The Family Dinner

Yay, I like the trend of people blogging their family menus!

It gives me all sorts of ideas and I have been trying to do this on and off for a year now.  Our failures have been attributed to many factors: work rotation, allergies (mine and the kids), vegetarian diet verses the one meat eater in the house, distance to the grocery store for the forgotten item and the fact that the kids are picky doesn't help.

I truly suck at coupon clipping and they never give coupons on things that I buy, so I've had to get creative in my budgeting. When I first realized I had a problem I was spending $1000 a month...what?!?!? I know. But I was able to get this down to about $450 once I started planning my meals out at least three weeks. We are sticking to it this time!

Most importantly, NO WALMART, TARGET, OR KROGER! I MUST AVOID THESE MONEY PITS AT ALL COST!!! Our Private School budget depends on it!

Allergies are expensive so here is how I get my GF flours and other healthy choice ingredients:

• The Latin/Hispanic foods Market
• The Asian and Indian Markets
• Dallas Farmers Market- come early, bring cash and your own bags
• Aldi's- don't laugh people from C-town, Aldi's down here is awesome! Lots of local and well priced frozen items here.

I always suggest if your nervous going to one of these places, whether you're like me and the driving distance/location scares you (I have highway and heavy street traffic issues) or maybe just the fact that not everything is in English or that you might not be sure what you're really looking for that first time just take your whole family with you. Kids are great at saying "hey what is that?" to random people in the isles. If they're too young to talk bring them anyways, they just look cute and everyone will tell you how lovely your family is. I'm not kidding. No need to be scared.

I literally bought a bag of rice flour for 79 cents the first time I went to the Asian market. It would have been at least $3-$5 for this 32oz bag else where. Yes that's right, not 5lbs, 32 oz. Allergies are expensive. We try to support local and fresh. Less packaging means a healthier planet and less toxins in your food. The rest of the world knows this but we are slowly catching on :)

My second suggestion would be freeze your meals. This is not the easiest thing to get in the habit of doing but it will slice your budget and cook time in half. Start with something easy like pancakes. 1 hour making them will save you loads of time later when the kids are hungry at the breakfast table and your coffee maker is hating on you.

My third tip would be to make a list and take cash. My husband hates that one but I promise you it is the best suggestion of all. This is why I love to see all these blogs with the meal plans on them!! Don't you love free information sharing!!!

**Last thing when you are finished with your "green/reusable" shopping bags please wash them so that you kill all the bacteria and don't get sick.