Menu Planning Tips

I know a lot of bloggers blog about there weekly menu. I like it because it's almost like a recipe exchange and I get so bored of my own recipe rotation I love the new ideas!
Vicky over at The Pearl District has been leaving me the most wonderful comments on my blog! Don't you just love that? Anyway, she asked me how I come up with my menus each week and I thought I would share with all of you.
Our household is a 1 income family, so we are on a very limited budget, so this is how I do it to save money!
In no way have I got this 100% mastered yet, but I do pretty well. I learn something new every time I shop! I also read a lot of budget blogs and try to incorporate ideas to fit my lifestyle.

Menu planning on a budget:
Lots of scratch paper (kids old homework, old bills or envelopes, old flyer's) Try not to go for the printer paper, it costs money! I think I'm going to do this idea here:

-Every week I do an inventory of my food.
          *In columns under Freezer, Fridge, Pantry and Stockpile (if you do this)
-On Sunday afternoon, I gather my scratch paper, coupon folder, store ads, food inventory list.
*Start by,
-Go through one store ad at a time and write down items you could use/need with the price
-Once you have a list of all the items you need from each store, double check for same sale items, cross off the most expensive item (you will get the cheapest at only 1 store, unless they have a limit).
-Now go through your coupons and see if you have one for each item on your list.
  **This really narrows down your shopping list! In other words if I don't have a coupon for it, I probably won't buy it unless it is important for a recipe.
-I do the majority of my shopping at King Soopers with small items at Safeway, Target or Wal-Mart. I get all my produce at Sprouts! Sprouts is higher quality and better prices.
-Once I have all my shopping lists complete I see what recipes I can make or want to make with the protein and veggies I'm getting.
*Then I add the ingredients I'm missing to my shopping list.
*I also search through cookbooks before a shopping day too.
-You should have a solid 7 day menu with extras before you go shopping.
 *I mean extras cause you may have frozen meals, and leftovers from previous days.
Try not to shop more then once per week, you end up spending more money.

If you are not on a budget.
The easiest way to menu plan is to see what major items (chicken, pork, veggies) you have in your home. Make a list if needed.
Start by looking through recipes you want to make (or love to make) and start piecing it together.
If you need help I love using allrecipes.com; you can click on ingredients. List what you have and suggestions come up!
I also recently started asking my friends to borrow there most favorite cookbooks to see what I can incorporate into my recipe folder.

I get recipe ideas from Bible Study, and another friend of mine belongs to a group of women that email there weekly menu out on Monday's. The meals that are not as familiar include the recipes. Blogs are again a great place to get ideas on new meal ideas.

I hope that this post really helps some of you!
Anyone else have anything they want to add, that works really well for them?

Thanks
xoxo
-N


Now, not everyone eats the menu they have planned for the week. Things come up all the time or you just don't feel like eating that item that night...go to the next nights item and work your way around. You already know you have everything!