Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well. Things have been so crazy busy here but life is good. Actually life is GREAT! Things have been going really well for us lately and this Momma is finally starting to get back on track to my ‘pre-divorce’ organization and I’m loving it. It is exhausting though and it has taken me almost a week to get this post written.

I post our weekly menu plans and for the past several months or so that was a far as my menu planning went. I do have it planned out on a repeating schedule on our calendar but I would have to adjust it on a weekly basis. Fortunately this month I was able to make a change and try to get back into the habit of a monthly grocery shop. In order to do a monthly grocery shop I need to plan out a whole month’s meals at a time, a week at a time. This is really not that hard once you have done a few weeks, and hopefully saved your notes, as you can just rotate the weekly plans to make up a new monthly plan.

The other thing that I haven’t been doing was making my monthly trip to Sam’s club. This was just something that I had stopped doing at some point last year. Then the store moved and I just really didn’t have the time or energy to devote to looking up the new location and making the list for the monthly trip. Needless to say we have seen the consequences of my lack of motivation in that area.

The first step was to sit down and figure out the menu plan. I looked over the recurring meal plans and decided which ones that we don’t really like that much anymore. I either changed them to recur less frequently or deleted them all together. Then I needed to make my grocery list, which was just like I normally do, only multiplied by four.

I wrote down what I needed for the first week and then just added a tally mark beside the items that I needed multiple times for the remaining weeks. Once the list was in hand I check online on Sam’s Club and added the items that I needed to my cart. I did check prices and did not include everything on my Sam’s list. I also checked the special promotions they had and grabbed a few of those items as well.

The greatest thing I like about Sam’s club is that you can do the ‘Click and Pull’ orders. I really don’t like shopping. Anything that makes that task a little easier is a winner with me. Once that was completed I check the Aldi sales and made a list for there as well.

On Saturday I made my way down to the new store location. On the way I noticed that Aldi was directly across the road from Sam’s which made me quite a happy camper.  My order wasn’t quite ready as it was a pretty large order. I walked through the store and browsed. I didn’t take a buggy with me as that may have tempted me to fill the buggy up. My self control seems to hide when I go into Sam’s club. I did rather well though and only grabbed two items that we did need before I got the text saying my order was ready.

I checked out and they have it set up to pull up for pickup. (They actually have a touchscreen outside too that you can use to check in for pickup without coming into the store!) The associates helped me to load everything into my vehicle and they were so friendly! I was beginning to get a little worried about room as I knew I still needed to stop at Aldi before going home.

I did make it to Aldi and thankfully was able to fit everything in:

This is just one view of the kitchen after we unloaded!

As you can tell it wasn’t just food that I bought but other household items as well. How much did I spend? This was all under $600.00. I will need to visit the local stores for some fresh veggies and milk but this is the majority of the shopping for the month!

What did I get? (I don’t have the prices as I misplaced my receipts somewhere in the mountain of groceries.)

Some of the bulk purchases at Sam’s:

• Romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and other salad items
• Ranch (dry packs and bottles)
• boxed macaroni and cheese
• hotdogs
• pintos (Sam’s has a huge bag that will last us a few months at least)
• tea bags (Sam’s also has the gallon size bags which are wonderful)
• dry cereal, oatmeal, grits (Sam’s had some really good promos going)
• bags of shredded cheese (I store these in the freezer)
• 20 lbs of potatoes, 10 lbs of sweet onions
• 10 lbs of white sugar
• large packs of pillsbury crescent rolls (another Sam’s promo)
• toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning wipes (promo), laundry detergent, paper plates
• crackers, animal crackers, cheese puffs, pop tarts, popcorn, tortilla chips
• yogurt, cream cheese
• canned tuna
• koolaid
• nutella, peanut butter, and jelly
• condiments (bbq sauce, ketchup, mustard, mayo, salsa)
• spaghetti sauces
• variety box of pasta
• cases of canned tomatoes and veggies
• lots of frozen veggies, large bag of french fries, box of egg rolls
• large box of instant potatoes, rice
• pancake mix and syrup

And at Aldi I got:

• 12 loaves of bread (I will need to get more before the end of the month but this is a start.)
• 6 dozen eggs (I may need more)
• 6 gallons of milk @ Aldi for $1.99 (This was all I could store.)
• chicken breasts, pork chops, hamburger meat, bacon

There were many other items but that is just an example of what I was able to buy in mass quantity to save time and money. I will still be going once a week to the store to get some fresh items or things that I may have forgotten but the fewer times I go to the store the less likely I will go over my grocery budget.

Some of the meals we will be having include:

Breakfasts (some of these will repeat through the month):

• Cereal/Oatmeal
• French Toast
• Muffins
• Pancakes/ Waffles
• French Toast Roll Ups
• Bacon Grits/Cheesy Grits w/eggs
• Blueberry Oatmeal Bread
• Breakfast In a Cup
• cinnamon rolls (new recipe to come)
• Overnight Coffee Cake
• Pancake Poppers
• Dutch Puff, fruit

Lunches (these will repeat through the month):

• hot dogs, mac n cheese
• Egg Salad Sandwiches
• PB & Js
• Scrambled Egg Sandwiches
• Tuna Salad Sandwiches
• Soup, grilled cheese
• leftovers

Dinners:

• Mexican Tortilla Skillet
• Poppy Seed Chicken
• Breakfast for Dinner
• BBQ Chicken and Pasta Bake
• Upside-Down Meatloaf
• Spaghetti
• Easy Crockpot Salsa Chicken
• Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops
• Meatball Sandwich Casserole
• Grandma’s Mac N Cheese
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Taco Ring
• Crockpot Cream Cheese Chicken
• Popover Pizza
• Red & White Pasta
• Goulash
• Chicken Marinara (new recipe coming)
• Easy Bean Tostadas
• Weenie Roast
• Pintos
• Sloppy Joes
• Land Your Man Baked Beans
• Mississippi Pot Roast
• Crockpot Taco Soup
• Briarpatch Casserole

Snacks/Desserts (some of the snacks will repeat through the month):

• Lazy Day Cookie (new recipe coming)
• Easy Banana Pudding
• Banana Splits
• animal crackers and other snacks I bought at Sam’s club

We will also be having a cookout one weekend so there will be a few more things I will need to get for that once we decide exactly what we will be having. It may seem to be an overwhelming task but you can break it down into smaller chunks to make it easier. I can tell you that I am so very glad that I finally did this and hopefully I am back on track to where I once was.

Menu planning has not always been something that I did. I don’t know how we made it as long as we did before I finally started to make out our meal plans ahead of time. For me this has been a big help in itself. The monthly planning is an even bigger help along with the monthly grocery shop. I can see what a difference it has already made at our house here.

I know this is not for everyone but hopefully this post can help someone.

I pray that you all have a wonderful week!