hey everyone!
this post is going to be a bit different from our normal house updates, but i've had several people ask for this info, so i thought i'd use the blog to share the info!
we have named june our "no spend" month. i've seen lots of variations of this on other blogs, but for us, it just meant that we were not going to spend money eating out this month. (with a few exceptions... we had already planned a weekend trip with friends, but we still took sandwiches and actually only paid for 2 meals out. and then i surprised my dad for father's day, and my sisters and i all chipped in to pick up bbq for lunch with him, so i spent money then too.)
at the end of may, i sat down and came up with a meal for each day in june and then went through and made a huge shopping list for the entire month. which seemed crazy at the time, but i have enjoyed not having to go to the grocery store each week except for some milk or bread. (another exception... chicken wasn't on sale when i went on my first trip, so i waited a week before i bought it and was able to save $35. thank you mom for telling me to wait until it's $1.97/lb.)
we don't stick to the calendar 100%. we change it up depending on what's going on, or how much energy i have to cook, but the great thing is that i have 30 choices ready for me to choose from, and we're not having those "what are we going to do for dinner?" moments.
the other side of this is that we weren't going to be able to pick up food for breakfast/lunch. this was definitely a bigger problem for me than for the hubs (i have a sonic right down the street from work), so we had to plan our meals and make enough for dinners that we had enough leftovers for lunch the next day. to make it even more interesting... ash has had CRAZY work weeks these past two weeks. i'm talking leaving the house at 5:30am (or earlier) and not getting home until after 10pm, so that means lots of leftovers for him to take!
anyways, friends and family who have heard about this have asked us to share the month's menus, so scroll down for our june menus! the calendar uploads pretty small, but there is a link above it that says june 2012 menu, so you can click on that and it will take you to a different site where you can enlarge the menu. if you want recipes, let me know and i can share those, too! AND... if you have any other good meals you think i should try out, feel free to share those too!
OHH, also, today i was looking online for a menu calendar so i could put the meals in it to post on here and i found a really cool one that you should check out if you start this. it's an excel spreadsheet that allows you to store meals and sides on there, and then you can just pick from a drop down menu. i imagine this will be soo helpful when i'm stuck and can't think of any other ideas to add to the calendar... click on this link: Monthly Menu Calendar.
June 2012 Menu
