January Meal Plan

So I have been inspired by Edie from Life in Grace Blog and a local friend to meal plan for the whole month. It seems like a great idea and wasn't too much extra work, but of course, I am saying this prior to having been through a month of shopping ahead.

Today I bought the mother load of groceries at Market Basket...to my surprise it was only $155. MB is cheapppp. I just cannot stand to go there frequently especially with a toddler, but today I was alone and could actually think without throwing things in the cart haphazardly. I then went to Richardson's our local dairy farm and spend $20 on three gallons of milk, two containers of half and half (for homemade ice cream) and two cartons of eggs.

I think I will still have to make a Trader Joe's trip for some additional fresh produce and possibly bread, but one of the things that has surprised me about this process so far is that many things really do last awhile prior to being opened...I just usually only buy for a week.

Another resource Edie uses is a site called Ziplist. It has an app that syncs with your account. You can pin your recipes there like you would on pinterest, but when you want to make it that month it simply loads the ingredients to your list - aka genius!

I thought I'd share our meal plan with links...here goes nothing! There are a few gaps to account for leftovers and eating out and the occasional frozen pizza to be thrown in.

Jan 5 // Beef, Snow Peas and Rice
Jan 6 //
Jan 7 // BBQ shredded chicken on corn tortillas with salad
Jan 8 //
Jan 9 // French Onion Soup with salad
Jan 10 //
Jan 11 // Burgers over spinach with sweet potato fries
Jan 12 // Chicken Corn Chili 
Jan 13 //
Jan 14 // Loaded Potatoes (bacon, sour cream, cheese, chives) and salad
Jan 15 //
Jan 16 // White Chicken Chili
Jan 17 // TBD (my best awesome friends are visiting in this cold New England winter so I need to figure this out later!)
Jan 18 // TBD
Jan 19 // TBD
Jan 20 // Philip's Birthday!!...TBD
Jan 21 //
Jan 22 // Fried Rice, Edamae and Egg Rolls
Jan 23 //
Jan 24 // Refried Bean Flautas...what can I say? I love mexican...
Jan 25 // One Pot Lo Mein
Jan 26 //
Jan 27 // Repeat a soup depending on what I still have
Jan 28 //
Jan 29 // Sriracha Broccoli with fried rice
Jan 30 //
Jan 31 // Burgers over spinach with sweet potato fries

So there you have it...How do you meal plan? Do you meal plan? Here's to a simplified 2014!