Trying to keep the food budget low, but still keeping the menu interesting can be a challenge, especially with the prices of food these days. I generally make a weekly menu, and try to plan my meals so that items can be used in multiple meals. A box of mushrooms from Costco or Sam’s Club only runs around $5 and can easily be used for several different dishes. Knowing where to get the right amount of food for the least cost is also helpful. Purchasing romaine heads at Costco or Sam’s Club means I’m buying 5 heads for the same price as 2 at local grocery stores. However, we have to really plan on eating lot of salad or other lettuce heavy meals, otherwise we end up wasting food. All this to say when creating my weekly menu, I have to be forward thinking about how I plan to use the amount I purchase.

Upcoming Menu & Shopping List

The nice thing about bulk shopping, is I happen to have a lot of the base items in the freezer, so for this week, at least, I only need a relatively small amount of items to purchase. I do find that planning out a shopping list like this helps me to not impulse buy which is unfortunately where a lot of the food budget goes.