(8-18-12) This weeks menu plan and shopping list of 15 minute meals ($120.00 grocery budget per week)

Each Week, I sit down with my schedule book and plan out this weeks meals. Breakfasts are serve yourself from pre-made options, and snack bags for lunches are separated into snack baggies on shopping day (Sunday). I just grab 3 snack baggies for each of our lunches to toss in. We both pack our lunch every day, but I avoid luncheon meat since I'm pregnant. I often take leftovers from the night before since I now have a desk job with access to a microwave. I shop on Sundays, and then do food prep that day for the week. I share our menu for the week for those that are new to menu planning. If you have no idea what to do for the week and would like to steal some or all of our plan… I promise not to prosecute:-)

As always, I feel it's important to note that this is not the healthiest plan to follow. It's a great plan for us, because it's breaking our addiction to fast food and other unhealthy habits, and it's cut our food budget by about 50%. Slowly, we're making substitutions that will lead us to a healthy cheap meal plan. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that jazz.

“Recipes” for all menu items can be found here and here.

MENU:

Breakfast Options for the Week:

Heart Healthy Pancakes: We normally use the instant heart healthy mix by Krusteaz, but Jon has informed me that he can't ingest “instant” pancakes. He's been kind enough to offer to make me Pancakes from the Joy of Cooking Cookbook.  You can find the recipe here.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins- Made from a mix we have in the pantry. These are to replace the bagels and cream cheese for Jon to take to work in the morning.

Milk and Cereal: Self Explanatory.

Heart Healthy Pancakes wrapped around a link of turkey sausage for Jon on the way to work.

Reminders:

Sunday: Batman in the morning, lunch right after at home.
Add a pencil sharpener to list. Check Target back to school sales- If notebooks are a good price, head there to get sharpener and grab notebooks too.
Depending on how Saturdays Freezer organization project goes- make another freezer casserole for baby's arrival.
Add snacks for hospital to grocery list and add to maternity bag for Jon.
Add 3 or 4 small HEALTHY snacks for mini fridge downstairs. (This is because I'm starting to get really really hungry and really really tired at around 8pm. If I have carrots and apples and string cheese available without having to trudge back up the stairs, I'm in a much better position to not call pizza hut.)
We're out of ketchup:(

Sunday:

Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs, Home fries, Sausage, Banana
Lunch: Wegmans Salad Bar (we've got movie tickets for 10:30 am, so we'll head to do the shopping right after, but we're going to be starving.)
Dinner: Renee Wilson's BBQ Chicken Stuffed Potatoes (Thanks for the comment Renee!) Recipe copied from comments on “3 Weeks of Cheap, Easy Dinners”, with green beans.

** Jon makes Pancakes and freezes them**
** I make Apple Cinnamon Muffins and brownies**
**Freeze Hamburger Buns**
** Make Taco Seasoning Mix… Found here**

Downstairs Snacks for Mini Fridge:

Snacks for Jon at Hospital:

SHOPPING LIST

ALREADY HAVE AT HOME: