Menu Plan Monday / Eat From Your Pantry Challenge

One thing I have been doing over the past year is menu planning. It has heped to greatly reduce our family's grocery bill while helping me feed my family better food. And this year I have decided to share our weekly menu plan with you, if for no other reason than to hold me more accountable to to a menu plan each week.

During the month of January (and actually I am starting today) I am participating in the Eat From Your Pantry Challenge, sponsored by Life as Mom and Money Saving Mom, two of my favorite bloggers and fellow savvy shopping moms. I was super excited to see this challenge occur because I had already determined that we needed to do this at our house, so now with the extra support of fellow bloggers everwhere I can do it!

My goal during this month is to buy only produce and dairy, focusing on organic. I didn't really set a budget amount since eliminating all but these two categories can save money, but I plan on tracking my spending here and would like to stay under $100.

Monday: chicken enchiladas (using Southwest Egg Roll filling), Spanish rice, salad

Tuesday: pasta bolognese, homemade French breadsticks, salad

Wednesday: Sunday Brunch casserole (from freezer)

Thursday: ORDER OUT (New Year's Eve treat)

Friday: leftovers

Saturday: soup of some kind (maybe Taco Soup or chili), rolls or cornbread

Sunday: BBQ ribeye, twice baked potatoes, green beans

I haven't quite rounded up breakfast or lunch ideas yet, but I do pretty well at those. For breakfast we tend to have something "bready" - cereal, pancakes, scones, etc. - and we eat more canned soup or boxed meals at lunch - macaroni & cheese, chicken nuggets. I will have a full breakdown of our other meals next week. I will also be trying my hand at homemade yogurt, so stay tuned for that!