So as part of our smart shopping, we decided about six months ago to start planning out a weekly menu in order to cut down on impulse buying while at the store. We immediately saw a huge decrease in our grocery shopping!
We happen to really enjoy cooking and trying new recipes, so we had A LOT of recipes that we've collected from magazines online, many we have tried but even more that we thought we might like to try one day but have not yet gotten around to making. We ended up with two big 3-ring binders full of recipes that were very disorganized.
So, for lack of anything better to do on a Friday Night in Winslow, I got an additional binder and we went to work. We began by naming the three binders; "everyday" meals, "special occasion" meals, and "try it you might like it" meals (all of the recipes we have not yet tried making). Once we had a plan, we started tearing threw our tons of recipes and placing them into the appropriate category.
Yes, I know, this sounds like way too much fun for anyone to have on a Friday night but we're lucky like that! Lol! Seriously though, Damon is a little OCD and I LOVE to organize, so actually, it was a lot of fun and it's going to save us a lot of time during our weekly menu planning nights, because all of our recipes are now neatly tucked away in their appropriate binder!
Just for fun:
Weekly shopping trip: Bought $66.01 worth of stuff, but after coupons and sales: Spent only $42.79 out of pocket! Not too shabby but if you don't think that's enough to bother with couponing, I'll tell you my January total for coupons and savings was $335.42, that's 42%!!
Love to discover that my time isn't the only thing wasted on organizing the recipes:) One childhood "f this s***" memory stems from my mother's coupon card box that she paid me $10 bucks to organize on a Friday night when I was 11 yrs old. After only about 4 hours, a few permanent-markered stained fingers, and like 8 Big K Kolas, I had mastered the frikin box and the recipes were finely tuned into "casseroles", "chicken dinners", "red meat dinners", "fish", "appetizers", "when u only have like 2o minutes and 8 people to feed", "Leftovers", "would't try twice", "complicated and fancy", "requires everything but the kitchen sink to cook", "can't fail and should always go-to favorites", finishing up with "always include a dessert if you want to be called a good cook!" While I am not confident that my mom could navigate the box quite like she wanted, she did get a great chuckle when I jumped up, ran across the kitchen with a smug look of pride on my face all while holding up my masterpiece to show her. I wouldn't have guessed that socks and linoleum-laced kitchen floors are not matches made in heaven as I slipped while running, coupon box flung in the air, and the precious hours dissipated as the coupons scattered across the shiny fake tile:)
ReplyDeleteAlas, that was not my "aha" moment but instead, my "f this s***" moment. Must be the reason for my new method of clip, shove into general "recipe" file, and blindly select one that I hope doesn't require saphron or another stupidly expensive spice (a criticism I often have fro Better Homes and Garden's recipes is but for another time). Only advice- just be sure to always pick up the binder from the right end, keep couponing, and never stop writing!! Thank you for sharing:)