If you google the term “world’s toughest question” you’ll come across a panoply of potential candidates:
- What is the meaning of life?
- What is the secret of happiness?
- How can I get rich quickly?
- Why does the line you’re in always move the slowest?
- Why are there Interstate highways in Hawaii?
Still, I think none of them compare to this one: What’s for dinner? Especially when you find yourself hopelessly cornered in the kitchen at suppertime by a bunch of hungry kids and you’re stuck looking at an empty pantry.
Of course, the way most folks get out of that jam is by running to the local fast food joint. Unfortunately, those constant trips to your local burger and taco stands, coupled with occasional jaunts to more expensive establishments can really drive up your annual food expenses.
How much so? Well, in my case, I take the family out to eat several times per month. As a matter of fact, on average, we’re spending $125 per week on that luxury which, for a four-person family, comes out to $6500 annually — that’s $31.25 per person, per meal. Yikes!
In contrast, our household spent $13,527 on groceries in 2018, which is roughly $3.61 per person per meal, after accounting for the meals not eaten at home. So for us, eating out is almost nine times more expensive than dining at home.
That’s why feeding the family at home is one of the easiest and most effective ways to cut monthly expenses.
So, What’s for Dinner?
Now, whenever my kids ask me what’s for dinner, I’ve always got an answer because I sit down twice per month and create a 14-day daily dinner menu. I then post the menu on the refrigerator. For example, here was one of our most recent 14-day menus:
Sunday: Spaghetti
Monday: Chicken & stuffing
Tuesday: Meat loaf
Wednesday: White lightning chili
Thursday: Beef Stroganoff
Friday: (Dine out)
Saturday: (Leftovers)
Sunday: Shrimp Scampi & linguini
Monday: Sesame chicken
Tuesday: Tacos
Wednesday: Pork chops
Thursday: Beef stew
Friday: Macaroni and cheese
Saturday: (Leftovers)
In my house, everybody gets to contribute to the menu. The kids get two selections each, and the remaining spots are then filled in by the Honeybee and me. That way everybody has at least two of their favorite dishes to look forward every 14 days.
Menu-Making Tips and Strategies
As you can see, creating a two-week dinner menu not only provides a daily riposte to the what’s-for-dinner conundrum, it also makes you a more efficient grocery shopper — with respect to both time and money.
Every other week, I spend a little over an hour or so creating my menu and then using the bill of fare to assemble the grocery list.
However, for those who are willing to invest a little more time in exchange for even greater grocery bill savings, try searching the Internet and your local newspaper for coupons first. Then build your menu based upon any specials you may come across.
Here are a few other tips to consider when creating your menu:
1. Longer is NOT better. Stretching your menu out to cover the grocery shopping duties for, say, an entire month, can be tricky if only because making meals that require fresh vegetables and other perishable ingredients becomes problematic. Then again, it can be done as long as you’re comfortable cooking lots of dishes with items that come exclusively from the freezer and/or pantry.
2. Don’t forget the pantry and freezer staples. We always keep our freezer and pantry stocked with staples and easy-to-prepare entrees and side dishes. These are handy on those days when you’re running short on time, or are otherwise unable to get to the grocer — so don’t forget them when pulling together your grocery list.
3. Learn to love leftovers. I recently wrote about how my family currently saves $1400 each year because we love eating leftovers. With that in mind, for every “off” day you include on your menu for dining out, make sure you also include one for leftover night.
4. Stay flexible. Who says the menu plan can’t be changed in midstream? In my house, I can’t remember the last time we got through a two-week menu period without swapping at least two nights around to meet changing circumstances.
Faithfully maintaining a two-week dinner menu is one of the very best methods for keeping your food bill under control; our household has kept one for the past 17 years. Smart menu-planning not only eliminates those expensive last-minute fast-food runs and quick trips to the grocer, it also frees up cash for the other important things in life.
Best of all, you’ll never have to worry about looking like a dummy ever again.
Well, at least not in the kitchen.
Photo Credit: Didricks
My family just started doing this a few months ago and we’re already noticing the savings! It is amazing how menu planning can reduce the number of times you go out to eat.
And I love that you let your kids get in on the menu picking. Great idea!
Funny how a little forced discipline results in more money staying in your wallet, huh?
As for the kids picking their menu items, they seem to enjoy it — although that usually means we’re guaranteed to have stuff like tacos and mac & cheese twice a month. I guess that ain’t all bad — I’m just glad they don’t like liver and onions!
We mainly do menu planning a week at the time. And do most of our meat cooking on Sunday afternoon/evening and cook enough for the week.
We then add the meat to spinach for a spinach salad, or quickly saute a side veggie.
That just goes to show, Dr. Dean, how flexible menu planning can be — there are lots of ways to implement it. I like the slightly longer period between making menus, but it really doesn’t matter as long as there is always a menu plan on the refrigerator!
Sound advice Len. We do this on a weekly basis. I also have a list of seasonal meal ideas too. You can save lots if buying seasonal produce rather than something that’s been imported. Growing your own herbs and vegetables too is great. Herbs especially are good because when you need fresh herbs you tend not to use the whole bunch that you’ve bought at a store and often a lot of it goes to waste. Now I only pick what I need and it’s fresh as can be, free once your garden is established, and organic.
Great tips, Mindimoo! I love cooking with fresh herbs, but I have to admit, I rarely do except for a few select dishes. I think I might try growing a little herb garden next spring.
I’m going to implement the idea of letting my kids have some involvement. I like the “team” approach. Plus, I like what they’re gonna pick: hamburgers and mac & cheese. Awesome!
My kids have been contributing their dinner choices for at least the past six or seven years and I can’t remember the last time we went a whole month without mac and cheese on the menu at least once. I’m not kidding. So to combat “mac & cheese fatigue” I alternate between a few recipes (including different stove top and oven-baked techniques).
I like knowing what’s for dinner each day too. Take today for instance. I knew we were having beef stew and I was practically giddy all day at work in anticipation for it. I know. But I really love beef stew — especially when it is accompanied with a loaf of fresh-baked bread. Mmm mmm mmm!
I just started doing this about 2 months ago – way better – less money wasted and less stress. If you have Microsoft Publisher 2010 there is a menu planner template that combines spaces for your menu at the top and a sorted by category grocery list. I’ve modified mine to remove the deli and have more produce spaces.
A menu planning template sounds like a great idea, Mary. I wonder if they also have a grocery shopping template too. Now THAT would save me LOTS of time!
With lots of little kids, going out to eat is such a pain I’m rarely tempted. But planning meals tends not to happen either. So rather than menu plan, I tend to just try to have the components of several easy meals in the house, so I can pull out one of several dinners: hamburgers & hot dogs; pasta with Italian sausage and veggies; salmon + rice + veggies; fajitas; frozen pizza, etc. Someday we’ll get into cooking casseroles on the weekend and freezing them but right now this is as much as I can manage!
I can see that working, Laura, as long as all the components stay in stock. If you think about it, if you’re consciously shopping for enough meal components to get you through a week or two of shopping, you ARE menu planning, in a back-handed way!
Really really good idea. It seems simple and obvious but hard to do without planning! I “try” to be aware of waste but still end up throwing out a lot of food. A bit of this, a bit of that, and it all adds up to a full trash bag! A little planning will go a long way. My teenagers will eat their favorite foods in large amounts (It doesn’t matter how many fries I make, they will all be consumed) but they would not touch an onion if they were starving. So planning leftovers is a little difficult–but Im going to try this—work my way through the freezer and pantry, plan around things that need to be cooked now, and have a plan for what I buy!
Great idea, I just made a two week menu using what we had in the freezer, so great way to move on out… the meat and canned goods to make way for new!
Well put Len.
We usually create a list for the week for dinner options and try to stick to that list at the store. Sometimes with kids it’s hard to stick to the staples when they want something colorful or snack items on the shelf, so we try to avoid the inner isles as much as possible.
Also, instead of doing separate lists for lunch items. We’ll try and make larger dinners where I can take leftovers into work. This saves time and money when figuring out lunches.
I’m an engineer as well so I’m always looking at easy ways to save money here and there to do better things with it. All while trying to not drive my wife nuts!
My favorite leftover for lunch is meatloaf. I love love love meatloaf sandwiches!
I have no tips for not driving your wife nuts, Dan. I drive the Honeybee nuts all the time too.
Great idea doing two weeks at a time. There should be little question that planning is the best defense we have against running into the little hurdles that make us take the easy (e.g. the *expensive*) way out of cooking. Doing two weeks at a time means that even if you run into more than a week’s worth of troubles you can still have meals planned and ready to go 🙂
Yep. It works great for us, Mario.
Want to save money on groceries?….STOP EATING MEAT! Want to save even more money?? Stop drinking booze! Too extreme? Not really. Yeah I was right there with all you carnivores 18 months ago but the hardest part of not eating meat for me was learning how to adjust my ordering when eating out. The city of 300,000 people in N.California has very little vegetarian dining options so it makes for an easy decision to stay in and become creative with my family’s menu. I also use google calendar for my menu use the repeat option when the recipe is a “keeper” and have it re-populate every 5 weeks or so and when it is time to go grocery shopping I have several idea’s stacked up right in front of me and I just drag and drop, then look to see what I don’t have in each recipe. It works out pretty well. We have spent on average $550 a month on groceries and $128 a month on eating out thus far. By the way when I stopped drinking the booze it has easily made the biggest improvement to my health. I essentially ended the use of ibuprofen for headaches related to alcohol use.
I’m glad you’re making the commitment to a healthier life, Alex. Thanks for sharing your story.
I shop at the warehouse store for bulk purchases and favorites, and at the supermarket for things not available at the warehouse. I don’t plan meals, but keep a lot of food on hand in the pantry and freezer. We rarely eat out, so we don’t mind splurging on something special…we can have a fancy dinner for the whole family for the price of dinner for one in a restaurant!
When it seems like we have too much on hand, I declare a moratorium on large shopping trips, and concentrate on using up what we have, supplemented by fresh produce, etc, from the supermarket. This keeps us from letting food expire before we can use it up, and it has taught us some great new recipes.
My family likes leftovers, so if we have a few odds and ends, we declare smorgasbord night or lunch and heat up all the leftovers, along with a fresh salad or pasta or bread. This actually keeps us from having to toss small amount leftovers.leftovers
I cook all our weekday meals for the week on Sunday mornings. I put everything in containers in the fridge. Every morning, before I go to work I put the food on our plates and cover with microwave lids and put in the fridge. I wash the containers and put away,. When we get home, just have to “nuke” the plates and after we eat put the plates in the dishwasher,. Done and move on!
*When I cook our meals on/for Saturday and Sunday (I am home and have more time to do it) I try to double up so we have leftovers for the weekdays, making it only necessary to cook up 1-2 more meals for the week on Sunday morning. Fridays is always pizza. Monday is crockpot- (all the prep. work for that done on Sunday as well).
Really hard to say what we spend on food per year since we raise so much of it. Raising it doesn’t imply no cost, just harder to figure costs.
Example…..this morning we had sausage/gravy biscuits with scrambled egg, small bowl of frozen blueberries on the side. Sausage, eggs, berries raised here, biscuits, flour/milk for gravy store bought stuff.
Tonight, beef roast, oven roasted potato wedges, peas…..all from here.
Sounds heavenly, Andy!