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MY WEEKLY MEAL PLAN | Grocery Tips + Food Budget

Jun 07, 2021
Welcome to the Budget Mom YouTube channel. I'm Camiko Love from the

budget

mom.com and today I'm taking you with me to

plan

my

meal

s. Today we will go over the different steps I follow to create my

weekly

.

meal

plan

ning the things that save me money on my

grocery

budget

and everything else okay today we're going to talk about meal planning and I get a lot of questions about the things that I do that have saved me money throughout my financial journey. now a little bit of history before I could control my spending on

food

, I used to spend about eight hundred dollars every month just for me and my son and at that time my son was very little, he was probably two or three years old, now he is eight and I spent from eight hundred dollars a month to 400 to 450 a month for my

food

, so what changed that made me drastically cut my food budget from 800 to 400 a month, almost in half?
my weekly meal plan grocery tips food budget
It was definitely a trip and number one. What I want to talk about today and really say right up front about your food budget, there are a lot of people out there who give strict guidelines, a strict dollar amount, a strict value that you should spend on your groceries, or it's a hundred dollars. one person or 100 per month or 50 per week or whatever and I'm here to say that there are no strict general values ​​for your food budget why your food budget is really created from three different factors, the first being where You live because location influences the price of your food.
my weekly meal plan grocery tips food budget

More Interesting Facts About,

my weekly meal plan grocery tips food budget...

Number two is the size of your family, obviously you'll have a bigger food budget or you're going to spend more if you have more mouths to feed and number three is if you're dealing with any dietary or food restrictions, if you say dairy-free or gluten, that will definitely influence how much you spend if you are vegetarian and don't eat meat, and we all know that meat or protein is the most expensive ingredient in recipes, so the dietary restrictions of where you live and the size of the Family influences how much you should spend on your food budget.
my weekly meal plan grocery tips food budget
Another recommendation I have is that I call food spending or your food budget the silent one. It ends our budgets because it is because it is no longer a necessity. Okay, we all have to eat, so it's a need in our lives, but it's very easy to turn that need into a want. Raise your hand if you've ever been to the supermarket. list in hand knowing exactly what you need and you leave the supermarket and return home with bags full of things that were not on your list, the temptation to walk through the aisles, so one of the things we must do in To better control our spending on food, we have to start with a realistic base.
my weekly meal plan grocery tips food budget
That realistic baseline is what you currently spend each month on food, whether it's eating out or shopping. Now, personally, I like to have my food category. My budget consists of

grocery

shopping and eating out, so I combine the two. I have a lot of people who separate those two things into separate categories, so either way, okay, some people separate eating out because they want to analyze that expense. a little more into their lives, you're breaking it down in greater detail for your food spending, whether it includes eating out and grocery shopping or just grocery shopping, you need to know how much you're spending now because the goal isn't to spend from eight hundred dollars a month to 400 a month, the goal is to go from 800 a month to 750 a month, you want to make sure that if your goal is to decrease your food budget, you go from where you are currently spending the money you are spending realistically and then decrease the incremental bite size in achievable steps, it will be very difficult to stick to that food budget if you set yourself up for failure at first by doing it so drastically and in such a large quantity, so start with what you're actually spending and then decrease it a little bit, eat every time you create your budget and if you can stick to that perfect budget, reduce it by another 50 for the next paycheck and keep decreasing, refining and adjusting now the reason why Today we are talking about meal planning because that was one of the things that I implemented in my life to decrease my food budget more and more every time I received my paycheck, so today we will talk about the different steps that I take.
In my meal planning process, step number one is to look at what I already have at home, so one of the first things I do when creating my meal plan is to look at what I already have at home and that starts with my freezer of meat. in my garage, so there is an ingredient in my recipes. Now I'm not a vegetarian. I eat meat so the first ingredient I check is always my protein source because the proteins in their recipes are actually the most expensive ingredient so I like to choose my recipes based on the meat I already have at home so in This freezer, for example, the first thing I like to see is what kind of meat I'm working with so I can automatically see that I have steaks in here, a lot of steaks.
I have a couple of whole chickens I have chicken wings I have chicken thighs I have boneless skinless chicken breasts here frozen avocado, that's always good to know also the different frozen vegetables or fruits that I have here at my door, you can see I have burgers of frozen strawberries I have ground beef I have ground turkey so I have a lot of different meat ingredients to work with when creating my meal plan recipes so I think it's really important to also keep in mind that I like to shop in bulk at Costco 99.9 percent of the time that includes buying my meat in bulk to save money, so if I see a good deal on bulk meat at Costco, I have a Costco sinking fund in my life and I have it in my budget to save a hundred dollars per paycheck on this.
Costco sinking fund and then when it comes time to place those bulk grocery orders at Costco, which can be quite expensive, especially if you're buying meat in bulk, I already have the cash available inside my Costco sinking fund . You can view my expense tracker at any time. I add money to this sinking fund or spend it. I always have a running balance of how much I have to spend, so I can also plan my trips to the grocery store knowing that, well, I only have 300 to buy my bulk meat on this trip. I have to make it work with that, that's what I have to save, so that also plays a role in what you're seeing behind me with my bulk meat freezer.
The next place I like to check is in my pantry. I'm also going to do another task. I'm going to show you that you don't need a perfectly Pinterest-organized pantry in the kitchen to create an organized approach to meal planning in your life. I'm going to be very honest and show you my actual pantry, which by the way is the most disorganized it's been since I've lived in my new house, but there was a method to my madness, so let me show you what's going on, so next place I like to check now is my pantry.
This is my pantry and you can see there are a lot of things all over the floor, but there is a method to this, so I chose gluten and dairy and in that process I fell behind on keeping track of my essentials or my staples. my pantry, that's what happened, so everything that is not recorded in my pantry inventory is currently on my floor until I can update myself with that, but let me show you the main reason we come here, so inside from my pantry, I actually have a pantry inventory checklist, it looks like this now, this is not everything inside my pantry, this is just pantry staples, so my condiments, my grains , my pastas, my canned goods, which you can see here, so they are things that I gravitate or knead. the most frequent when I'm creating my meal plans, so I like to come here and I like if I need to see if I have a spice or if I need to make sure I have a can.
Well, it's all here in my pantry inventory checklist, we have these inventory checklists in my free resource library and I'll put a link to them in the description of this video, but essentially, for example, when I write the count the amount of spices I have so just do it with the small jar, if I run out I put a stick in it and that reminds me that I need to add it to my shopping list and then when I refill it I just add the amount I I buy in the next box, so this constantly gives me a running total of the different things I need for my staples when I'm creating my meal plan, so after I've gone over what I already have at home, especially the ingredients for meat, the next thing I like to do is look for my recipes now there are two places in my life where I look for recipes if I'm not using a cookbook that I already have at home now let me tell you that I have a significant collection of cookbooks but yes I don't want to use one of my cookbooks.
I run to Pinterest to find my recipes. The reason is that it is very easy to search for specific recipes on Pinterest and what I mean by that, for example, I saw that I had a whole chicken in my meat freezer and I would love to cook that whole chicken as part of the recipe in my cooking plan. feed this week so I can go to Pinterest, which you'll see right here and the first thing I can do is open a search window. bar and just type in whole chicken recipe and, you could even say insta pot, this allows me to search for exactly the ingredients I have and the way I want to cook it, so there are a ton of different recipes and I really like how it looks, so let's like this recipe.
The next thing you really need to pay attention to when looking for a recipe, when I create my meal plan, I leave two days for leftovers for dinners. We are using that food, we won't let any of it go to waste. There is another way I use leftovers in my life to not only save money but also save time. I use leftovers for lunches, so if you're not packing your lunches in large quantities, you should. Use those leftovers for your lunches and there is a way to do it, so I have a very small family of three people and when I look for a recipe I look at the servings, I pay attention to the number of servings, I always make two. extra servings beyond the size of my family, the reason is that you are already preparing the food anyway, save yourself time and money and simply make more of that meal and use the leftovers for your lunches, so I am a family of three, so I like to look for a recipe that offers a serving size of four to six that ensures I'm making more of that meal or that recipe so I can use up those leftovers to make this one great most of the time on Pinterest you can also change the serving size and Actually, it will also change your ingredients, so I'm going to keep this at a serving size six.
I want to make this instant pot chicken and then I just print out the recipe, so I picked five different recipes for my week. Meal Plan Another great thing to know about Pinterest and why it's so useful is that you can also find recipes based on any dietary restrictions you have. Recently, I went dairy and gluten free. I also took Whole30 for a whole month, so it really changed my perspective. about what I consume and the things I put in my body, so I'm a little more conscious and therefore a little more careful with what I choose for my recipes, so that's another great option to use pinterest and not be restricted by a cookbook so here I have five different recipes so we have 30 stuffed peppers total and this one is using that ground turkey that I saw in my freezer.
We have a slow cooker lasagna soup and this is using that ground beef that we saw in my freezer. I'm making instant pot stew, this is using that beef stew. I saw a whole package of beef stew in my freezer, the whole chicken recipe and then we're also going to use some of the chicken thighs that I also saw in my freezer. We're going to make Creamy Tuscan Chicken, so those are the five recipes I use now. Maybe ask Mikko what I do with these recipes now that I have them. I know I have the ingredients for the meat, so once you have your recipes I grab a couple different highlighters now the first thing I do is mark the ingredient list if I have it here at home and use a highlighter to highlight the ingredients that I still have.
I need to buy at the store, for example inside my instant pot whole chicken we know that I have the whole chicken, so I'm going to put a mark there, I have garlic, I have paprika, I have salt and ground pepper, so I know I have these ingredients at home not only do I not have to spend a dime on this recipe, but it will give me extra leftovers and an extra dinner, so I do it with every recipe I have, so I have all my recipes, all five highlighted and marked. The nice thing about this is that it keeps you from duplicating things, so how many times have you run to the store for a can of tomato paste like you're doing some shopping and see it on the shelf?
Oh probablyI should understand that, although you don't know if you have it at home, you come back and you already have six cans of tomato paste in your pantry, so this helps you not duplicate or buy things that we already have. at home and spend that money, so it also helps with food waste and really limiting the things that you have lying around, so now that I have them marked and highlighted, I decide what days I want to cook, what things now, the recipe that What I am preparing for each day of the week depends on the fresh ingredients I am buying, for example, my stuffed peppers, since I only go to the supermarket once a week, I don't want to buy those stuffed peppers today, Monday, and not prepare them.
Leave them until Sunday because the peppers may not be fresh. The peppers may not last that long, so I will decide to prepare them on Tuesday, which is tomorrow. That way I can make sure they don't spoil, so that's what I do when I create my actual meal plan for the week. So you may have noticed that my breakfast and lunches are more or less the same every day. Yes, I eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast. It's one of my all-time favorite foods, so I don't mind eating the same thing every day. The best. about oats is that you can mix it, you can add different fruits, different flavors, different textures, so you can really mix oats and make them a variety of things and that's why I enjoy eating them for breakfast and then the leftovers for my lunch almost every day. day it's my dinners that change, you may have also noticed that I put two days worth of leftovers in my meal plan recipe, so now it's time to create my shopping list and this work is already done because I already made the verification and highlighting system. in my recipes, so the good thing is that I don't need anything for my whole chicken, here's something for my beef stew, I need some red potatoes, so I personally like to divide my shopping list into different categories, one of them is agricultural products and I like it. to make the header of my shopping list all different colors so it's produce and I need russet potatoes and I'm going to make about a pound so I go through and write down all the different things that stand out from all my different recipes . so I also need zucchini and I'm only going to buy two of those so I have one left over okay next time we're going to start a new label here these are things for my pantry and I need chicken broth okay I need bell. peppers, you can make five of those perfect, so most of the time, because I focus on the meat ingredient, I make sure it's something I already have at home most of the time, my shopping list My meal plan consists of perishable foods, so fruits and vegetables. unique items that I need in my pantry, like cans of mushrooms for example, that's mostly what you'll find on my

weekly

grocery shopping list.
The best thing is that for this week's recipes, we are preparing fantastic healthy recipes, I am only buying one, two, three, four, five, six of eight things in the store of those things, five of them are to produce such perishable items and then the other three are just one off things I need for my pantry, overall this is very small. shopping list of eight items for seven days of food for my family now my family size is three people, me, my son and my boyfriend, I am personally dairy and gluten free so we have a dietary restriction there and I live in washington state so I'm out of an estimate and since I've been doing this for so long, I'm going to say that we can keep this week's grocery budget and shopping list two, I'd say under forty dollars, which Next thing I do is I do my shopping online, there are many reasons why I like to do my shopping online, for example the efficiency of doing it now.
If you are a mother with small children, then you know what I am talking about, being able to go pick up your purchases, no. you have to take your kids inside and here I want, I want, I want the right thing, you can just go in and out. The second thing is that it will save you money when you shop online, especially through Walmart's grocery pickup service. Being able to make price comparisons very quickly and easily is because when you search, for example, for red potatoes or cheddar cheese, it allows you to see all the varieties and different brands of what you are looking for in one place and that allows you to make a very very easy price comparison. , so let's take a look at my shopping list today.
We're doing Walmart grocery pickup, so the first thing on my list is red potatoes, so using Walmart grocery pickup you can see all the different red potatoes. So here we have small red potatoes. I personally like to buy the small red ones. These potatoes cost 16.5 cents each. These potatoes are about 29 cents each, so they are more expensive, but for me personally, they are also whole red potatoes. I don't mind. I spend a little more money on organic products, so I generally tend to go towards the organic side of the market, since their brand is $32 a pound for a three-pound bag.
I'm going to add that for 396. It's 397 for a 1.5 pound bag. of the baby red potatoes, so I'm going to go with the organic whole red potatoes because you're getting a lot more for that price. Next is the zucchini. I only need two of these, so I'll add two of those. Alright, something interesting happened with this Walmart grocery pickup, so to do a Walmart grocery pickup or any type of grocery pickup, they usually have a limit that you have to meet as to how much you're spending, so that you have to pick up your grocery shopping from Walmart.
Spend $35 or more to set up that grocery pickup order for this week's meal plan. I'm only spending 27 13. and here's the question you need to ask yourself: are there other basic things you might need for your home? milk eggs pasta sauce with bread, you know those kinds of things that you need or that you can stock up on right now to reach that limit of 35 dollars and thus save yourself the time of going to the store or just bite the bullet and know that you can alone spend 27 and take the time to go pick up these eight things in the store for me personally.
I would just go to the store and buy all eight items, which is super easy for me and I honestly don't have anything else I need. shopping for my house and I don't want to just sit here and add things to my cart because I need to spend more money picking up groceries at Walmart, so I'll choose to go to the store for this week's meal. I plan the trip to the grocery store, that's how I create my weekly meal plan and I think getting this master plan and really making it part of your weekly routine, everyone is different, certain things won't work for other people and also remember there is no a set.
The value of your food budget ultimately comes down to the things you value in terms of the things you consume and put in your body and feed your family. Each one is different. The size of the family. Food restrictions. The location of where you live is really going to change. I determine that I hear a lot of my readers and community members say that I feel like I'm failing or not doing a good job because I saw someone else spending only 500 a month for a family of five and I'm currently spending a thousand, there are other factors go into it, but when it comes to meal planning, I think it's something that everyone can implement into their life in their own way using their own techniques and things that fit their schedule and I think it's really very important, especially when it comes to preparing ourselves for how we spend our money when it comes to our food.
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