Meal Planner Monday

Maybe I'm not normal...alright I know I'm not normal, but really enjoy planning my weekly meals. It's one of the many ways I can make money my slave instead of the other way around.

I think I speak for most people when I say that the food category is a major hemorrhage in the budget and it's not hard to see why. We go the grocery store to buy what we need for the week and come home with way more than we planned. The inevitable impulse buy!!

Do you know there are Marketers that go to grocery stores to survey people and find out what impulse buys they made for that shopping trip? They do this all in an effort to find betters ways to tempt others to do the same. They ask questions about packaging, placement and sale price to find what draws us to grab that bag of Doritos or this package of Oreos. So how do we avoid falling into the impulse trap?

 Here's some very simple tips for when you go shopping to avoid the impulse buy:

1. Shop the perimeter of the store where you can load up on fresh food, like fruits and vegetables, meat and dairy. The very center of the grocery market is usually full of unhealthy temptations and lets not forget pet food!

2. Plan out your meals and go with a list. You buy way more than you need if you go without a plan. Even worse is when you forget things and have to go back to the store throwing yourself back into the temptation of impulse shopping.

3. My mama always said "never ever go to the store hungry!" or else you might be tempted to buy that pet food and eat it...gross!

4. Also, a very new option that some stores offer is online shopping. Stores like Shoprite, Safeway and some Weis Markets offer online shopping and home delivery. You pay for the delivery service, but people like my Mother-in-law swear by it and find it's worth paying for the delivery charge to avoid buying that extra crap we really don't need!

With all that in mind, here are your meals for Meal Planner Monday:

Crackling Burgers

 Get a bag of potatoes and cut them into strips. These can be seasoned with anything you'd like and you can bake or fry them. Also, whenever possible I look for the generic product instead of brand name, though I do feel that there some brand name items you can not replace for cheaper...hello Heinz Ketchup!!!

Lemon-Rosemary Chicken Roast

Glazed mini meat loaves

Honey Glazed Chicken

Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder

Grab a 10 lb bag of potatoes ($5.98) and four large bags of vegetable sides ($5.00) to complete your meals.
The grand total for this week is: $74.79