Winter has arrived.  My family is stretched out in several different directions in the evening.  At the end of a long day, I want them to have a nice hot meal.  I hate planning.  I hate hearing the question, “What is for dinner?” when I do not have an answer for them.  I know meal planning is good for my family, our health and our budget.  This is something I have begun to get serious about.  That is why I have added a few tricks to my bag to make this task easier.

I have begun to follow a few blogs.  I love Stephanie O’Dea.  I have a few of her cookbooks.  She loves a Crock Pot.  I love a Crock Pot.  Her recipes and practical, easy and gluten free.  Everything my family needs.  I also follow Lisa Leake.  I am working my family through 100 Days of Real Food.  I know we eat too much processed food and too much sugar.  I also have a subscription to Plan to Eat.  I love this service.  It helps my save all the wonderful recipes I find on Pinterest and while reading blogs.  Then I can set a schedule with those recipes and creates a list.  It is a wonderful service. They have a freezer meal challenge in January that I have joined.  Comes with a Facebook page and I have already been connecting with other subscribers.   I also like Eat at Home.  This service gives you meal plans to choose from and sends you weekly or monthly menu and grocery list.  Super easy.  All downloadable.

My goal for 2017 is 5 meals a week with the other 2 being pizza one night and “hodgepodge”, my families term for leftovers.  Realistically I hope we get 4….  All of these tools will help me.  I will share my results as we go.  I will also share recipe hits and misses.   As always It will be the good, the bad and the ugly.

Christmas is behind us and although we didn’t “overspend”, it does take a toll on the family budget.  I am committed to some goals in 2017.  To achieve them I need to cut the budget.  So this January I am not spending any money on extras.  I will cook meals from the pantry.  No internet shopping.  None of it.  31 days.  Who wants to join me?

Here are my “rules”, but you can modify these to fit your own lifestyle:

1. Grocery budget of $120 a week ($20/person). This will wind up being milk, produce, meat and GF bread (mostly).  Our Pizza Wednesdays will come out of this $120.  We have a well stocked pantry of dry goods.  This gives me the chance to rotate that as well.
2. My amazon order will be the things we need only. The diapers for my special needs daughter and my dog’s food, but not K-cups of hot chocolate for the kids.
3. I am budgeting $100 for Kid #3’s birthday dinner for her friends. We are hosting a dinner for her hockey friends after practice.  Her gift was purchased in December.
4. We can spend holiday gift cards and money during this time as long as the purchases do not exceed the gifted amount.
5. The kids that have a hot lunch option at school can eat hot lunch 2 days a week, if they want, but no more.

I will be presenting this list to the family.  There may be a few more “rules” based on feedback.  I will be checking in once a week here and post to discuss how the No Shopping thing is going.  I would love for you to let me know how it goes for you too.   I will also be on Instagram with #noshopjan with pictures of my progress.

You can join me.