Combining Frugality and Creativity to Make for Less Stressful Meal Planning

How does someone with gourmet tastes, an irregular schedule and a frugal budget manage to menu plan? This is an eternal questions asked by families and single cooks everywhere.

My answer is, I don't, at least not in the traditional method. If you find yourself frustrated by what to prepare, are often in the position of suddenly realizing you have nothing thawed, or some days find you just aren't in the mood for what's on the stove, perhaps my method will save you some money and bring you back to enjoying food again (even on a hectic schedule).

Let me say first that this is one of those times that "the way mom did it" may not be the best way. In my experience, the traditional, "make a menu and make a list method" is not flexible enough for today's families, as well as being ineffective and often not the most frugal or creative way to feed your family.

A much better way to operate is to use the pantry method of shopping, and a short term planning method. What that translates to is keeping a well stocked freezer and pantry, having a rotatable list of family friendly dishes, and planning meals on a day by day (or every other day) basis, except for special occasions.

Lets use my kitchen as an example. I have a master list of menus, and a list of the items we regularly use in our home cooking. I also have a list of frozen meal items I have cooked, but that is a separate article in itself. I make sure that I have these items on hand all the time. How, you ask? My answer is twofold. First, I peruse the sale fliers each week, but not with the idea of putting them into a menu plan. My sole purpose is to stock my pantry, my home grocery store if you will. When I see an item I regularly use, I don't just buy enough for tonight's dinner. I buy enough to last until another really good sale. Because in our house we eat a variety of meats and fish that are not often on sale, I also buy some non sale items just to have them in the freezer. So each week, I buy sale items, produce and bread. One week I may bring home lots, some weeks its just the milk and eggs and fruit and salad stuff.