. I used Excel to do this. One column held quantity; the next the type of measurement; and the third the description of the item. Just keep adding ingredients line by line by line. It will be a beast of a spreadsheet. You can do it manually. If doing it manually, only put three ingredients to a page, like flour, sugar, and salt, for example. And then under those headings add the quantities for each recipe. I would suggest putting them in alphabetical order so it is easy to manually manipulate.
Step 5: By now you should have your meals listed and all the ingredients. Here is where it gets fun, and I am saying that sarcastically because in all honesty, complicated math just gives me a headache. We have to create our MASTER pantry list - the one that has all the ingredients that we need to make every single meal on our meal plan. To do this, you first have to reconcile teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups to determine the total that you need of each ingredient for a month. I am going to use butter for an example.
Let's say that over the course of the month you need 18 tablespoons, 4-1/2 cups, and 1 teaspoon of butter. If you look at the funky wax paper on a stick of butter, you see that 8 tablespoons equals 1 stick. And 1 stick equals half a cup; 2 sticks equals 1 cup; and 4 sticks equals a pound - the unit of measurement in which butter is sold. With me so far? Good. So 18 tablespoons, divided by 8 equals 2.25 sticks of butter. We need to add to that the 4-1/2 cups. Each stick is half a cup so we simply add 4 to the 2.25. This means we need 6.25 sticks. Since butter is sold by the pound, as in four sticks per box, we then need to divide the 6.25 by 4. This equals 1.5625. Now, I don't know about your store, but I am pretty sure that my store won't let me split boxes and sticks of butter. So, on my MASTER pantry list, I would write down 2 pounds of butter. I am sure you are wondering about the single teaspoons. A teaspoon is actually only 1/3 of a tablespoon. Obviously, since I have to buy more butter than I need, I am not going to worry about it too much. The best way to approach this is to always start with the smallest measurement and convert up to the largest. Use google to determine how many cups of say, flour, are in a 2 pound, 5 pound, or 10 pound bag. The best way to type this in the search box is to enter it as a formula. Let's say your monthly total of flour came to 18 cups. In google, you would type "18 cups = ? pounds flour". Go ahead. Try it. I'll wait for you.
Still waiting......
So, did you find out that 18-19 cups equals about 5 pounds of flour? Good. See how easy that was? As for items that you need cans of, you will have two choices: you can keep track of the number of cans by size that you need, such 14.5 ounce of this and 19 ounce of that; our you can calculate the total ounces you need for the month and then buy the larger, and usually cheaper per ounce cans. However, if you decide to go bigger and thus cheaper, you absolutely must have a safe way to keep and store the remaining quantity. Let's say you need a total of 48 ounces of tomato sauce. You can either plan to have all of your meals requiring tomato sauce in pretty quick succession so as not to waste any or determine to save the excess in your freezer until you need it. Whatever you do, make sure it is a safe choice!
Now, get back to work and finish doing your MASTER pantry list. I'll wait for you. I promise I won't go anywhere.
Alrighty, then, you get all that math done? Good. Now, onto the last step.
Step 6: The final step is write out your SHOPPING LIST, so compare the list that you made in step one of everything that you had in your pantry with your MASTER pantry list. Let's go back to our butter example from step 5. We had determined that we needed 2 pounds of butter. But you have already determined that you have one pound in the refrigerator. Awesome. On your SHOPPING LIST you are going to write down 1 # Butter. If you are using Excel, it is even easier. Add an On Hand column to the spreadsheet and then using a formula, have it automatically calculate the difference between what you need and what you have. Just make sure that the units of measurement are consistent. In other words, entering 4 when you have four cups of flour won't work if you need 4 pounds. Make sense?
Since I am somewhat organizationally obsessed, I like to organize my shopping list by types, such as: produce, dairy, meats, frozen, baking, spices, etc. so that I am not running back and forth in the store. Be forewarned, this type of shopping will require two or three carts and about three to four hours, depending on how fast you walk, can maneuver the carts through the store, and know where things are. If at all possible, take an adult friend the first time or two to help push the second cart and avoid taking your kids at all costs if possible.
I know that there is a lot of information here and that it will seem overwhelming at first. Simply break it down and do a step or two over a few days or weeks. You can change it up every few months or simply replace those meals that were not as "successful" as you had hoped. You can also take a weekend and make ahead of time as many meals as feasible to store in your freezer. Obviously not all recipes or meals are conducive to this type of preparation, but doing those that you can, will make your meal preparation that much easier.
Do you think that this approach will help you? Or are you simply going to use my meal plan for your family? I'm interested in your opinions and feedback, so let me know what you think by commenting below.
Be blessed.
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