Here's the long awaited menu plan for the Gower's -
Sun 16th - lunch at Cath's place after arriving home from the workshop. Get Your Own that night.
Mon 17th - KFC drumsticks with tomato relish, wedges and salad
Tues 18th - Tuna Pasta Bake with greens
Wed 19th - Meals out of the freezer
Thurs 20th - Fish in foil, rice and steamed veg
Fri 21st - Homemade hamburgers and wedges
Sat 22nd - Veggie soup and toast
Sun 23rd - Get your own but feed me
Mon 24th - KFC drumsticks ( we have lots in the freezer ), mash and steamed veg
Tues 25th - Homemade meat pie with steamed veg
Wed 26th - Meat pie leftovers and anything from the freezer
Thurs 27th - Roast chicken with roast veg and cauliflower and white cheese sauce
Fri 28th - Spag bol with garlic and herb toast
Sat 29th - Chicken curry with rice
Sun 30th - Get your own but feed me.
Mon 31st - Honey soy drumsticks with mash and steamed veg
Tues 1st - Beef stew and mash
Wed 2nd - Wedding Anniversary so maybe out for tea
Thurs 3rd - Fish in foil, wedges and steamed veg
Fri 4th - Rissole casserole with mash
Sat 5th - Chops, mash and steamed veg
Sun 6th - Father's Day. Might cook something special at home
Mon 7th - Saucy chicken drumsticks with rice and steamed veg
Tues 8th - Chop suey and mash
Wed 9th - Roast leg of lamb with roast veg and steamed veg
Thurs 10th - Tuna casserole and greens
Fri 11th - Shepherds pie made with left over lamb
Sat 12th - Homemade meat pie with steamed veg
Sun 13th - Get your own but feed me
Mon 14th - KFC drumsticks with mash and steamed veg
Tues 15th - Homemade lasagne with steamed veg
NOTES
* I don't cook on Sundays. We are generally busy with church or family get togethers. I cook six nights a week for my family so Sunday night is their turn to serve me. It also gives them a chance to learn new skills in the kitchen.
* The menu plan is not set in stone. If something comes up I just swap it around.
* I always defrost the meat in the fridge as it's the safest way I know. If something comes up and we can't eat it that night, it's safe for another day.
* The veggies we eat are the cheapest in season I can find. We also have lots of blanched veggies in the freezer. Someone commented on an earlier menu saying we eat a lot of potato. As I said, the menu isn't set in stone. Some nights I look at the menu and might change the mash to rice.
* We don't have any special dietary requirement in my family.
* We rarely have dessert as the main meals are enough.
* Left overs are frozen that night and written into the menu plan as a free / freezer meal.
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| lasagne and streamed veg |
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| chicken curry in the slow cooker |
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| Family meat pie |
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| Hamburgers and wedges at home |
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| fish in foil |
Wendy that chicken curry looks mouthwatering. Great menu plan for sure! Love, Mimi xxx
ReplyDeleteThanks Wendy for this post, I get great ideas from you to stay within my budget. Your fish in foil looks delicious.
ReplyDeleteMaureen
Great menu plan Wendy, Love the look of that pie :)
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy, I really appreciate how much information you share about your food expenditure and meals. It's so helpful to be able to see exactly what you do for four people, and use it as a basis for what is a reasonable spend for my family (7 people). I was just wondering (sorry if you've answered this before), when you say you spend $300 a month, does that include adding to your pantry/freezer? Based on the menu above you will eat a few things you already have in your freezer, so does it all sort of even itself by the time you've bought this months food and replaced some of what you use? Or do you strictly do that when you see really good specials? I hope that makes sense and isn't too hard to answer! Thanks so much for the wealth of information you provide, it's really got me thinking about every cent I spend! Jen
ReplyDeleteHi Jen and thankyou for your questions. I hope i can answer them for you.
DeleteI spend $270 a month for the four of us and one cat. Our chickens are self sufficient as we sell some of their eggs to pay for the feed.
The $270 is all I have to spend so it never goes over this amount. It includes all food, basic toiletries, cat food and cleaning ingredients. Some months I only spend $240 so the left over $30 is put into my food slush fund. This is then used for when I see super duper specials of items we usually use.
When I first started spending less than $300 a month ( five years ago ), I had a reasonably well stocked pantry, fridge and freezer. Each month I only buy what I have used in the previous month to keep my stockpile running. I never let my stockpile get low as that would probably be when we'd need it most.
Over the next three months I'm working on increasing my stockpile. I'm doing this so I don't have to do a big monthly shop during Christmas, school holidays and the extreme heat that Summer brings. I'm using my food slush fund to buy the extra items. By the time Christmas comes, my slush fund will be low, but then the next three months I won't be buying much and the slush fund will be topped up again.
When we eat freezer meals, leftovers or soup, this does save us more money and evens things out. It also allows us to have a roast every now and then.
When I see a great special, I only buy what we have room for and only what we can use within a reasonable time. I don't buy for example 2 kilos of chicken fillets when on sale because that's what we need for the month. I might buy 10 kilos because it's such a great special and it will probably do us for three months. I never buy just for the monthly menu. I always buy ahead for future months so that my stockpile never runs low.
I hope this has helped you. Let me know if I can help ytou any further.
Please keep in mind, we only buy basic ingredients to make all our meals. We rarely buy processed food and never buy expensive ingredients.
Thank you for your very detailed answer, it gives me a really clear idea of what you do, and sounds like a system I would like to implement. It always pains me to see amazing specials that I can't take advantage of, and equally is really annoying when I have to pay more for something because I need it when it's not on special. My goal for the rest of the year is to build up my pantry mainly, with ingredients I use regularly, and hopefully also manage to have enough leftover from our fortnightly grocery budget to manage to add some good meat specials to our freezer as well. I really appreciate your willingness to help :)
DeleteYour meals look delicious Wendy especially that pie! It is good seeing your ideas. Thank you! xxx
ReplyDelete