What’s on the Menu?

I’ve already told you how organized I am.  Remember my weekly schedule?  Well, I also have a monthly menu of dinner ideas.  I have separated this menu into weeks, and after I choose the corresponding week, I make my weekly grocery list.

I’ve had a weekly menu for almost as long as I can remember, but after Gabriel was born and I didn’t have the time to look through recipe books and magazines for hours each week.  I decided to sit down and make a menu that would cover an entire month’s worth of meals so I didn’t have to make a menu every single week.  It has saved me lots of time!  To keep it exciting I have one night per week open for dining out, and one night for new recipes I want to try.  During the warmer months we have salad as a main dish a few times per month, and during the cold months I just switch those salad nights out for soup nights. We have pizza every Friday night, so that’s an easy one to remember.  I love having this menu.  I have it saved in “my documents” on our computer and every week when I’m ready to make out my grocery list, I just sit down and look at my menu for that week to see what we’re having.

To make my shopping easy, I write my grocery list out in the same order as the items in the store.  I have what is on each aisle memorized and make my list out in this order.  It makes my shopping so much easier because I don’t have to back-track and search for things.  It saves a lot of time too, which is good when you’re shopping with kids who are ready to move on and be done at the grocery store.

I love this method of having my menu ready for me and making my list out each week.  What about you?  Got any tips on how I could improve this method even more?  I’d love to hear from ya!