I have always had to be organized enough to have a menu laid out and a grocery list from that menu, as any good consumer would, however as schedules got more crazy, the family became larger and the diets more needy, it became clear that the menu and shopping list would need to be more specific and in depth.
With 3 little BOYS and a husband whom is teaching or coaching 95% of the week leaving one day for family time a majority of the year, we do not like to spend our one day a week in a grocery store, nor is it any kind of easy with the 3 boys ALONE in a store trying to find your list and keep your sanity. Over the years I have gotten every kind of look from sympathy to pure annoyance of our presence to ‘why even try’. Well you have to eat and therefore you have to shop for groceries. You just need to be as efficient as possible about it.
This menu spreadsheet has multiple functions to make meal planning, recipe keeping and grocery lists all one simple easy motion!
To start with you can browse the preloaded recipes from common menu items. I personally prefer my own recipes so I deleted most of their versions and then added my own. There is a “list” function where you can type in all your meals under provided categories such as: meats, chicken, vegetables, fruits, desserts, ect. I redid mine to: Mexican, Italian, Poultry, Pork, sides, casseroles, ect.
Once you add all your meals you can go to the MENU, which looks like a calendar with drop down menus for main dishes and side dishes for each day. In the drop down menu you can chose from the items you added in the list.
Go to the section for recipes and type in your recipes for all menu items. Once these are in it will allow you to use your GROCERY LIST function as all the ingrediets from the meals you chose on your menu for the month will have each of their ingredients compiled to tell you how much of each you will need to buy for the entire month (or 2 weeks or whatever you put in). For instance; 5 cups of flour (do I have that much in my pantry or should I buy it?), 2 cans of cream of chicken soup, 2 cans enchilada sauce, ect. All ou then need to do is print it (or copy it in writing to list of your choice).
If you wanted to be really organized (I am trying), you could print off each months menu and grocery list and place them in page protectors in a binder and every month of the year you will have a ready to go menu and the grocery shopping list for that menu. DONE!
I love it. I leave one night per month open for new recipes and there are even drop down menu options for OUT and PIZZA to fill the month as you please.
Here is the link to download the excel program through open office.com
Browse it and give it a try!
Studies prove that if you have a menu posted for yourself it will help you to eat less and spend less as you will already have the ingredients and a plan so you won't have to stand and stare at the fridge or pantry, then start munching, then decide to go out because you don't know what to cook or what you feel like. We approach supper every Monday knowing it will be a meat-lovers item, every Tuesday with a grown habit hankering for Italian, Wednesday - Mexican and Thursday pork or poultry. Each week it is a new item under the theme as to avoid redundancy and sometimes we do swam nights, as ong as each meal gets eaten during the month. :-)
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