Sorry I haven't been writing this much - I was getting the kids back to school and changing my website and little time-consuming things like that. The agendas are working well and I've managed to stick to the chore lists since school was back in so it's moving along. I've completely fallen behind with fly lady though and now that things have calmed down a bit I will be back on that too.
I'm only four weeks into this new habit of menu planning but so far I can see a major difference in our monthly food costs. At first I was shopping for one week at a time, but last time I did two weeks because I thought I could - it worked. According to a website focused on Newcomers to Canada, the average cost of one month's worth of groceries (for one person) is between $200 and $300. We have six people in our family; myself, husband, and four children aged 3 to 11. According to this figure we should spend between $1200 and $1500 per month. HAHAHAHA! No.
For simplicity, let's assume that the youngest requires about $100; the other three are school-aged so we will add a little more to their monthly need at about $150 each. Myself and my husband will each take $200. That's $950 per month. It's possible we were spending this until I began menu planning. I've started a blog for the cooking as well and the first posts went up on Friday. I've stopped ordering out for pizza because I knew we needed to reduce that cost. We still do pizza Fridays though, just using a kit instead. After four weeks of menu planning, I am pleased to say that we've spent a grand total of $570 - a major difference from any of the numbers mentioned previously (this number also includes some non-edibles like laundry detergents and sandwich or freezer bags and other household needs).
Aside from the monstrous savings, we are eating so much better in terms of both nutrition and taste - I don't think I'll ever buy pre-packaged foods again. I don't clip coupons and I don't hit five different stores when I shop. I get the bulk of my list at No Frills and anything I can't find there I can usually get at either Co-Op or Sobeys. I also cannot buy fresh chili peppers anywhere in this town. Weird.
Today is my grocery shopping day and I will make up my menu with both Ramsay's book and a new one I just picked up. So far, these are working beautifully and I'm certainly learning a lot about basic techniques. Win/win/win. It's also been nice not having to wonder what I'm going to cook for dinner. Preparation is easy because I know when we're going to have certain things so if it's frozen I'm able to make sure it's taken out in time to thaw. Everything is coming together - slowly, but surely.
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