I tried this out last month and it worked out so well that I decided to keep doing it for this month too. I've never really done a whole month menu planning before, I think the most I've done in the past was for 2 weeks. I like that I only spent about 1/2 hour writting it out and I even got some input from DH. For some reason he is craving for maccaroni and cheese, weird man!

I really like how I just get up in the morning, look at the menu list and just take out the meat (if required) from the freezer. It really helps me from agonizing on what to cook for dinner that night. This way I make the menu list and then from that I spend about 15 mins writting out the shopping list. A lot less work doing it this way than weekly or even every other week. Well so far so good anyway. The biggest reward for doing a menu plan and then having a grocery list based on that menu plan is the savings we make from reduce grocery bill. Last month we only spend $196.10, our lowest grocery bill since Jan. I don't know why I don't make menu plan all the time when it saves me so much time and money. Pure laziness I guess, which is stupid cause by having one I actually spend less time thinking about what to cook every night.

DH a I spent pretty much the whole day shopping. We end up getting:

3 pairs of shoes (2 for me and 1 for DH). They were around 60-70% off, and they are really good quality shoes and very comfy.

Got a gift for a friend, for next weekend.

Then we went grocery shopping, mainly got vegies and 1 whole chicken. I will make chicken stock tomorrow for soup.

And we also got some multi-vitamins.

We also had to go to the post office to send my application for CC. And had lunch out. I'm not sure how much we spent all up yet, it will be a bit. I planned for his month to be extra frugal - that kind of went out the window.

We were out for about 5 hours, and DH had to have a nap when we got home (soft!).

Having people over for 2+ weeks last month and having a couple of parties has now push our grocery budget for the year over by about $150. We really now need to pull it back, which means being creative with our meal planning.

Went grocery shopping yesterday and I hope we won't need to spend anymore (except for milk) for the rest of the month. From yesterday shopping we got:
a whole chicken (I've cut this up into different cuts and have made stock out of the bone/carcass)
4 cuts of steak (some can be cut into stirfry cuts)
a lot of fruits and vegies

Also DH picked one of the pumpkin from the garden yesterday. I will use some to make pumpkin soup and I will also make some minestrone soup out of the chicken stock today. Hearty soups like these are great to have for cold winter days (like we are now having).

Today is DH's payday, yea! Unfortunately, a lot of bills come out today too. Just paid the internet and the annual home & content insurance. Also $1000 is put a side for saving this month.

Used up the zucchinis last night for dinner. Made zucchini and pasta with cream sauce. Had some salad to go with it. I think we could go for another week without going to the shop. So far we are on track with our goal of only spending $100 on groceries this month.




15 Jan - 11am

I told DH about only spending $100 this month on groceries, initially he said it is doable (when he thought there were only 2 weeks left in the month) but then he realized we still have 3 weeks to go and now he thinks it can't be done...lol. This is definitely streching it, so I need a plan for this to work. Firstly, I went through the pantry and the fridge to see what we have. And then I wrote out a rough menu plan base on those ingredients. Basically, we will have to make a few pasta dishes, curries, beans and vegies to stretch out our stock. Hopefully it can be done if not then no big deal.



11 Jan - 12pm

DH and I went grocery shopping today for the first time this year. We actually run out of fresh milk 2 days ago but we held out until today. We just open one of those long life milk. They are great for emergency usage such as the other day.

Anyway, today we went to Aldi, the butcher shop, and fruit & veg shop. They pretty much next to each other. All up we spent $73.49 and this is what we got for that amount of money.




What we got from Aldi($50.74):
4kg bag of Potato (was on sale for only $1.49 a bag)
1.5kg of Bananas
1kg Carrots
1kg Raw Sugar
Can of sliced pineapple
Hot Dogs*
Cream
Juice
2pk Sponges
Sour Cream
3lt of Fresh Milk
1lt of Long life Milk
3x Fabric Softener
Cranberry Sauce
Bacon*
1/2kg Broccoli
Coffee
Marmalade
2x Biscuits*
2x Bread
2x Can of Tomatoes
2x Can of Tuna
Oats
Muesli
Box of Tissue
Cleaning Cream
Dishwashing Liquid
Disinfectant

What we got from the Fruit & Veg shop ($10.75):
Spring Onions
1/2 Celery
Apples
Lemons
1/4 Pumpkin
Capsicums
1/2 Cauliflower
1bg of Turkish Bread


Only thing that's not in the photo are the 3 whole chickens that I got from the butcher shop for $12. It was a very good deal, it saved about $1 per kilo compare to Aldi.

Tonight's dinner will be roast chicken and vegies, one of DH's fav. And I'm thinking for lunch tomorrow will be leftover roast chicken with salad wrap in Turkish bread.

I don't think we will need much more for the rest of the month. I'm hoping to only spend another $25 for the month. I think I might make this a goal - to only spend $100 on grocery this month.




10 Jan - 2:30pm

Well it's Sunday 7pm here, so it is very safe to say that today is a NSD, This add up to 3 NSD for the week. Yesterday was a very spendy day. First we went out for a birthday lunch and then we went shopping for some items for the house that has been in our to do lists/ to get lists for a long time now. We were not as busy this weekend so we actually got some house work/repair done. We also got two pairs of work shoes for DH, he definitely needs new ones now. We decided to get two because they were really cheap. The store that we got them for was having a massive sales. The last thing we got yesterday was some groceries. We got some eggs, milk bread, vegies and oranges. All up it costs $9.75. Other expenses that we spend this week was for insurance, fuel, and $100 to my managed funds.

We spent just under $20 on the weekend, which leaves us with $13 in the grocery budget for the rest of the month. Probably enough for milk more milk. Might have to have some powdered milk. We will see if we can hold out.

Today DH got paid and we finally able to find out his new monthly salary. It is $60 more than I anticipated, which is fine by me! This will most likely change again in two months time because of the new tax cut that the government is giving us, I think it should take affect in July. It should be another $15-20 a week extra to his salary. We also found out that his company is contributing almost $600 per month to his superannuation (retirement) fund. So that's over $7000 to his retirement per year.

It's the middle of the month and we only got $32 left in the grocery budget. So it is going to be tough trying to get through the month without going over. Hopefully we can get by without going over by much. We only need to get few essential items; we are running out of milk and don't have anymore eggs. We will be going shopping for these items tomorrow and will probably also get some fruits and vegies and maybe some chicken. Hope to only spend $15-20 this week. Oh boy this is going to be tough. With the prices going up so much it is getting a lot harder to stay under budget. Unfortunately, we don't have much competition with our supermarkets The big store pretty much can put up the prices as much as they want. Luckily, Aldi is around but I think we need more competition.

We are also already over our fuel budget but this was intentional. DH has been driving to work instead of taking public transport. So we are putting the money for his fare ticket to the fuel money. We are just testing this at the moment, hopefully it won't be costing us too much more (even better hopefully it might even cost us less). Also he gets home a lot earlier this way.