OAMC - planning

I think I mentioned a million times or two that I loved OAMC last month. It saved me so much time. I prefer the term dedicated cooking to OAMC though. I have visions of what OAMC looks like and that is not what I did. Basically I did a lot of meal prep but had very few completed meals in the freezer.

This month I wanted to buy a bunch of salad stuff at Sam's Club to start off the month. It always seems to go bad before I use it though so I knew I needed to have a plan in place. I'm also trying to focus more on meats and veggies rather than breads and pasta. We still have a few dinners left in the freezer that we didn't eat in March and I'm a little tired of beans and rice. After ten years of discovering them I'm finally tired of them; we won't be eating that meal more than one time this month (if that).

When I make my OAMC schedule I try to wash all the veggies and chop them at the same time. That is the biggest time saver for me!

Following are my updated OAMC master sheets (please let me know if they don't work for you):

OAMC Dinners

OAMC Schedule

I'm also going to add in the following recipes. I haven't tried freezing these items before so I'm excited to see how they turn out:

1. egg rolls (no cabbage in the recipe) when I chop up all of my other vegies I'll do this as well. A food processor is your friend! I haven't made egg rolls in over 20 years. Gravy, am I really that old? Anyway, I'm going to try to brush them with an egg wash, bake and then freeze them.
2. refried beans
3. biscuit cups (I think I'll add ham and a bit of bacon)
4. quiche (I add more eggs because we don't like it runny - probably make it with broccoli and ham)
5. spaghetti pie (instead of lasagna - this isn't my recipe, but the concept is the same. I have some lasagna innards leftover from last month that I need to use up)

With the items I've added I'll be cracking a lot of eggs! That's the beauty of OAMC cooking though - do it once, make a mess, clean it up, you are done!

For other recipes you'll have to look at my other OAMC post. Some day I should put all this stuff in one spot!

I'm planning to shop and cook for this OAMC session the week of April 5th. I don't know that it has saved me money, but it has saved a ton of time and energy!

Check out other OAMC plans over at Money Saving Mom!

Pantry Principle: The planning begins

I stopped by the store on my way to drop my daughter off at basketball practice. I thought I'd share how I start planning my purchases using the pantry principle.

Whenever I notice that I'm running low on something I add it to a list. The list MUST be kept in the same spot...throwing stickie notes around the house doesn't work. Seriously. I've tried it and it doesn't work.

I look through the sales flyer and look at my list to see what I need to buy. This next piece of advice is very important. Only do this ONE time! If you are a geek like me, you'll do it a lot. It's a big waste of time. Look through one time carefully, make a list, then you need to be done with it. I think this takes me 5 minutes. Last year when I was fairly new to this idea it would take me an hour (because I'd go through the ad over and over and over and over).

Here are the items I will probably buy:

• Flour (white) $1.50 each (I'm trying to get away from using white flour, but when making brownies it just doesn't make sense to me to use whole wheat - any thoughts on this?)
• Ketchup $2 (I don't have any in the pantry...not a great price, but a need)
• California frozen veggies...I think this is cauliflower and broccoli mixed...I hope so! It's only $1.00/pound and I'm seriously low on veggies!
• Miller Genuine Draft - yep, even beer goes on sale some times! This doesn't come from my grocery money budget
• Total for groceries will be about $9.00 

I am hoping to make it to this store on Thursday when I pick up my kids from school.

Using the Pantry Principle

While the picture quality isn't great, I am hoping to give you a look at what I do when I get ready to head to the store.

• The first thing I do is look at the list of items on my clipboard that I need to buy. These are items that I need to replace in my pantry (ie. brown sugar and sugar). If those items are on sale I'll stock my pantry. If they are regular price I'll buy one.
• Then I look at the flyers (I can look online or if I happen to be in the area and need to kill some time while dropping off a kid/picking a kid up I'll grab a flyer from the store).
• I look at the loss leaders, check my pantry and determine how much/many I need to buy. For example, whole chicken is on sale at Safeway this week for $.69/lb. I know from looking at my price book that is a good price for chicken.
• Now, I look at our week to see what is going on. I know that this weekend we're going to be away from home for two lunches. We're planning on using a gift certificate that we got at Christmas for dinner on Saturday night. I know that I need to have food on hand for these two lunches or we'll end up wasting money on junk food and feeling miserable from eating the junk food.
• I write down what I need on my list and how much that item will cost. I always have to guess for fresh fruits and veggies. After a while you get a feel for the amount of money you'll spend. Then I add up how much I plan to spend at the grocery store versus how much cash I have.
• This time I had to cross some things off of my list. When you take cash it's very embarrassing if you don't have enough money! With the debit card/credit card it doesn't matter! Again, that's why cash is so important.
• I crossed round steak off of my list. I found some ground turkey in the freezer so we'll have that in our chili instead. I also decided not to buy the Italian Sausage. It's not on sale and we'll have spaghetti another time.
• I don't have to worry about buying fresh veggies because I have a ton in the freezer.

I think I spent about 30 - 40 minutes working on this (last year I probably spent 1-2 hours). Since I started using the pantry principle in our home, my grocery budget has gone from $400 to $260 per month. The time it takes me to do this is obviously worth the savings!

Pantry Principle to the Rescue!

You know how I say plan, plan, plan?

You know what happens when you don't plan? Well, when you have cash to spend, you don't go over budget! I know for a fact if I would have used my credit card or debit card at the grocery stores today I would have spent too much money. I had a "kinda, sorta, plan". Years ago, back in the day, (insert a sigh as only a 10 year old can do) I would have walked up and down each isle to see what we "needed". Since I was out busy playing around yesterday I didn't have time to come up with a good plan. So I found the best deals on meat, fruits and veggies, grabbed milk and eggs and I'll wing it!

It is only because of the pantry principle that I can do this. I know I have butter, frozen veggies, flour, oats, a variety of meats and canned goods in my pantry. We might have some unique meals, but we will easily be able to eat at home.

If you want to start trying the pantry principle, the easiest thing to do is make a list of five things that you always run to the store for because you run out.  Next time you are at the store buy one extra of those items. If it is on sale buy a few! The idea is that you always shop from your pantry. If you run out of flour you don't run to the store, you go to your pantry and add that item to your grocery list.

I love my stockpile of food!

To date I've spent $197. I get money again on Jan. 31st which is when I usually do a bigger shopping trip so my numbers might look funky this month!

Planning the menu

Tomorrow is supposed to be my grocery shopping day no matter what. Well, ya, that's funny because tomorrow is going to be a fun shopping day for me! I'm going to hit a few after Christmas sales as well as return some items and go to a few thrift stores.

Grocery shopping will wait until Friday when I can make a plan. Well, honestly I have been planning all week long. Whenever I find something I want to make I write it down. I still need to look in my pantry and see what's available for other meals. I see chicken on sale this week and london broil so I see those in our future as well.

On the front of my fridge I have a chalkboard that lists the meals that we're going to have. For some reason I panic when I forget I have a plan. Every day I would try to remember what we were having for dinner that night. I have it in my binder, but I'd have to walk CLEAR across the kitchen to get it (yes, it's only 10 steps!). When it's right in front of my face I feel much better. It helps me to remember what items must be taken out of the freezer as well.

Tomorrow I'll have my plan in place and Friday I'll do the grocery shopping. So far this month, I've spent $145.00. I get $120 tomorrow so I'll see how far I can stretch it!

2 Week Menu Plan

Earlier this week I looked in my pantry for 12 dinners I could serve for the next 2 week. My husband cooks on Sundays so I don't have to worry about those. That man is magical and can make something from nothing and it tastes awesome!

Today when the ads came out I added one more thing since hamburger was finally on sale. Here's the two week menu plan:

1. Husband
2. Husband
3. Cajun red beans and rice with smoked sausages
4. Black beans and rice over tortilla chips
5. Split pea and ham soup
6. Black Bean soup
7. Spaghetti with Italian sausage
8. Manicotti (made at the same time as the spaghetti and frozen for the following week
9. Monterrey Chicken Quesadillas (these sound awesome!)
10. Shrimp in a cream sauce (can't remember what it's called - shrimp is leftover from Christmas)
11. Broccoli and ham quiche
12. Buffalo chicken spaghetti
13. Cheesy Beef & Rice (new recipe to try)
14. Greek Cinnamon Stewed Chicken (my sister said this was good)

I'm still working on what veggies we're going to have with dinner. I plan a trip to Sam's Club next Wednesday so I'll have a lot of green beans and peas.

Breakfast will be:

• Mondays: pancakes or waffles
• Tuesdays: steel cut oats
• Wednesdays: new recipe
• Thursdays: leftovers
• Fridays: scrambled eggs
• weekends are FFYS (fend for yourself)

Confession!

I've been on vacation the past few week, which means that I haven't been doing any of the planning and cooking that I normally do. I didn't realize how busy I had been until I stopped doing everything. Obviously I needed a little break, but I'm totally refreshed and ready to go!

I knew when I sent my husband to Walmart last night to pick up some fried chicken that I needed to get back into my routines.

This morning I pulled out some homemade turkey soup from the freezer that we'll have for dinner. It's going to be full of vegies and we'll have a spinach salad as well. Your freezer is your friend!

Next week I will get back to my normal menu and grocery planning. Tomorrow I'll post what I plan fix until Thursday when I will do a major grocery shopping trip for two weeks. Later this week I'll post my two week plan. I have several recipes that I've been wanting to try as well as my usual beans and rice and soups that I plan to cook.

I have been working behind the scenes on my blog so if it doesn't work, please be patient with this novice!

Planning Planning Planning!

The way I SAVE MONEY is by planning!

In this case, I was looking ahead to next week and had to decide what to do with the meat I bought yesterday. Freeze or cook?

I made up my menu and spent one hour prepping meals for next week so it'll go a lot faster at dinner time.

I boiled up 2 pounds of hamburger. 1 pound will be for lasagna and 1 pound I added some cooked lentils and taco seasoning. I froze a small baggie of this for my kids' lunches and left the rest in the fridge in case we need lunches this weekend.

I fried the pack of bacon. I need bacon for baked potato soup next week and for refried pinto beans. I froze all of the cooked bacon. Saved some of the grease for a rainy day (yes, completely unhealthy, but OH SO GOOD!). I made the refried pinto beans, spread them on a tortilla, added cheese and salsa, rolled them up and put them in a pan. When I was done I spread a can of green chile sauce on top. Threw it in the oven for baby and me Placed it in the freezer for dinner next week.

I cut a third of the roast off and cut it into bite sized pieces, then using my meat tenderizer I took my anger out on life on the poor pieces of roast. Since I'm not angry I doubt it did any good, but it did freak my dog out a bit! I'm going to try a new recipe for crispy orange beef next week.

I also made guacamole, but that was just for me! Yummy!

Next week dinner prep should be a breeze!