Planning a Monthly Menu

I love some good takeout, but we really need to start cooking at home...

I am pretty terrible at planning ahead for meals. Most days, I do not really think about what we are going to have for dinner until 6 o'clock, when we are both sitting there hungry waiting for the other person to offer to make something. Which kinda sucks. So I have made it a personal goal to try to put together a meal plan for the whole month - or to start, half the month.

Finding things to make for dinner can be pretty challenging. I can't remember if I have shared this or not, but Chris is a fairly picky eater. We typically have to stick with the basics - meats, carbs, etc. Since he does not eat fruit, vegetables, eggs, or seafood, it can feel like we are lacking variety. But he does let me try to be creative where I can and is usually willing to try something, or pick out the things that he doesn't like. I guess I would rather eat together and have our meals be a little boring, than have us each eating separate food all the time.

So after spending some time on Sunday scouring Pinterest, blogs, etc., I put together the following plan for the rest of this month:

10/15: Chicken with Creamy Corn and Potatoes
1016:  Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
10/17: Crockpot Chicken
10/18: Pasta and Sauce
10/19: Homemade Pizzas
10/20: Football Game Tailgating
10/21: Sunday Dinner @ Mom's
10/22: Pesto Stuffed Shells
10/23: Mini Meatloafs
10/24: Black Bean Soup and Cheese Quesadillas
10/25: Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps
10/26: Chicken Fried Rice    
10/27: Event
10/28: Chicken Noodle Soup (can't wait to use our homemade stock!)
10/29: Curry Beef with Peas
10/30: Louisiana Style Red Beans and Rice
10/31: Trick O' Treat (may order pizza)

I got some great inspiration from Shannon at Shannanigans - she has been posting her monthly meal plans for awhile. In terms of my planning, my main strategies were to plan for crock pot meals on the nights that I stay late for meetings, account for events where we'd be fed and maybe a day or two where we will want to order a pizza. I also tried to mix up the beef, chicken, pork, and meatless meals - I would love a good piece of salmon or some shrimp every once in awhile, but only if I can make Chris a chicken version. I threw in a few standbys/favorites, like homemade pizza (great because we can each put our own toppings on), good old pasta with spaghetti sauce from the jar, and my favorite black bean soup from Real Simple. I also pulled some recipes that I have been waiting to try, like the Red Beans and Rice. I tried to find things that wouldn't make too many servings - we want enough for lunch, but not something that we are going to get sick of after eating it a few times.

I also started gathering possible future recipes and have them saved as I plan ahead for next month. We will have to keep track of what we like and what we wouldn't eat again. Last night's meal was great for using up some of my last veggies from the CSA basket. I was able to use cilantro, red pepper, and some of our potatoes. And it was a pretty good meal - looking forward to my leftovers today for lunch.

And I cannot wait for the pulled pork tonight! It only added 2 minutes to my morning routine to throw everything in the crock pot, and I expect it to smell pretty amazing when I come home.

If this goes well this month, I am going to try to plan out the full month of November. I am hoping this will allow us to reign in our grocery budget, and the amount of money that we spend eating out.

Do you meal plan? Make ahead your meals for the week on Sunday?

Money Sense

(Photo originally from Tracy O's Flickr, find it here)

So I need to be honest. I fell off the "get out of debt" wagon.

Back on April 4, 2011, I proudly posted on Facebook that I had paid off all credit cards in full. No more carrying balances from month-to-month. No stress about which payment to make. It was the best feeling in the world. I had worked so incredibly hard to make good money choices, knowing that I still had car payments and student loan payments ahead.

Then moving happened, and I threw all of my good work out the window...

It started with moving expenses. I couldn't pay those in cash up front, so they went on one card. That was going to be the only balance, and I'd work to pay that off right away. But then when I went a week without working, had a summer tuition bill to pay, and didn't get my first pay check right away, I developed a cash flow problem. And rather than being appropriately stingy, I did not adjust my lifestyle and brought the cards back out. Of course, then I misplaced my debit card for a few weeks too - so that all got put on the good old Cap One. As did my $250 monthly storage, which piled up with no end in sight to when we would be getting into our own place. Throw in an airplane ticket around the holidays, combined with some Christmas shopping, spending money so that Chris and I could still do fun things, and it just kept going downhill. In fact, I completely gave up, pretended there wasn't a problem, and began hemorrhaging money. Because, you know, I am super rich as a PhD student and public employee. Super rich. 

You would think that living at home with mom would have allowed me to save/pay off debt. In six months, I did exactly the opposite. Now it's time to get my ducks in a row, especially as we will have more expenses with our new apartment.

It's debt snowball time. For those that haven't heard the term, with a debt snowball, you put all of your debts in order, and determine the total amount you can put towards your debt. You make your minimum payments on everything else, but everything else goes to the smallest debt first. Once that is paid off, then you take what you were paying towards the smallest debt and contribute it to the next one. This plan worked really well last time around, because I could see progress and stay motivated.

Bye bye unlimited plan. Back when Chris and I were doing the long-distance-thing, I had a few months where I wracked up some pretty large phone bills, between the calls and texts. To avoid the $300 unexpected surprise at the end of the month, I upgraded my phone to the unlimited plan. But it was an unreasonable $120 a month for the iPhone. Now that we live together, I really have no need for all of those minutes and texts. So I have officially downgraded to just $54 a month. Much better.

I'm also bringing back the End of the Month list. To stay motivated while paying down my debt, I make a list of the things that I want. Not need, want. This could be anything from a new pair of jeans to some fun art for our apartment. Also at a reasonable cost. If I can make it to the end of the month, and still have some cash left, I can pick one thing off the list. I have done this in the past, and it helped with still allowing some nice things, without going overboard. I have a bad habit of feeling rich on payday, and will spend the majority of my paycheck during the first week or weekend, and then be stressed out and counting pennies through the end of the month. Using my end of the month list also helps avoid the "I'm bored, let's go to Target" temptation.

Cash envelopes. I have read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, and he encourages people to utilize a cash only plan for all expenses, with all dollars assigned to something in the budget. I am going to see if I can make this work so that I pay attention to what I spend, versus putting it all on a card.

It's time to pull out all of the cost-saving strategies that I can. As my supervisor would say, "Bird by bird."