Pantry Goals

I sat down yesterday, or lay down all day thanks to my wonderful Omaha family that made both Kody and I sick :-), and came up with a bunch of meals for the next month! It ended up being a lot easier than I thought.

Here are some general "guidelines" I'm going to attempt to follow this month:
- Pizza on Sunday night - This is a tradition and I don't mind keeping it at all! For the past many weeks we've been making homemade pizza, but we might do a combo of homemade/store bought this month. This may add some additional groceries (pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni).
- No cooking on Tuesday nights - I have my women's Bible study on Tuesday nights so I don't get home until about 10:30 p.m., so Kody fends for himself on these nights!
- No "deal seeking" unless it is meat - Most pantry items I feel I can find pretty cheap at Aldi, so I don't mind using up my pantry, but this month will run us dry plus more on chicken and beef. So if there is a sale on that, I am going to allow myself to pick that up.
- More side dishes - Mainly veggies on this. We have lots of frozen and canned veggies and I just need to make a point of heating them up and then we would eat them. But I always forget and they sit in the pantry for a long time.
- Only shop at Aldi (except for meat) - I can't get any "deals" at Aldi, so this will make it easier for me to pass them up and Aldi has everything I need to make these meals complete (which is only a few items) and has milk, eggs, yogurt, fruit and veggies. I will allow myself to go to Meijer if they have a meat sale.
- Use cash - I'm going to attempt the envelope system for groceries this month and allot myself $100, or half a normal month of groceries, to buy necessities and meat.

I was able to come up with 21 meals from our pantry with only have to purchase a few items, like hamburger buns, tortillas and a fish sauce (haha). There's even a lot of variety in the meals, like chicken/beef/vegetarian/shrimp, soup/casserole/other, freezer meal/fresh meal, really easy/a little more work. So I think this is going to be a pretty good month!

Each week, I'll post what we're eating, where it came from and how much I spent on groceries that week. So keep me accountable!!

Here's this week's menu:
Sunday - Chili - from the freezer (we had pizza last night...shoot, I already broke my own rules!)
Monday - Italian stuffed shells - been planning this meal for a while, so I already have the ingredients
Tuesday - Bible study
Wednesday - Chicken Pot Pie - planning for a while, so have all ingredients
Thursday - Spaghetti - from the jar
Friday - Pancakes - from the box
Saturday - Hamburger Helper - been sitting in the pantry for WAY too long! We just need to eat it and get it out of there.

I can already see a few ways this will be hard, like lunches. Kody doesn't bring leftovers and we don't have too much in the pantry as far as "snacky" lunch foods go. Also, I just sat down and clipped this Sunday's coupons and there are a few things I could see going on sale this month that I'd really like to get! But I can hold out! Additionally, I rarely make this many meals each month! Normally I end up making like one or two "real" meals per week, so this will definitely test my cooking stamina!

Well, here goes! We're off to eat some chili for dinner tonight!