Meal Planning

I have a friend that actually does all of her grocery shopping for the entire month in one trip. She does make a few trips just for produce, but that is it. That sounds awesome, but that is NEVER going to happen for me. It just isn't. I could never in my mind plan and execute an entire months menu in one shopping trip. Especially because I have been known on occasion to get bored or frustrated while grocery shopping and just check out at that moment. It never ends well because I literally have only half the items I need and therefore nothing to make a full meal.

Well this August I wanted to give myself a little challenge/ distraction while we wait for our official licensing. The challenge is NO going out to eat in the month of August. I have 2 exceptions for this.

1. Mark's birthday is during the month and I will give him the option of going out to eat or preparing a special dinner (obviously of his choice).
2. Mark's lunches. He works in the field all day and bringing his lunch isn't always practical.

So in order to make this happen, I should probably go grocery shopping. So I am going to meal plan! My goal is to shop for 2 weeks worth of meals. I have tried a million different methods and honestly, none of them have gone great. So who knows if this newest method will work, but it is at least worth a shot.

So this is super hard to read because honestly, I didn't think I was going to be sharing it. 

So here is my calendar. Now these meals are not necessarily going to be served on the day they were written, but that doesn't matter. This just helps me visually see that I have enough for the entire two weeks (8/1-8/15). 

Now I will go through and make a list of ingredients needed for each meal. If it is something that is perishable and I think that it won't be eaten in time, I will hold off on those items until the day of. Luckily, we have a grocery store directly on the corner so this makes things easy.

Lets see what happens and if I can actually do this! I will check in throughout the month.