Meal Planning

When we sat down to look at the end-of-the year numbers over Christmas break, there was a problem. And the problem was Wegmans.

Wegmans is great. We love Wegmans. I am actually in a Wegmans AS I WRITE THIS.

But we spent a lot of money at Wegmans last year. And even more embarrassing than the amount of money we spent was number of total transactions. How many times would you think a single household would need to swipe a card at the local grocery store? 4 times a month, if you do a weekly grocery run? Or maybe you should add in 3-4 other stops if you need to swing by for batteries or to pick up a special ingredient? According to our Mint logs we were at Wegman's almost every other day in 2018.

Some of that is weird, and inflated by artificial causes. Today, for example, I packed my lunch (the first rule of gritty thriftiness) and brought it with me to eat in the dining area at the Amherst St. Wegmans. (My preferred spot to pass the sixish hours between a morning rehearsal and evening concert at Kleinhans.) I'll probably buy a cup of coffee in an hour or so, and then around dinner time I'll go get a slice of pizza or a sandwich. And chances are I'll remember that we're out of something, and I'll make sure to go through to the grocery aisle and checkout a small basket of "while I'm here" sorts of things like white whole wheat flour or a ras-el hanout--the sorts of things you can't find at Aldi.

So that turns one trip into three "visits." The same thing happens when we're responsible about keeping items that should be filed under "grocery" separate from items that should be filed under "gifts" or miscellaneous" and annoy the people behind us in line by checking out with multiple transactions. That explains some of the "did we really go to Wegmans every other day?" confusion. But only some.

And thus did J take the lead on a new project for groceries this year--make a list of everything that we're going to eat for the week before the week starts, eat the leftovers over the weekends (which are our busy times), and on Sundays after church (while James is at his junior choir rehearsal) we get everything we possibly can from Aldi.

The Aldi part is working really well. We used to do a beginning-of-the-month Aldi run last year to stock up on all the pantry and basic items that we knew would be cheaper than at the big W. But most months we only went once a month. All the smaller trips (and there were, apparently, lots of them) for fresh produce and this-or-that were at Wegmans. Now we're getting almost everything at Aldi. It means being organized, but its been surprisingly smooth.

We've always eaten well, but planning the whole week of menus out in advance (the Paprika app is helpful with this part) J keeps track of exactly how much she needs of each ingredient, and we really do have more leftovers. Here's been the lineup for the past few weeks:

Monday-Spicy Peanut Saba Noodle Salad
Tuesday-Navy, Bean, Bacon, and Spinach Soup (w/homemade bread)
Wednesday-Golden Soup
Thursday-Instant Pot Cacio e Pepe w/crispy chickpeas, Parmesan Roasted Broccoli
Friday-Sesame Mango Chicken Teryiaki

Monday-Vegan Lentil Soup (w/homemade bread)
Tuesday-Marinated Venison Steaks, Roasted Carrots
Wednesday-Parmesan Orecchiette, Kale, Apple, and Goat Cheese Salad
Thursday-Sweet Potato and Black Bean Veggie Burgers
Friday-Instant Pot Tandoori Chicken

Monday-Moroccan Lamb Meatball Tangine
Tuesday-Spinach Lasagna, Kale and Brussel Sprout Salad
Wednesday-Chicken Noodle Soup (w/homemade bread)
Thursday-Venison Marsala, Chopped Greek Salad
Friday-Bacon, Asparagus, and Ricotta Pizza

Monday-Chicken Mulligatawny Soup, Homemade Naan
Tuesday-Black Bean Sweet Potato Enchiladas
Wednesday-Mexican Tortilla Salad
Thursday-Umbricelli with Sausage and Mushrooms

And the great news was that the kids loved everything, just as long as it wasn't soup and didn't have black beans in it or any foreign words in the title, or was at all spicy, or had leafy greens,

So, basically, they liked the bread.

Our 2019 food budget, though, is off to a tremendous start!*

*We've totally wiped out all of the gains we made in food over the past two months by buying furniture.