Lesson 2-Meal Planning

So, after you get your coupons organized, you can shop. However, if you want to take it to another level, meal planning is your goal. There are PLENTY of cheap recipes out there, but I have been finding some awesome ones on 5dollardinners.com. You will DEFINITELY save money by planning your meals and buying all the ingredients at once. You will save even more if you can buy enough of a meal to make double and save some for later. Not only will you save money, but time as well, because you can just pop a frozen dinner in the oven and be ready to go! You will learn really quick that I do not like to spend too much time in the kitchen, so most of my meal suggestions on this blog will be simple with normal ingredients that can be cooked fairly quickly with little effort.

So, I have started deciding what we will have for about two weeks worth of dinners. I do not cook 14 dinners most of the time because you have to take into account leftovers, dinners out with friends, and the nights you get to just pop in the frozen second meals you have made earlier in the process. I pick the meals, write out a grocery list, and then look through my coupons. I pull out all coupons that I know I will use and put them in the front pocket of my folder, so I can pull them out easily.

I think that is all for meal planning...