Once a Month Menu Plan

A few weeks ago I found a website called Once a Month Mom, I was intrigued so I looked a little further into their website. Basically, they create menu plans (traditional, gluten-free, diet, etc) that consist of homemade meals to be frozen until your ready to defrost, reheat, and eat. You do all the cooking in one day and supposably it's affordable... however after looking over some of their plans I knew it would be entirely over budget for us. It just so happens that my mom had a couple of cookbooks that consisted of freezer meals and tips on how to plan your day of cooking. So I created my own menu plan with a grocery list, instructions, etc. My goal was to keep our grocery bill under $150 and to pick out a variety of meals, including lunches and breakfasts.

Our menu plan meals include (one meal is for 2 people):

Chinese Chicken Morsels (2 meals)

Teryaki Chicken (2  meals)

Lemon Chicken (2 meals)

Taco Meat (for salad or tacos... depending on our moods) (1 meal)

Mix and Match Chicken Soup (5 meals)

Chicken Broccoli (4 meals)

Black Beans & Rice (4 meals)

Wild Rice Chicken (3 meals)

Stromboli (2 meals)

Breakfast Burritos (6 meals)

Farmer's Casserole (6 meals)

Aztec Quiche (4 meals)

Muffins (Strawberry and Apples & Cinnamon) (12 meals)

Smoky Corn Chowder (3 meals)

Pancakes (8 meals... or so)

It's a variety of recipes and the majority of them are new to us... which is good because we are very bad about trying new things! We are planning on starting our day of cooking on Monday as soon as Justin gets home, around 10am... it's going to be a LONG day, but I think it will be nice to just have to pick out a meal, thaw it out, and just reheat it... that means a lot more family time! I'm hoping to share all of these recipes at some point in the month, probably on the days that we eat them. We'll see!

My parents took us (Boogie and myself) to Aldi and Walmart today while J was at work to do all of our grocery shopping.... the end result? $100 for all the main groceries... and then this evening J and I ran to Ingles and got random stuff for sides (pasta, veggies, etc.). We also picked up some quick meals for me tomorrow and stuff to grill on Monday (it's hard to cook by myself with Boogie... she's a needy baby, but I love her anyways... and Monday we don't want to have to make meals to eat that day while creating a disaster in the kitchen with our freezer meals lol).... that came to about $20 (not counting tomorrow and Monday's meals)... So I stayed way under budget! Go me! I'd be happy to share my meal plan with anyone, just shoot me an email! I did not save the grocery list because I wrote it for the ingredients that we needed.... you  may need more or less depending on what is already in your pantry! But I can send the instructions which includes all the recipes you'll need!

Wish me luck!