If you are stuck wondering how in the world can you cut spending, I can almost guarantee that you find some major savings when you take a good look at your food spending.
That includes your eating out but also your grocery spending! Are you making multiple trips to the grocery store each week?
Every time you forget an ingredient or decide on dinner last minute, every time you make an extra trip to the grocery store, you are going to be spending more money than you would have if you made a meal plan.
THE number one thing that helped us to cut our food spending by thousands a year, is solely attributed to meal planning!
You can read in more detail about how we go about monthly meal planning in this article. You will see exactly how we plan a budget so we are able to spend so much on groceries all at one time.
These printables I am sharing with you are the exact thing I use to keep our meal planning on budget. You can get the templates for FREE!
Though I have a complete months worth of meals all planned out for your convenience, it is still my suggestion that you print out these blank templates and fill in meals based off of what you already have in you pantry, fridge, and freezer.
You can use this pre-planned meal plan to give you some ideas. Download the meal planning templates by clicking on the image below.
Make sure that you are stacking the savings!
After you have your grocery list in order. Make sure that you are shopping the sales at your local stores and be sure to get as many rebates as possible!
This post contains affiliate links at no additional cost to you. Actually, you can possibly save money by using my links! Regardless, thanks for supporting Pennies Into Pearls!
My very favorite and easiest way to get money back from grocery shopping is by using Ibotta!
It is SO SIMPLE! Get the app, look to see which rebates are available at the specific store you plan to shop at, purchase qualifying products, upload your receipt right into the app, and the cash will be credited to your account!
If you are new to using Ibotta, make sure to use my link to sign up and you will get $10 instantly after you claim your first rebate!
February 2017 Monthly Meal Plan
One thing that we had to take into consideration in this months meal plan is that we will be out of town for an entire week. Also, there a few holidays that we plan to be eating out instead of at home.
When you are planning your meals, either for your week or for your entire month, make sure to write down major events, vacations, or holidays that will make a difference in what and where you are eating.
We planned ahead in our vacation budget to be eating out most of the time during that week and also took into consideration eating out for Valentines Day.
You don’t want to plan groceries for days that you wont actually be eating. That would result in a lot of wasted food and money.
Click the image below to download this month’s meal plan.
February Grocery Haul
Did you guys know that I have a YouTube channel? It is a lot of fun and I do share similar but different content over there. So make sure to subscribe to my channel by clicking this link, and then look for the bright red “SUBSCRIBE” button!
There are a few “unbelievers” out there that don’t think I actually am able to buy an entire months worth of groceries for under $400. Which is why I started sharing our monthly grocery haul.
Our goal each month is to keep this giant grocery haul under $300 and our monthly “ household misc.” under $160. Then throughout the month we have a budge of $25 each month to purchase milk and fresh produce.
Make sure to watch the video to find out how much we ended up spending this month!
Thanks for stopping in! What do you think about meal planning? Are you a weekly planner or monthly? Let’s chat in the comments below!
Talk to you soon Pearls! Xoxo
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