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Mary and Josh's Journey:
Meal planning is the way to go
One of my least favorite things to do is to meal plan. I hate it! I hate having to come up with ideas each week (knowing full well someone will complain about at least one of the meals I have planned for), followed by figuring out what we will need to buy from the grocery store. I don’t know why, but this is not one of my favorite tasks to complete. However, and this is a big however, meal planning has allowed us to stick to our grocery budget. When we don’t have a meal planned, we are more likely to go out to eat and our “going out to eat” budget only allows us to eat out once a week (our Sunday Culver’s meal). So, if we end up grabbing something during the week, we have now set ourselves up for failure.
Our meal planning journey started with Josh and me making a list of meals that are easy to make and that are liked (by at least some of the family). I was then recently informed by a friend that I should follow this woman on Instagram. She has made a recipe book designed for people on a budget. The recipes are easy to make and use only a few ingredients, so our grocery bill isn’t too high. I will be completely honest, our kids have not been enjoying these new meals, but their mom has because it has taken the chore away of figuring out what we will eat for the week and what I need to buy for groceries. It has also helped us significantly with our grocery budget each month. I consider this a win-win and I am also convincing myself we are teaching our kids an important life lesson: they won’t always get what they want, when they want it. And they need to be grateful they never have to want for food. We are very fortunate when there are so many families who are not as fortunate.