Baton Rouge Nesties
Jennifer18131
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Meal Planning
Now that school is over and I have gone from 3 jobs to 1, I need to be much more budget conscious. Read: Stop eating out for every.meal.every.day. Seriously. It's been fun but I cringe at my bank account.
For those who do this meal planning thing, how do you do it? I was thinking of keeping papers in a zip lock bag with meals and at the beginning of each week picking 7?
I have SO many recipes saved from the blogs, but a lot of them seem not budget, friend and not time friendly.
OK, ladies... and GO!
::two chest pumps and a peace sign for Jenn:: ~ MrsJudgeyPants
This is legal advice. Circa 2011
This is legal advice. Circa 2011
Re: Meal Planning
You need to first take stock of what you already have. Especially any frozen meats in the freezer. I always try to make stuff for the week using the majority of what I have in the house already. So if I have ground meat in the freezer and a jar of spaghetti sauce in the pantry, we aren't making tacos, you know? If we don't have enough meat in the freezer for meals for the week, look at what is on sale. The circular's come out on Thursdays. Winn-Dixie is awesome for having BOGO. So we'll get two of whatever is on sale and stick the second one in the freezer for later in the month. I also will go to Sam's every other month or so and get a massive log of ground chuck. It's 9lbs of meat for about $20. At home I portion them into 1 or 2lb ziploc bags and freeze.
Plan for the week and stick to it. We have always made enough for leftovers so we aren't cooking every single night. You will get sick of cooking and be more likely to go get something. At the same time try not to plan to eat the same thing more than 2 nights in a row or you'll get tired of it and go pick something up.
Another way to make sure you stick to it is with the envelope system. Get your cash for one week/two weeks/the month, put it in an envelope and DO NOT USE YOUR DEBIT CARD. When the envelope is empty, it's pb&j's till the next pay period.
Don't forget about lunches; lunch meat gets old fast (you already know this) so sometimes we'll take the roasted chicken from the night before and put it in the food processor with some mayo...yummy chicken salad! We rarely buy snack stuff but instead make a batch of hummus a week or something along those lines. We also don't really buy a whole lot of "ready to eat" stuff.
That's all off the top of my head, I'll let you know if I can think of anything else.
We use e-mealz
http://e-mealz.com/plan-walmart-2.shtml
That link is for the two-person meal plan for walmart shopping. Average for a week of meals is $30-40. I use the Gluten-Free shopping plan. They have lots of different plans. They provide all of the recipes, plus a printable list for you to take to the store.
I looove e-mealz. It is $5/month. If you think you want to try it, let me give you a referral code.
I agree with Shoe, bring cash. It is far too easy to spend a lot with a debit card. David and I use the envelope system for all of our budgeting categories.