February's Menu

Well, the challenge this month is to get the grocery and eating out budget under $200 for the month!!!  So far so good as my recent shopping run that covered 90% of my groceries for the month only cost $82!!  Here is what I got:

You may be asking, "How can that little bit of food feed you for a month?"  Well, I am glad you asked... Here is what my meals look like for this month:

Breakfast is almost always strawberry/banana smoothie (made with diet V-8 splash, frozen bananas and strawberries), a boiled egg and oatmeal.

Mid-AM snack is an apple and mid-PM snack is homemade yogurt.

Lunch will be vegetable lasagna or veggie chili (still have 3 or 4 packets left from last month) with brown rice.

Dinner will be spinach topped chicken, turkey meatloaf or autumn glazed pork chops (also left from last month) with brown rice and frozen veggies.

Once I planned my month and took out the meals where I was out of town or already had commitments (i.e. church dinner), I needed 17 lunches and 17 dinners. The lasagna and spinach topped chicken each make 12 servings.  Since the chili, meatloaf and pork chops are left over from last month I am pretty much good to go with what I already had in the freezer. I will need to go back and probably get another gallon of milk and fruit but for the most part I am covered.

I spent about 3 hours this afternoon preparing the chicken and the lasagna but it means that I am done cooking for the month.  I freeze everything in single serving sizes so I just check my calendar and see what I planned and pull it before heading up to bed.  This has saved me so much money and calories!!

What are some ways that you save money and/or calories?