Menu planning - 31 days spend Waaaaaaaaaaaay less

Above is our first attempt back to severe meal planning. I got the monthly menu planner free at Organized Home.   Long ago, before we became a family of NINE, I used to do menu planning, but something exploded in my brain, and for some reason, meal planning went to the wayside.  

First thing, I do is put the date and any extra curricular things on the calendar. Football games, parades, half days of school, revivals at church, paydays (see the $) and any appointments.  Looking at the September planner, the highlighted menus are ones, I didn't make, but pushed to another day. This helps me so much! I get up early in the morning, make coffee, grab my phone (for my bible app) and glasses, look at menu and get meat out of freezer along with any fixin's I might need for the meal. 

September worked pretty good.  Like I mentioned yesterday, we had a few kinks, really really bad days, that brought us to eat out. Van problems and ice machine broke down, so although we still didn't spend as much as we had in the past months.  We patted our backs and knuckled down for October.  I wrote out the month menu, and then broke it down, for a 2 week (payday grocery shop) menu and on the back...

The actual shopping list.  I am trying to use both my freezer/pantry stock while taking advantage of sales.  You can see how I break down the groceries.  I also had each section with a budgeted amount.  I was bummed to see that the burger box we get was almost $25 now.  I also swapped the carnitas with parmesean chicken, after I noticed I was on all Mexican food, then all Italian kick.  I wanted to mix it up a bit more. 

But I realized, I didn't need the laundry detergent quite yet, I also got minestrone soup mix instead of canned. Next time, I am gonna go completely from scratch soup.  I wanted something quick and easy, so the nifty Bear Creek mix (which we love) works for this day.
I have a buy later area, and $10 cash for that.  I got some artisan bread, three bags for 45 cents each!! So instead of fajitas we are having steak sandwiches.  I didn't get corn torts, but did get little flour ones and they were a hit with tacos.

 $116.55! WooHoo, I know I need to go to the Lowes and pick up the 99cent a pound huge pork roast for a few meals, and you can see I got one for $18.83! I am going to go back and buy one more for next week, due to the sale being HUGE. That is a $26.63 savings off regular price!  This will come off the next payday (15th) grocery shopping budget. Right now, I am sitting at $110 for the next menu.  I will post that later... the original and what transpires over the next 12 days.

To be fair, I did make a trip on the 1st of October to Sam's.  I spent $191.64, which included $25 for a baby shower (wipes) present. Big bag of cheese, 3 big packs of hot dogs, sausages, peanuts for hubby, Atkin bars (in bulk), apples, cliff bars (kids) and 2 bulk bags of meatballs, 2 boxes of danishes for fun. My budget for the month is $600, and I am including that Sam's run. So right now I am sitting at: $427.02.  plus the $5 hubby has for seeds; $432.02. I am going to get another $20 roast, and shop again on the 16th, with $110 budgeted. 

$562.02 my thoughts for right now. Whew...cutting it close.