Making a Plan... Stumbling Mumbling... Tuesday?

Okay folks, I know it's not Monday and I am a day late, but here it is anyways!  :)

This weeks stumble was actually inspired by a friend of mine, Janette!  She posted on Facebook about a menu planning and shopping list service that she sometime uses to make her life wayyyy easier and her kids love the meals! 

Well, I definitely don't have kids yet ;) but I am all about saving time, money and headache!  I am also not that fantastic at pre-planning meals.  I really got spoiled at the old townhouse because we had an amazing local grocery store just blocks away!  The new house is in a great town, but there is NO grocery store!  Yikes!  So, instead of swinging by the store on the way home and picking up whatever I was in the mood to make, I need a better solution for our new location!

So with these things in mind, I have been poking around at my bloggie buddies and found the 30 meal plan by nanny goat!  They have a great plan and I'm totally going to go for it!  It sounds a little intimidating at first, because I honestly don't know if I have 30 recipes, but they have it all broken down into steps.

Step 1  Get 30 Recipes together that your family loves.

It's totally okay that I don't have a bazillion recipes yet, cause this is a process and a journey right?  I mean, who's really got 30 recipes together after three months of being married! So, I get to start from scratch with the 5 or 6 recipes that I already know that hubby loves.

Step 2  Put your recipes/meals on individual cards.

This is a super cute step and appeals to my crafty side!  I can make the cards adorable and laminate them so when I'm cooking they don't get all messed up.  Thats what i've run into with all these cook books I got for wedding presents.  The recipes are great, but the books are bulky and stain-able.  Problem solved.

Step 3  Make a master ingredient list.

This plays right into my excel-spreadsheet-planning-obsessive personality!  It is so simple.  The recipes are on one side, the ingredients on the other, the quantities in the middle!  Then when you wanna go shopping you know exactly what you're going to need and add it to your list!  This is where the clouds started opening up for me and the angels started to sing!

Step 4  Create a binder to keep yourself organized.

Again, a step that I am excited about since it combines my organized-obsessed and crafty sides into one! Yay!  Not quite to this point yet, but it has only been like an hour since I found this!  Hahaha.

So, thank you Janette, for inspiring me to finally get a grip and take this whole cooking plan into action!  I am so excited!