Weekly Meal Planning

Here is a look at this weeks meals, prep from last weeks meals and more meal planning ideas!!  If you missed my last post, check it out HERE.

This weeks groceries, $89.  (sparklers and glow bracelets not included!) Eating out one night (approx $40) plus about $10 at a different store. Total for the week $139.

A large portion of my groceries for the week also included 4th of July items.  Cookies, snacks, and three sides for a cookout.  Because I knew about half my budget this week would be for just this weekend, I planned my meals next week to be some of my lower cost items that I can stretch a dollar, as well as really utilizing pantry items!!

Tip: On the Meal List you keep for meal planning, note which ones are on the lower end of the budget and which one always provide leftovers.  This helps to stretch your money and food.

Meals for Friday - Thursday

Friday - Out (cookies and goldfish for fireworks)

Saturday - Cookout (Taking homemade pasta salad, corn and avocado salsa, watermelon, and "cheesecake" filled strawberries.

Sunday - Pasta with "burst" tomatoes and basil.  Garlic knots & salad on the side.

Lunch prep: I will eat hard boiled eggs, almonds, lunchmeat, cheese cubes and yogurt for lunches.  Will prep on Sunday.

Monday - Portabella Mushroom pizzas (Henry hot dog & mac and cheese) and salad

Tuesday - Stuffed baked potatoes (make extra for lunches for Terry)

Wednesday - Breakfast (veggie omelet)

Thursday - Grilled Cheese and Soup (most items from pantry - easy night)

The meals that I choose this week are very low cost.  Again, I am utilizing my pantry to help from buying more at the store and by planning meals without meat, I have saved additional money.

Tip: If you need to save money on food for the week, make it a meat free (or nearly meat free) week! Eggs or tuna in place are a great source of protein and a fraction of the cost.

Now, I am dieting and when on a diet it is not always good to turn to the more cost effect meals like potatoes and pasta.  However, I make plain baked potatoes to eat instead of the stuffed ones and add my own toppings separately so I can control them.  And the pasta just has roasted tomatoes with basil and a little olive oil.  It is light and when you eat a small amount with a salad it works out greta!

I try to eat real foods, just try to find ways to incorporate them into my calorie count and daily life.

Example on meal prep.

This was last weeks meal prep.  I got all my vegetables ready, I packaged and seasoned fajita mixture for dinner that night, prepped kabobs for later that week, and made soup for my lunches for the week.  All done on Sunday by 11am!!

Ready to prep!!

Shrimp kabobs, prepped for one meal during the week.

Look at the Shrimp kabobs later in the week.  

Had over a little bit of leftover rice pilaf from earlier in the week.

Henry wanted to help...though help turned to eating!!!

When you have extra, use it!!  I had a bag of extra snacking green peppers in the fridge 

that a cut up and used in the soup.

Soup for the lunches, done on sunday!

Rice for soup (if wanted) and burrito bowls. Done!

Fajitas...prepped and seasoned!

Example: Easy pantry meal one night 

Used left over asparagus from earlier night and made an omelet.  Toast, 2 slices 100 calories, asparagus 30 calories, 2 egg & 2 egg white omelet 182 calories = awesome and filing dinner 312 calories!!  Cost, no idea because it is so low...a couple bucks, maybe?!

So what did you eat this week?!  Did you try any meal planning?  Please share!!

I am a Member of the National Consumer Panel….My Purchasing Data Will Shape the Consumer Future!!!!

Ok, perhaps “shaping the consumer future” is a bit dramatic…..but I am giving my input!

So a few months ago I was looking for ways to get free stuff and earn a little extra “fun’ money, as we have none of that, so I joined a few different opinion type groups.  Most, like “Opinion Outpost” and “ShadowShopper” are easy to get in to and you can start right away.  But The National Consumer Panel took a little more time to be a part of.

So what is the NCP, you ask?

Well…..

The National Consumer Panel is an operational joint venture between the two leading longitudinal consumer insights providers in the United States – IRi and Nielsen.  By recruiting, incenting, and equipping a representative sample of U.S. consumers with handheld scanning devices as well as alternative methods of data collection, the National Consumer Panel provides the highest quality, actionable consumer data to support the needs of both IRi and Nielsen. This consumer data is the raw material that powers the insights and solutions that IRi and Nielsen individually delivers to their respective clients.  

That sounds fun!!  I buy things and I love to scan things….I would be perfect.  So I filled out a survey to become a part of the NCP and waited.  Then a month later I filled out another survey for them and waited.  Then I had another survey to fill out for them to send me my stuff if selected.  A few weeks ago the packaged arrived….I was in!!!

The way it works is I get this scanner and we have to scan in EVERY purchase we make.  Gas, food, clothes, coffee, etc.  To be honest, I am still getting use to scanning every minuscule purchase in.  For each purchase you say who in the household shopped, whether discounts were used, where you shopped, then you scan the barcode and entry quantity.  (if there isn’t a barcode, they have a handy book with barcodes!) 

When you are done you enter the total spent and how you paid.  Then at least once a week or more you transmit the data to the NCP.  Then within a couple days some points appear in your account!!  You get points for weekly transmissions, if you transmit every week during the month, and for survey’s you complete.  You can then use those points for gifts or gift cards.  I have yet to make enough points to get that far, but looking forward to making even a little money for Christmas, by spending no more than normal and doing nothing more tracking my purchases!!

It can be a little time consuming because I don’t carry the scanner with me so I have to write down little things I purchase.  But for grocery trips I just lay out all the groceries, scan everything in, enter my totals, and put things away.  I usually do multiple small trips during the month at different stores to get sales; like Aldi’s once a month to stock up on canned goods, Walmart for weekly basics, Kroger when I have good coupons, and the meat market for all our meat. So scanning this stuff in take no more than 10 minutes each trip plus all those stores are on the list of stores!!  Easy.

I am getting nothing from this post, I just thought it was pretty cool and wanted to share!!

For more information or to join, click HERE.

Side note: A year ago we got selected to be a part of the Neilson TV survey for a week and record what we watch and we got $50!!!  I like to think what we watch shapes the future for TV programming everywhere!  Too dramatic again?!  Eh….