Whole30 Day 12: Budgeting & Menu Planning

As a stay at home mom, I am very aware of how our money is spent. When we had two full-time incomes we had much more flexibility, spending money, and were taking multiple vacations a year. I'm extremely happy that we were financially able to figure out how I could stay at home to raise Ethan rather than putting him in a daycare. With that though, we are on a budget. We've been on a budget since well before Ethan came along since we realized we wanted to save instead of spend all our money. We use a program called YNAB (You Need A Budget) which we paid for the software for our computer. You can then download the mobile versions on your phone to add in expenses.

We've been budgeting for about 4 years now. During that time we purchased a home, remodeled it, sold it, paid off all our debt, sold a car, bought a new home, bought a new car, switched jobs, had a baby, and went to one income. That's a lot happening and our budgeting made it all possible. Aside from our mortgage and monthly utility expenses, food makes up one of the largest portions of our budget. We've allocated $100 a month to our beef/pig budget for purchasing those each year. We've also allowed ourselves a very small budget of $75-$100 a month for eating out. Fortunately we don't eat out very often so those funds usually going towards groceries. Our grocery fund recently shrunk to $400 from it's $600 amount (when I was employed). This means that I feed my family of 3 each 3 meals for $13.33 a day plus some beef or pork that we buy in bulk from our other allotment. 

There are meals that I make once in a while that cost more than that. Usually if that's the case though, I've shopped around for a good price on the items and offset the costs elsewhere. For instance, we purchase our fish usually from Costco. I cut or portion each package into servings for 2.5 people (2 adults, 1 baby) and freeze them right away. So when I bought salmon last week for $22, I was able to portion the 3 pounds out for 4 meals. I'll serve it with some mashed sweet potatoes and a steamed veggie with the whole meal costing less than $10. Pretty amazing when ordering salmon at a restaurant would cost about $18 per person.

A key savings for me is menu planning. When I don't menu plan, I head to the grocery store more frequently and spend more money. Each week I sit down for 1-2 hours and decide on what meals I should make. I notate any conflicts we might have, such as curling for my husband on Wednesday night, to plan around. Then I look through our fridge to see what we have left to use up. Here's what I have for this week.

Sunday- Slow Cooker Chicken & Gravy, Sweet Potato Mash, Cooked Carrots

Monday- Zucchini Curry with Sausage

Tuesday- Stuffed BBQ Barbacoa Sweet Potatoes with Coleslaw

Wednesday- Vietnamese Lettuce Wraps (Make ahead, hubby is gone)

Thursday- Katie's Meatloaf with Yam Mash

Friday- Chicken Soup (early dinner before game night at friends house)

Saturday- Clam Chowder

Sunday- Chicken Bacon Alfredo

I usually try to cook the meals that I know the items could go bad for towards the beginning of the week. In this case, my zucchini for my curry might not last as well as my lettuce for the wraps. Otherwise, most of these dishes are flexible so I can always change up the day I make it. If we feel like something else that we have the ingredients for we could make that too. I NEVER go to the store to buy just one item or to change my menu. If I'm short something I absolutely need, I send my husband. He's less likely to pick up extra's therefore, saving us money. By extra's, I'm a compulsive sale shopper so I often come home with extra canned tomatoes, bananas, discount meat, or anything I might have spotted in the ad. 

Another trick is to buy multiple of items you use a lot of. I know this sounds obvious but sometimes it isn't. We eat a lot of eggs so when I buy eggs I normally buy 4-5 dozen which will last us 7-14 days. If eggs were on sale (which never happens) then I've been known to buy 20 and store them in our garage fridge. It really depends on how much you save. Bacon is the other item I stock up on. We go through 2 pounds of bacon in 3-4 days. When I spotted thick slice bacon on sale for $2.99/lb I went crazy. Over the course of a week, I bought 30 pounds of bacon. That 30 pounds of bacon will last us about 2 months and saved a minimum of $30. Since we had freezer space it made sense to stock up.

My last budget saving suggestion is finding a go to place for produce. I live in Oregon where fortunately there are many farms with fresh local produce. There's a produce stand that stocks just about everything 8 minutes from my house with some of the best deals you'll ever see. I also go to the asian supermarket one town over because their produce is beautiful and cheaper for the exactly same items. When I get stuck having to go to a grocery store for produce, I spend more money. They feature a few produce items at a low price but offset that with everything else being expensive. Since more than 50% of our budget goes to produce, savings here can make a big difference.