Monthly and Quarterly Menu Planning

My friend, R, recently asked her readers to take some time and share their secrets of homemaking.  So many people have good tips for helping to soothe the chaos and often, people don't have the time to share.  I thought I'd share something I've been doing for the last 4 months or so that has simplified my life. 

I have planned my menus for a long time now.  (Not when we were first married and both going to school full time and working part time but soon after, so I'm guessing maybe 9 years.)  In the past, I've always done the fairly standard version of planning a week's meals at a time, being intentional in what I bought so that I could reuse leftovers, take advantage of a sale, etc.  But for some reason, I decided to try planning meals a month at time and then repeating this set of meals for 3-4 months at a time.  (I think because I often found myself hurrying to try to get meals planned before I went to the grocery store.)  I am loving my new system.  Here's the scoop:

1.  I started by getting all the recipes I used often in one location.
2.  I started thinking about ways to simpify the meal planning process.  I know some people use a prescriptive meal planning strategy where Mondays are taco night, Tuesdays are chicken, etc..  For me, I didn't think I would like something so structured.  But I did decide to do a pizza night once a week during the winter months.  Now that it's spring, I've gone to quesedillas once a week.  To add variety, all you have to do is change the toppings.  I also knew that there were different categories of food that could be included in each week like slow cooker meals, meatless meals, soups, etc..  For winter, I decided to include one meatless meal, one breakfast for supper, one soup, and one slow cooker meal each week.  For spring, I'm using the categories of meatless, chicken, sandwiches, pasta and slow cooker.
3.  I went through my recipes and started plugging them into days of the week.  Since I had already decided on 5 categories to include each week (pizza, meatless, soup, slow cooker, and breakfast), it was really easy to plug in my recipes and then add 2 more to equal a week's worth of meals.  (I only plan suppertime meals; lunch is usually leftovers or something quick like sandwiches or canned soup.)  I did also consider how to use recipes that common ingredients within a week.  For example, if I make homemade black beans in a week, I will plan to have the black beans with tortilla chips and then reuse them in a casserole.
4.  I repeated this until I had 4 full weeks of recipes.
5.  My next step was to create a grocery list for each week, based on what meals we were having.  So below each week's menu, I created columns based on the different departments at the grocery store.  (Produce, canned goods, meat, dairy, etc..)  This makes it so easy to shop regardless of what store you shop at.  Using the recipes and meal plans for each week, I created a customized grocery list for each week.  I did not include pantry staples like flour, sugar, milk, etc..
6.  I made sure each week's plan and grocery list fit on one 8 x 11 piece of paper.  This paper then went on my fridge so that I could use it as a grocery list to add items to if we ran out of pantry staples, even if they weren't originally on my list.

Here's the pic of my grocery list/meal list.  This is the one I'm using this week.  I already used it buy groceries so it's got items added and crossed off.  Next week's list is tucked behind this one so if I run out of something that's a pantry staple, I can write it in to buy next week.

I cannot tell you how much easier my grocery shopping/menu planning is!  Yes, it took me 45 minute to an hour to put together the meals and grocery lists.  But there are 4 weeks worth of meals that I now rotate through.  I use this set of meals for 3-4 months at a time and then switch it up with another set of meals so I can do meals that appeal for each season. The 45 minutes to an hour of planning replaces almost all the planning I would normally do in that 3-4 month stretch.  When it's time to grocery shop, I do a subtractive type list.  I take the list for the week and go through my food stash at home.  Whatever I already have, I cross off my list.  Other items that I ran out of throughout the week are already on my list as I wrote them in during the week, when I used up the last of that item.  After crossing off items, all I have left to do is add any sale items that I am buying as pantry staples to build up my stash.  It seriously takes me less than ten minutes to finalize my list.  (Sometimes closer to 5.)

I do put the days of the week on my schedule.  However, rarely do I serve the food on that actual day.  Our weeks are hectic and often things change.  My job as a substitute teacher means I need to be flexible.  I may not know until 7 a.m. that I am going to work at 8:10 so it is hard to plan accordingly.  Often, on the days I work, I pull something out of the freezer to cook when I get home.  (All from a freezer cooking swap I belong to which is another post alltogether.)  So there are sometimes where I may only use 3 or 4 meals from the week.  If that's the case, depending on what it is and if there is fresh produce involved or not, I either make a new meal plan for the next week using the extra meals plus freezer cooking or other quick meals thrown in or I just save the supplies and plan to use them the next time that meal rolls around.

The other benefit is that I honestly think my grocery bill has been a lot less.  I have always shopped with a budget.  But I never seemed to be under my budget, always right at.  Lately, it's seemed like I've been about $40 under each month.  I'm not sure what the difference is.  Maybe I'm more focused.  Maybe my recipes are reflect my desire to be frugal and I have picked cheaper recipes.  I honestly don't know.  But it seems to have made an impact.