Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!! It’s a new year and a new beginning. Time to start fresh in our culinary adventures! Last year I did a few posts on the benefits of menu planning and touched a little on budgeting. I would like to finish that out with some background.

            In the past two years I have been on a journey of self discovery regarding my families’ finances. Two year’s ago my husband and myself made a commitment to be a ‘debt free’ family, and to pass on to our children a legacy of ‘debt free’ financing. Our ultimate goal was to not owe money on anything but our house, to have no credit card debt, and to only spend what we make. Sounds easy enough, huh? Well, let me tell you, it’s not!

            So…you are wondering, what does this have to do with FOOD?! Well, when we first started planning how we would spend our money that comes in (budgeting) we had to find places to cut our spending, so…that we could pay off the debt we had at the time. This resulted in a grocery budget of $150 PER MONTH, for two adults and two small children. This grocery budget had to cover food, paper products, AND toiletries. Not an easy task, let me tell you!! But, since I wanted to be ‘debt free’ I vowed to make it work. That is when I started my journey.

            Fast forward to 2011, we are debt free, have money in an ‘emergency fund’, and are working on our retirement. Currently we have a grocery budget that is $300 per month, on average. It may not seem like much but I sure appreciate it a whole lot more than I did before!

            So, what is the moral of my VERY long tale? Sometimes a short term sacrifice leads to a long term reward! I am happy to say that budgeting and menu planning are now a part of my life and probably always will be! I feel it is the best way to keep myself accountable and know were my money is going.  I am telling my money were I want it to go and what I want it to do!

            Here is a pic of my current menu. It is not very hi-tech and it's written in pencil (I will add pics of my grocery list for this menu later). You will notice there are not a lot of pre-made or packaged food items, nor is there cereal or juice. And I stand by that age old adage, "The cheapest way to make food is from scratch!" And it really doesn’t take any longer than making something from a box. That was one of the reasons I started this blog, to help people to understand that you don’t have to be rich to eat healthy! AND that you don’t have to be a gourmet chef to make delicious food!!

            I hope that you will join me as we learn to cook delicious, easy, and healthy food AND not spend more that 1/2 hour a meal doing it!!