Save Money by Planning Your Meals for the Week

By planning out your meals for the week, you can significantly lower your monthly grocery bills. By having a plan, you'll eliminate those last minute trips to the grocery store and start eating healthier by cooking more homemade meals. Meal planning will also help you eat out less. Here are some of simple meal planning tips you can start today!

Start by writing down your favorite family recipes. Pick out the ones that you like to cook regularly and eliminate the ones that are less liked or only cooked on special occasions. Also keep in mind which recipes are more frugal and cost less overall to make. This list is your "Master Recipe List" that you can choose from each week. Ideally, this should only have about 10-15 of your most liked and frugal family recipes.

To plan out your meals for the week, select 3-4 recipes. Make sure to check out your local grocery ads to see which ingredients may be on sale.

Now that you have picked out your meals for the week, decide which days you will cook. You may choose to cook all meals on the weekend and freeze, or spread out cooking on multiple days during the week. Don't feel like you have to cook everyday. Plan days into your weekly schedule to eat up leftovers.

To keep track of your meals and cooking days, it may be helpful to print out a copy of your monthly calendar and record these on the appropriate day. You can even save each month's calendar for planning out future weeks and rotating which recipes you decide to cook.

Congratulations on your new meal plan! Keep in mind that this is a work in progress. Continue to review your Master Recipe List to add new recipes or eliminate ones that are no longer your favorite.

Here is a summary of the benefits of planning out your meals for the week in advance:

Eliminates last minute trips to the store because you don't know what to cook for dinner.

Because you are cooking at home more often, you will eat out less and save money.

Your meals will be more healthy because you have planned in advance. No more unhealthy convenience foods or microwave meals.

You will be less stressed because you have a plan.

As you get better at meal planning, try scheduling more than one week of meals. It may help you take advantage of grocery sales when you know what you'll be cooking in the next few weeks. You could also purchase groceries for more than one week which could reduce your trips to the store.

For more tips on saving money on groceries and on healthy eating on a budget, visit http://smartmoneymom.hubpages.com/hub/Eating-Well-on-a-Tight-Grocery-Budget.

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