During our chat the other night at the Winston-Salem Journal, I was asked how I plan meals as a couponer. The truth is that I don’t! I wake up and decide what we are going to eat….it’s easy to do as a couponer because I have a grocery store in my house- only it’s filled with foods we eat!
Here are the staples in my house:
In the pantry:
Pasta
Pasta Sauce
Rice
Rice mixes
canned veggies
canned fruits
cereal
cereal bars
Taco seasonings
soy sauce
flour
sugar
bread crumbs (esp. Panko- I LOVE that stuff!)
hot sauce
juice
bottled water
My Coke Zero stash (yes I’m an addict & I like it that way)
taco shells
tortillas
A1 sauce
BBQ sauce
Itatlian dressing
Ranch dressing
broth
soups
crackers
snack items (chips, crackers, cookies etc)
In my fridge:
eggs
cheese (TONS of shredded cheese)
yogurt
bacon
butter/margarine
salad mix or makings (lettuce, carrots, etc)
fruits (oranges, apples, lemons, limes, plums, peaches, etc. varies by season)
veggies (carrots usually)
cream cheese
Other produce:
onions, peppers, potatoes
Freezer:
Wide variety of meat – beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, sea food all varieties of cuts, etc
frozen veggies (both purchased and grown)
frozen fruits (both purchased and grown)
ice cream
A few frozen meals
So my point in this list is that these are all items my family eats routinely. So stockpiling them allows me to “shop” at my own house each morning! When I wake up in the morning I decide what we are going to have. Sometimes if we are having a cook out, etc. I may plan it in advance (i.e look for deals on hot dogs, etc) but mostly we go with the flow! And worst case- I don’t feel like cooking we have frozen meals in the freezer- toss in the stir fry pan and voila!
Do you plan a menu? Share your tips with us!
We don’t plan our meals, much either. The exception is when we use fresh produce… For example, I’ll get lettuce and tomato for BLTs and then, the next night, we’ll dice up the leftover veggies for homemade tacos… no waste. Meal planning around here usually involves peeking in the freezer to see what I need to defrost for dinner, and then poking around in the pantry for side dishes. 🙂
I make a list with several meal ideas in mind (this week we’ll have spaghetti, burritos, pizza, ect) and then figure out what we’re in the mood for that night. I’m a vegetarian and my husband isn’t, so I cook everything separately, which makes reusing leftovers easy. Spaghetti leftovers can become pizza toppings, and chili can become burritos, or roasted potatoes can become a Spanish omelet. My husband’s picky about being in the mood for certain foods, so I’m a 30 minute meal girl who figures out what dinner’s going to be five minutes before I make it.