GROCERY HAUL & MEAL PLAN WITH ME // THIS IS HOW WE SAVE BIG $$$

hey you guys welcome back to my channel and if you are new to see mindy mom welcome to my kitchen today i'm going to share with you a grocery haul and meal plan for my family of five for the week but i'm gonna do this a little differently than i normally do so stay with me [Music] all right you guys i had planned to do a big grocery haul and kind of restock my kitchen this week but looking at our schedule that is just not gonna work out so i really just need to do kind of a filler haul i need to do a smaller haul and maybe try to utilize some things that i already have to get through the week with my family until i can get back to the grocery store and do that big haul however i often get questions about how i come up with ideas for meals how i meal plan for my family so i thought i would take you through that process really quickly especially on a week like this and just share with you some of my tips that help me plan meals for my family and also help me save money personally i feel like meal planning is the like number one money saving tip i can give you it's kind of where you need to start if you want to start to cut back on your grocery budget i mean i guess where you have to start actually is committing to cooking some meals at home i'm assuming if you're watching this video that you've already done that but you'd be surprised whenever i look into it the number of meals out the average american family will eat in a week but if you want to save money you've got to commit to cooking at home but the next thing that you need to do is establish a meal plan and actually think through what you're going to make throughout the week this meal planning pad was sent to me by the company life and apples i actually just featured it in an amazon favorites video and one of the reasons i like it is because not only does it have the little perforated part on the side where you can make your shopping list while you're making your meal plan it also has a place where you can make some notes like if there's stuff that you want to prep if it's somebody's birthday and you need to make a birthday cake i will leave this one linked in the description box below you can get it on amazon so when i am thinking about the week ahead and planning meals for my family i'm usually going to start with dinners i like to cook four to five dinners a week usually it's five sometimes if there's a really busy dinner or some other event going on it's just four and then one night a week we usually do pizza or take out before the pandemic we might have gone out to dinner but we've really just been doing takeout for the last year and then another night we either eat leftovers or we have what i call fen for yourself which is basically making a sandwich making a quesadilla maybe a plate of nachos maybe pulling out some egg waffles from the freezer and having peanut butter waffles and fruit for dinner it's just kind of a really casual everybody kind of make your own plate type dinner and the first thing that i will do when i'm planning those dinners is look around my kitchen my refrigerator and my freezers and see if there are things that i already have on hand or things that need to be used up i just got an imperfect box a couple of days ago and it wasn't a big box i just ordered a few pounds of meat and some produce so i pulled some of those things out and i also noticed that i had a container of whole milk plain greek yogurt in the fridge that's been in there for a couple of weeks that i really want to use up and i have this package of orzo pasta that's been hanging out in my pantry it's partially used it's about half gone but i've been looking for a way to use that up as well and right off the bat i have a couple of ideas about how to use some of those things so i pulled out my little recipe binder and you guys this is looking really shabby i like to have my recipes in writing if i really really like them if i found them somewhere else like maybe on a blog or a website even if i make adjustments and changes to them i like to print them out and keep them so i have them easily handy but my recipe binder has seen better days so i'm very grateful that my friend lauren over at louise lane just designed a new recipe binder and recipe binder tabs for her store i will leave that linked in the description box below i'm looking forward to purchasing one myself lauren is such a talented designer in fact she did the new channel intro that you see at the beginning of my videos for me she's one of my dearest youtube buddies and she is such a talent when it comes to design so go and check out her store and look at some of her products that she has but i have in here a recipe that my family really likes called swedish meatball orzo and that is something that i typically will use greek yogurt instead of sour cream it also uses the orzo pasta i've made it with rice before it works just fine i've also made it with ground beef or with sausage so i know that i have both of those things so that is something that right away i'm gonna jot down is going to be a meal option for me this week another standard meal for us and probably just about any family with young kids is spaghetti and i happen to get a spaghetti squash in my imperfect box and my husband and i actually really like to have the spaghetti sauce that i make with spaghetti squash and then the kids can just have regular pasta now one of the other things that i have to think about whenever i'm planning meals is what our family's schedule is for the week right now it is the spring my son is playing baseball i've got a kid and swim i've got a kid in gymnastics i'm running the mom van lots of nights and there are some nights whenever i am out of the house during the hours when i would normally be prepping meals so on those days i know that i either need to have something in the crock pot or i need to have something that i can make ahead of time that will reheat easily so i'm going to keep that in mind as i choose which days i'm going to have which meals on and by the way when i use a meal planner like this i love it when they don't have dates or days like monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday over here on the side because what i like to do is go ahead and jot down my ideas and the things that i want to make for the week and then go back and put which days i'm going to make what meal based on what my schedule is for that week so i already have two meals and i'm gonna think through and check the recipes and jot down anything else that i might need to make those meals i have just about everything that i need for swedish meatball orzo what i don't have for a spaghetti night is actual spaghetti noodles for the kids i have stuff to make the sauce but i and i have the spaghetti squash for my husband and myself but i need to buy a package of spaghetti for the kiddos another thing that i will look at whenever i am making a meal plan sometimes is the weather and we are in april here in oklahoma and spring has definitely sprung but it's also a time when the weather can shift dramatically i mean we can have highs that are close to 90 followed by a day where the temperatures are in the 30s and 40s and i noticed that this week we have a cold front coming through one day and it's going to be cold and rainy so that night would be an excellent night for soup and it happens to be a night when i'm going to be able to be home to cook dinner and i remembered that my oldest daughter has been requesting for a few weeks that i make zuppa toscana one more time before we get into the summer months and we're not eating as much soup the recipe that i use comes from cafe delights.com i will leave it linked in the description box below so i'm gonna need to pick up some potatoes and it also calls for half and half so i need to pick up some of that as well you know what i just remembered in my freezer i have like maybe six or eight of those rhodes rolls those frozen dough little round balls that you can make into rolls so i'll have those that night as well and i'll be able to use those up from my freezer so now i have three meals already picked out now from here it's all about what we want to eat what fits within our budget and also within our schedule so one of the other things i will do i have my computer right here is i'll pop on pinterest and i'll see if i have pinned anything recently or if there are some old favorites maybe even crock pot recipes because some of the holes i'm trying to fill with for nights when i'm going to be out of the house and i'll kind of peruse through my pinterest boards and see if there's anything that i've pinned or that i've forgotten about or i might just you know put easy crock pot meals into the description box all right so i found this recipe for a crock pot creamy ranch chicken and it also calls for potatoes and carrots and that will work out great because i'm already buying potatoes for the zupatos ghana so i think i'm going to go ahead and put this on the menu plan for the week and i will just need to buy chicken and since i'm going to be purchasing chicken i will probably want to go ahead and plan another meal my last meal my fifth meal around chicken breast and see what i can come up with using that ingredient by the way this recipe for the crockpot creamy ranch chicken i am finding on life in the loft house so i will leave that linked in the description box below so i actually have a pinterest page like a pinterest board in my account for chicken recipes and i have one for beef and you know vegetarian recipes and stuff and i found in here a recipe for sweet hawaiian crock pot chicken so i think that's what i am going to do with the rest of the chicken it just calls for pineapple juice brown sugar soy sauce and i can just throw the chicken breast in there with the other ingredients and then i can shred it up and i'm thinking we will make rice bowls with that like i think that would be really good with like some fresh pineapple and some black beans red pepper or something and that will definitely have kind of like a like a summer vibe to a rice bowl but i think that's the other thing that i'm going to make in the crock pot that'll be really easy to throw meals together with on one of those nights when we need to eat at different times in the evening okay so i know that i need pineapple or pineapple juice for that recipe and that recipe is coming from a website called celebgood.com i'll leave it linked down below okay so now i have my meals picked out my five meals that i want to make this week and i have picked the days of the week that i want to make those on which i based around our schedule as a family i also know we're going to do takeout saturday which is going to work out great because brick has baseball and i think my parents are coming into town and then sunday we will eat up leftovers or other things that we may have around the house so now i'm going to go back through and kind of fill in any holes as far as vegetables or side dishes go and now i just think about other things that i know we need i know there is going to be a mutiny in this house if i do not get lunch meat and bread and things for sandwiches for the week i know that we need fruit and i just put fruit in general when i get to the store or when i get online to put a grocery order in if i'm using walmart grocery pickup i just look for what's on sale that week also keep in mind if i want to pick up any other veggies maybe instead of using frozen ones from my freezer i know that we are out of honey so we need some of that we are also out of tortilla chips and salsa which is a staple as a snack in this household oh we're out of eggs and i'm just gonna kind of finish out my list i'll check the pantry in the fridge and see if there's anything else that we need right away that we can't live without until i go make kind of you know a bigger grocery trip and then over here in the prep section i know that it was my dad's birthday last week and since they are coming this weekend i definitely want to do a nothing bundt cake copycat recipe so we can celebrate dad's birthday while he's here oh coffee we're almost out of coffee or i am so i am putting that one here and i am underlining it three times because we don't want to forget the coffee all right there you have it i have my meals planned and i know it would drive some people crazy i guess not to have the days in order but that's just the way it works for me when i'm thinking about planning my meals for my family is to actually figure out what i want to make and then go back and figure out which night it works for me to make that meal now let's go to the store and i will show you guys my haul and i'll probably try to insert some pictures from our meals this week as well okay here's my grocery haul and i think i have learned that i should not go to the grocery store when i'm tired you know they say you shouldn't go to the grocery store when you're hungry well i was kind of tired when i went and i think i picked out some stuff that if i have my wits about me i wouldn't have picked up but it's the end of the day and the end of the weekend and i took some shortcuts you'll see so over here i have some bagels um the kids can have half of one of these with some cream cheese for a snack finding good snacks for them that aren't just processed crap is kind of a quest that i'm on lately because they're so active now in their activities they really need like a small meal produce here i have some grapes two bell peppers i did go ahead and just get a chopped salad kit um i splurged on that for this week instead of making a salad i figured i would thank myself when i got to that day whenever we were gonna have that with our dinner two cucumbers my kids really like these as a snack we're taking their lunches five pounds of potatoes this is a couple pounds of what are these fuji apples think they're fuji apples the bananas were all pretty green so it's going to take a few days for these to ripen up but i did get some i got some hummus this was a request for my husband i personally don't care for hummus some tortillas staple in our house the kids make sandwiches with these we were completely out of eggs we are almost out of coffee i did not want to let that happen this is just the walmart brand ground coffee that i use in my little coffee maker each morning and i like this flavor a lot salsa we were completely out also a staple honey my son really likes this with his peanut butter sandwiches and i need that for one of the recipes this week a can of pineapple one bag of tortilla chips some great value brand triscuits i figured this with some of the cheese slices that i'm about to show you also make a good snack my husband really likes these water flavoring things he likes the pink lemonade i like this one the cherry pomegranate some spaghetti we already talked about that for the meal plan did you guys know that you can buy just the garlic rye chips from the gardeto snack mix i did not know that and i really like them when i was younger i did not i used to pick these out and give them to somebody else but now i love them they're my favorite part of that snack so i got some some peanut butter crackers to put in the snack bin these are good on the go snacks some clearance rack oatmeal cookies if you watched my vlog over on my vlogging channel from last week you will know why i have these and why this is funny you will know what the connection is but they went really fast in my house so when i saw some back on the clearance rack at my neighborhood market which is where i went i went ahead and snatched those back up because they were so good i can always pop one in the freezer over here on the other side of the island i have the cold stuff i have several different kinds of cheese that we will use for snacks and recipes sandwiches whipped cream cheese also a household staple around here the kids use that to make sandwiches some half and half i need that for the zippo toscana string cheese makes a great snack these were also a splurge for me i got these on like and i bought a rebate a few weeks back and they were so so good so i got the key lime crumble and the perfect peach cobbler these are like a dessert because they have sugar they have like 14 grams of added sugar or something like that which actually isn't the worst i've seen when it comes to yogurt but it's it's a treat it's not like just a snack a pound of turkey this is the primadella i think that's the walmart brand for their deli turkey um the reduced sodium about four pounds of chicken breast for dinners this week i saw these they were another impulse buy in the little freezer case as i was walking by and i feel like i have seen these somewhere else maybe somebody else's channel but for some reason i was thinking they were only at costco but i've heard that these are very similar to a chick-fil-a chicken nugget so i thought i would pop some of those in the air fryer this week for lunch and just see how they are i might talk about that if i do any vlogging this week but it does say raw chicken so they're not fully cooked to actually cook them so i'll be interested to try these and then i also picked up some of these again looking for snack options for the kids especially for my oldest daughter who just switched swim programs and she goes straight to swim from school four days a week and it's a 90 minute practice so she needs a snack on the way and i thought these would be good because they're frozen and then you throw them into your bag and they thaw out throughout the day you throw them into your lunch bag and they thought out throughout the day but i got those with her in mind and i almost forgot i did get these with the children in mind but who am i kidding i'll probably have a couple of them too the little mini ice cream sandwiches and let's face it my husband's probably gonna eat several of these too so these will probably be gone in like three or four days all right you guys leave me a comment do you have any strategies when it comes to meal planning do you have any tips for saving time for saving money what is your process for doing that if you have anything helpful for us feel free to let me know down below in a comment and thank you so much for watching and i will be sure to check it again with another video very soon [Music] you

Channel: See Mindy Mom

Views: 16,593

Rating: 4.9457994 out of 5

Keywords: grocery haul, meal plan, how to meal plan, grocery haul and meal plan, budget, frugal, budget meal plan, how to save on food, how to save on groceries, what's for dinner, whats for dinner, budget cooking, save money on groceries

Id: g42n6zxYg2M

Length: 16min 18sec (978 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 24 2021