Our Meal Plan

I love food! More than a lot of things. I love cooking, I love eating, and I love feeding people. I love food!

One of my greatest fears of budgeting was that I couldn't eat out as much as I'd like, or that I would be limited in grocery shopping. Better ingredients really do make for better food. I don't go crazy at the store, but putting a limit on what I could spend put pressure on me that I didn't like the thought of. The hubs is great and reassures me that if I am over its no big deal and he means it! He's great, plus he likes good food too! :-)  How I got over my fear is, first, we set a reasonable budget for it. Something that we can obtain. Next I look at it as a game. I have to be as close to our allotted amount as possible. I can't stress if I am over, this is the food for my family after all! Now it's almost fun having our budget in place. I actually enjoy shopping with it! The last thing that helps is making a menu! (I make a bimonthly menu and do major shopping twice a month, if we need stuff in between we make quick, small trips. Less time at the store means less chance for over spending. Bonus is avoiding the heat and not having to load up the two kiddos a bunch!) I did this before but it really helps me think about what I am going to get and stick to that. This week I am even making a treat menu as well! We also have an eating out budget as well and I like that too. We make it count and we definitely eat better quality! We avoid the not so good fast food restaurants, but eat at the yummier places.

What I love most about budgeting in our eating categories is we waste so much less! I'm amazed at it! Since we are on budget I buy what we want, but not excessively. Since we don't eat out as much we eat our left-overs, always and all of them!

The month of August we were over in both categories :-( , but not by much! In fact I am encouraged by it and not discouraged! Bring on September!