Lightening Online

I have just finished menu planning for the days leading up to our departure. It looks like my meat supplies are going to work out perfectly with a very small amount of our own lamb to take with us (which I’m happy about as I probably won’t buy lamb while we’re away). I’m also planning to buy a couple meals of sausages from our favourite butcher (given I have the opportunity to on Friday - I don’t always get near where he is) to take with us. They don’t take up much room in the freezer and make a quick and easy meal the whole family enjoys.

So, this is what our menu looks like:

Tuesday 23rd June - Take Away (we’re away all day so it just makes sense to bring something home with us)

Wednesday 24th - Blade Steak in the Crockpot with Mushroom Soup

Thursday 25th - Out at training so we’ll buy tea there as usual.

Friday 26th - Lamb Fillets

Saturday 27th - Ham & Cheese Quiche

Sunday 28th - Chicken Thigh Fillets (possibly with Southern Fried Chicken coating)

Monday 29th - Heart Smart Round Steak

Tuesday 30th - Corned Beef (giving us cold meat for the first couple of lunches away)

Wednesday 1st July - Our first night away. BBQ lamb fillets & snags

Thursday 2nd July - My birthday so we’ll go out for a meal.

Friday 3rd July - Our plan while we’re away is to make Friday night Take Away night. I wasn’t going to worry this first week as we’ll have been out for tea the night before but where we’re planning to stay apparently has a very popular pizza place so we might end up having pizza. We’ll see. Otherwise it’s likely to be tomato soup (have some already packed in the caravan) after a long days travel.

Saturday 4th July - Will be my first actual shop on the trip. The plan is to shop on a Saturday and take out leftover money in cash for the rest of the week. That money will need to buy incidentals like milk, cover spending money (we’re allocating $5 each which won’t go far) and any take away we buy. Friday night take away night’s will be dependent on whether there is any cash left in the “kitty”. That will also determine whether we’re having hot chips or something a little more expensive.

This Months Spend So Far:

So far, I’ve spent around $260 on groceries this month. Whatever is left from my $600 budget is the cash we’ll set out on the trip with (my first budgetted trip amount isn’t due to come out until the first Saturday). It won’t have to cover my birthday meal as that comes from a separate budget but it will have to cover any purchases made from Wednesday to the first Saturday (including Friday night’s tea if we have take away).

I’ve been trying to think of a clever and catchy title for “Menu PlanTuesday” and I just can’t come up with anything beginning with a “T”.

Until now.

I think “Torture Tuesday” explains well how I feel about menu planning.  LOL.

Not that I can really complain this week.

Here’s how things look so far:

Wednesday - Out

Thursday - Out

Friday - Sun - Away

Mon -Fried Rice

Tues -Lamb Fillets

Could be a rather expensive week though!  Fortunately there is a small supermarket where we are staying over the weekend so hopefully I’ll be able to buy something not too expensive for at least some of our meals.  I’d take food but a) we don’t have all that much on hand anymore and b) I’m not sure what meals we’ll be around for and we’re sharing with family so it’ll be “work it out as we go” type meals I think.

Must try and bake some snacky stuff before then though to take with us.  And a Birthday Cake given it’s “Cousins Birthday Party” this weekend.  I’m in charge of the Birthday Cake and the party bags.  Yah - I get the fun stuff!!!  LOL.

Where are the baby photo’s I promised?  They’re coming.  I’ve been having some internet connection issues of late so my apologies for the lack of posting.

The weekend was insanely busy.

Sport on Saturday was feral.  The wind blew most of the day and the dust was awful.  Not to mention the farmers were all grumpy about their paddocks blowing away (and who could blame them really).

Thankfully we had some rain on Sunday - although it wasn’t as wide spread as I would have liked.

We’re going on with sowing our sand and hoping for the best.

We did have a lovely day on Sunday catching up with family.  I’m pretty exhausted now though.

I managed to get the kids some winter pj’s (it was getting rather desperate) and did some grocery shopping that is going to really upset my planned spending for the month of May but never mind.

I’m getting a little nervous because our meat supplies are dwindling.  I know that’s the plan but I’m so used to having a freezer (or 2) with plenty of meat to choose from.

Shopping week to week is going to be a new skill to learn while we’re travelling.  I think I’ll run out of meat before we go though so I guess I’ll get a little practise in then.

THIS WEEK’S MENU PLAN

Tuesday - Quiche

Wednesday - Lamb Shanks in slow cooker

Thursday - out

Friday - Southern Fried Chicken

Saturday - something easy

Sunday - Pasta Bake

Monday - Round Steak in slow cooker

Tuesday - Roast Chicken

One thing I’m hoping to be able to do while we’re away is increase the amount of fish in our diet.  I’ve heard the fishing is good in Qld so fingers crossed Farmboy and the kids get good at catching us a feed. 

Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Menu Plan Monday does it?

Nevertheless, it’s what is going to be happening around here for a bit.

As the freezer, fridge and cupboard get emptier, menu planning is becoming more and more crucial.

And I need to do it the day before I shop so I know exactly what needs buying.

My grocery spending isn’t going as well as I’d hoped.  Seems the family still wants to eat.  How rude!!!!  LOL.  I’ll still finish the month with a lovely surplus to add to my BHAG total but it won’t be as much as the $400 I was aiming for.

So, what’s on the menu plan this week?

I’m so glad you asked.  I figure if I have to menu plan (which I HATE with a passion) then I may as well share it. 

This Week’s Menu Plan

Tuesday - Homemade Pumpkin Soup with cheese muffins (and leftover cheesecake for dessert)

Wednesday - Roast Lamb (my last one to be used up) & Vegies

Thursday - footy (yeah, sounds tasty doesn’t it?)

Friday - Lasagne

Saturday - Oven Fish and Fries with easy veg (after being out at sport most of the day)

Sunday - out

Monday - Sausages

Tuesday - Quiche

I know this is probably the worst time of year to abandon my attempts to purchase all groceries by cash but with Christmas and Birthday Parties, it’s all getting rather complicated and I’ve temporarily dumped it in the “too hard” basket.

We have a separate budget for special occasions which includes birthday parties and Christmas but right now I’m not tracking quite so specifically which means it’d take a bit of extra effort to separate it all out. Effort I don’t really have the time and energy to put in. For simplicity and sanity’s sake, I’m choosing to make life easier for myself, even if it means we end up spending just a little bit more.

And as for menu planning. I made up a plan this week, all the while muttering to myself how much I hate menu planning, and we haven’t even stuck to it!!! Things are just getting a little too chaotic right now and while a menu plan “should” help, this week it hasn’t. *sigh*

So, I will back to my normal grocery challenge, tracking my grocery spending and menu planning when the kids go back to school at the end of January. In the meantime, I think perhaps I’ll write a list of the meals we have on hand and use that in place of a menu plan as such.

One of the things I find most challenge when it comes to being frugal with groceries is finding the balance between money well spent and money wasted.

As many of you already know, I’m currently on a mission to make use of money we’ve already invested in food, so that it doesn’t go to waste.

While I’ve been menu planning to this effect, there is another aspect to this that I’m starting to look into.

In the past I have tended to purchase in bulk in order to save money. This might be purchasing a bulk number of items when at a good price or buying in a bulk size to get an overall cheaper “unit price”.

This works well when everything is going well.

It doesn’t work so well when the wheels fall off the wagon and stuff gets left languishing in the cupboard or freezer.

After Christmas I’m going to do an audit of what I have left and actually plan to make use of what we have. Right now life is starting to get busy and I need to be mindful of what I can and can’t manage right now. It’s also a little overwhelming right now because we really do have too much stuff on hand. Another 6 weeks of doing what I’ve done for the past 3 and we should see a little bit of a dent in that stuff.

However, there are a couple of things I already know I have way too much of:

1. Bread Mix

This comes in a large bag and I don’t usually make bread over the summer. I’m trying to take advantage of the cooler weather now to use this up. The kids are enjoying home made bread, particularly as it’s been a while since I’ve made any.

2. Milk Powder

When I’m making yoghurt on a regular basis, we go through milk powder quite quickly. This has gone by the by in recent times and I have quite a bit on hand that I picked up at a particularly good price. So, I’m going to focus on using as much of it up as possible in the coming weeks.

We don’t drink it but I do use it in cooking.

I’ll let you know how I go using these 2 items in the coming weeks.

LAST WEEK’S GROCERY SHOP

I ended up spending $84.55 in last weeks grocery shop. That’s the most I’ve spent since beginning this challenge. However, it was all “real” food (with the exception of toilet paper - we don’t usually eat that! ). I’m looking forward to the garden reaching a stage of supplementing our diets again as fruit and veg has become a large expense once again.

I currently have $203.85 saved in my “grocery surplus” fund which I’m going to transfer to our “holiday fund” and begin again with my $130 per week cash amount.

THIS WEEK’S MENU PLAN

I’m not feeling particularly creative this week so my menu plan is rather uninspiring but here it is:

Monday - Quiche (didn’t end up making one over the weekend).

This goes well with homemade potato wedges and I’ll make enough that DH and I can have some for lunches a couple of times through the week.

Tuesday - Spaghetti Bolognese

Like it or not, we have a lot of mince to get through as well as some frozen grated vegetables so I think this, along with tacos and lasagne is going to feature prominently for a while. The kids love it and it’s easy for them to eat so it works well as a family favourite.

Wednesday - Take Away

I have a hair appointment and then need to pick kids up from various places in town around 5.30 so we’ll take the easy option this night. It’ll be a hot chook, chips and salad so not too expensive as far as Take Aways go.

Thursday - Chops

The joys of being a sheep farmer. Plenty of chops. LOL.

Friday - Homemade Pizza

Saturday - Tacos

Sunday - Toasties

We like to go simple on a Sunday.

For what it’s worth, that’s where I’m at with groceries for this week.

I know some of you are joining me in the challenge to use up what food you’ve already paid for. Feel free to share how you’re going in the comments section below.

Things that mysteriously made their way in to my trolley uninvited this week:

2 x Double Choc Tim Tams

1 x 10pk Bulla Splits

1 x 8pk Bulla Double Choc Ice Creams

1 whole pineapple (at least that’s 1 healthy “extra”)

In my defense, they were all on special!!!

Grocery spend for the week: $57.30

Amount now in grocery “kitty”: $157.40

I was going to wait until the end of the year to transfer my accumulated savings into my BHAG account but I think I might empty it at the end of this month (or maybe most of it) and start again. I don’t really like carrying too much cash around with me.

Menu Plan For This Week:

Monday - Homemade Pasties with potato wedges and vegetables

Tuesday - Chicken Pieces (haven’t decided exactly how I’ll cook them yet)

Wednesday - Fried Rice

Thursday - Roast Lamb in the Slow Cooker

Friday - Hamburgers

Saturday - Quiche

Sunday - Leftover quiche

Shopping List so far:

bread

milk

fruit & veg

margarine

Image via WikipediaI have $130 in my newly labelled “Grocery Money” snap lock bag. The Challenge? To see how much of that I can hold onto between now and next Monday.

Including today, there are 9 Mondays left this year. That gives me $1170 in Grocery Money in total. I wonder how much of that I can hold on to? Quarter? Half? None? LOL. Better NOT be none!!!!

Bear in mind I have not been tracking my grocery spending over the past few months so I have NO idea how far $130 will go, even with my pantry/freezer challenge.

The Plan?

1. Menu Plan (see below)

2. Avoid Specials Brochures that encourage me to buy stuff we don’t really need anyway

3. Shop with a list and STICK to it

4. Don’t let DH loose in the supermarket!

5. Blog it to keep me accountable.

This Week’s Menu Plan

Monday - Spaghetti Bolognese (already in slow cooker)

Tuesday - Tuna Patties (have 12 tins of tuna I bought at $1 each to use up)

Wednesday - Tacos (makes use of the leftover spag bol sauce)

Thursday - Chicken Patties (no idea how I’ll make these yet - have chicken mince, will experiment)

Friday - Homemade Pizza

Saturday - Chops and Vegies (chops in the slow cooker with french onion soup mix)

Sunday - Pasties

Shopping List

lettuce

tomato

bread

milk

fruit

Already have: meat, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, frozen veg, pasta, cheese, taco shells, pastry, swedes

This morning in my “not quite awake yet” state I thought perhaps I’d attempt to regain some semblance of control and menu plan. Nothing too elaborate but a plan nonetheless. As it turned out, it looks like I only needed half a plan. But here it is, such that it is:

Monday - Fish Patties

Farmboy went fishing a few week’s back with his sister’s husband and they caught a heap of Snook which they then had smoked. Farmboy and Trailer Boy (our 4 year old) both liked the taste of cold smoked fish but the rest of us weren’t so sure. My SIL tells me it makes nice fish patties so I thought it was time to give that a go.

Tuesday - Quiche

We have like a bazzilion eggs in the fridge and I really need to do some baking. If only my body and brain would co-operate with my plans!!!! Quiche always goes down well and is an easy meal to prepare.

Wednesday - Chops

The last sheep we had butchered for our own use was a SAMM and is delicious!!! It’s like a cross between steak and lamb. Beautiful and tender but lower in fat and with a more steak-like texture. It’s a new breed for us and I’m quite excited about it. I’ve written a post about it on Lightening’s Garden.

Thursday - Football/Netball Training.

Kids eat there. Farmboy and I sometimes do (depending on how we’re feeling and what’s on the menu) and sometimes grab something easy when we get home.

Friday - Out

Kids will be at grandparents and we’ll grab something on the run.

Saturday - Pumpkin Soup

Planning to cut into the first of the Jap Pumpkins to make soup this week.

Sunday - Toasted Sandwiches

Menu Plan Monday is hosted at I’m an Organizing Junkie.

It is like FOREVER since I’ve actually written a menu plan. But I’m hoping some inspiration will strike my fingers as I type and I can actually formulate some kind of menu plan for this week!!!

Let’s start and see what happens….

Monday - Rissoles with mash & vegetables

Tuesday - Corned Beef in Slow Cooker

Wednesday - Leftover Corned Beef in Cheese Sauce with vegetables

Thursday - Training (kids eat there, sometimes DH and I do and sometimes we grab whatever)

Friday - Chicken Munchies, Oven Fries & Salad/Veg (haven’t decided yet)

Saturday - Take Away Chicken picked up on the way home from sport

Sunday - pancakes (one of those “easy” nights)

Not my most brilliant menu plan ever but a plan nonetheless.

Do you menu plan regularly?

It’s been that long since I’ve written one that I’m very out of practise!!!!

If you need inspiration visit Menu Plan Monday.