{Budget Groceries}: meal planning

I have shared before about our student loan debt, and the chaos of balancing my job and motherhood. I cannot say thank you enough to my friends and family that have walked along with me through this struggle, and encouraged me to abide in God. I now understand why God warns us to not borrow money. Debt sucks. 

Bryan has noticed my stress with balancing my role as a working-momma and motherhood, and offered to hire a cleaning service to help me with my bi-weekly cleaning. This was a helpful offer, but it has also been humbling because I have to admit that I'm not perfect. I can't be a perfect employee, a perfect mother, and a perfect homemaker. I need help, or I need to live with the chaos.

I want our financial budget to stay the same when we hire the cleaning service in February, so I had to "find" money. This left me with two options: cancel our cable or lower our grocery budget. Bryan voted for lowering our grocery budget {thanks to ESPN}.

I normally shop at Krogers because it's 1 mile down the street in the neighborhood, but I probably make 2-3 stops a week because of the convince. We spend $120-$150 per week on groceries not counting what Bryan spends eating out at lunch {weekdays only}. I also never meal plan. I just walk into Krogers and randomly buy ingredients and hope I can make a meal out of it. I hate cooking, so I'm not an organized shopper.

To save money I needed to meal plan. 

 Krogers isn't extremely expensive, but I needed to grocery shop at a more cost-effective store. A couple of my friends, Whit and MT, suggested that I do my grocery shopping at ALDI to save some cash.

I made my grocery list based on my meal plan for 5 days {I make meals to feed 6 people, so that we will have leftovers on the weekend and for work lunches}, and then headed to ALDI. ALDI doesn't carry everything, so I had to make an extra stop at Walmart to pick up toiletries and cleaning products, but adding up my ALDI + Walmart receipts I saved $50 the first week and $65 the second week. Crazy!

I am sold on ALDI now! If I can save $120 per month on groceries, then I can afford to pay our cleaning service, yay!

Meal planning is the hardest part, so I'm going to document 4 weeks of meal planning and share my meal calendar with you. If you have an ALDI or Trader Joe's near you, I encourage you to check it out! {No, no one is paying me or giving me anything to say this...it's just my opinion}

Let me know if you have any money saving tips? Saving money makes me do a happy dance! 

{ALDI Shopping Tips}:
*Go without bringing the kiddos the first time {it'll be easier}
*bring 1 quarter for the grocery cart {they're locked, and you'll get your quarter back if you take the cart back}
*bring grocery bags {you'll have to bag everything}
*they only sell in-season produce
*check out ALDI's FAQ page

{a majority of the recipes on my meal plans can be found on my Pinterest. check back in February for a complete booklet of my monthly meal plans to download for FREE}