Meal Planning for a Large Family

I'm not sure if anyone else is feeling the pinch of all the back to school costs, but we sure are! With five children starting school in a couple of weeks, it feels like there are never ending expenses. Last year I felt like we were over spending big time on our grocery list and decided to become more organized in order to save money on groceries. This is how I meal plan for our family of eight.

 Print off a blank calendar for the month. I get my blank calendar from this website here and did I mention its free!

Then I write down all the dinners for the month on the calendar. Our pay day is usually around the 10th of each month so I plan out our dinners starting and ending on the 10th of each month.

You will notice that I leave two spots to eat out each month on the calendar. It's nice to give ourselves a night off from cooking here and there and it's planned for in our budget.

I also make sure that I have a couple of quick meals each week as our schedules get quite frantic. Here are a few ideas for dinners that can be made in less then 20 mins:
-Breakfast for dinner
-Prawns on Caesar salad
-Taco salad
-Perogies and Salad
-Burgers and Salad

There are also some crock pot recipes that I searched on Pinterest.
- Italian chicken
- Scalloped potato and cubed pork
-Cheesy chicken spaghetti

And I can't forget my family's favourite recipes. I ask the kids what they want for dinner. Everyone gets to pick one night.
-Tacos
-Steak, potato and grilled veg
-Chinese (homemade stay tuned I will post how I make it for cheap!)
- Lasagna
-Salt and pepper wings with cut vegetables and dip

I make a list of all of the meat I will need for the month and buy it at Costco. I also make a list of all the other ingredients I will need to make the dinners for the month. I will buy all the non perishable items at the beginning of the month for the entire month. Each week I use my dinner calendar and make a list of fresh items I will need for the week, along with lunch and breakfast supplies.

Once you have established a good dinner plan you can reuse it each month (change a few dinners around so it doesn't feel repetitive).

This probably looks like a lot of work, but if you spend an hour planning out the month you will cut
out all of those last minute shopping trips. I managed to cut approximately $500 out of my monthly food budget.
Here are some more tips on how I save on school lunches:
-pack water instead of juice boxes (I purchased lunch kits that came with stainless steal water bottles)
-bake cookies, muffin, and other backed goods instead of pre packaged snacks. Do one big baking
day a month and freeze your items.
-pack a couple pieces of fruit for snacks or cut veggies (economical and healthy)
-use left over meats from dinner to make wraps and sandwiches (no nitrates!)

Hope you find this post useful!