Tired of the hustle and bustle of trying to get dinner on the table, only to wind up with unhealthy take out? This book can help you save money and time and you'll be preparing meals that are healthy for your family!
This book cannot be copied in part or whole in any format known or yet to be invented without express written consent of the copyright holder. Contact Lori Soard at Lori.LoriSoard.com for more information.
Introduction
About once a year I completely lose any semblance of sanity and redo our family budget. That act is what spurred the idea behind this book, which I originally created for my own family. After telling friends about my system for saving money on food, shopping with ease, and knowing exactly what I’ll cook at all times, I realized there was a real need for an easy-to-use, personalized program that would allow others to repeat what I was doing with my 14-day rotation menus.
When my husband and I were first married, he made about $24,000 a year and I was in school and working about ten hours a week. It was barely enough to scrape by in those days. I can remember juggling bills, trying to save enough to buy a house, and thinking that if we could just make a little more money we’d have it made. Fast forward a few years and my husband began working for Ford Motor Company. Great job, good benefits and we’d more than doubled our salary. We had been able to buy that first house finally. Our bills went up and the house needed repairs, and my husband wanted a new car (his first of many), and on and on. I decided that we would be able to make it just fine if we had a little more money coming in, so I applied for and got a job at Ford as well. Between the two of us and overtime pay, we were bringing in a six figure income, something that would have had me doing cartwheels a few years earlier.
Of course, now we needed a bigger house since we had a baby. And my husband wanted another car (his second of many). And, we wanted to take a nice vacation. It seemed to me that no matter how much we made, we just spent it. Sure, we were saving for college—a little. And we were putting a little aside for retirement. But compared to the money we threw away, it was very little indeed. It was about the time my oldest daughter turned two that my parents retired. They’d always planned to spend a year in Alaska after they retired. I knew I was about to lose my babysitter and my heart broke at the thought of sending my daughter to someone I didn’t know. I was able to leave her with my aunt for a bit, but that didn’t work out as she had her own responsibilities and plans. A tiny wish began to flutter deep in my heart. I wanted to be home with my daughter. I already felt I missed out on a lot of her daily moments. I missed her when I was at work. They were forcing us to work overtime that I didn’t need or want. I wanted the time instead—time with my daughter. I became pregnant with baby number two (I miscarried this baby but became pregnant with our second daughter a few months later) and hubby and I went on a marriage retreat where I confessed my deep desire to be home with my children.
My husband agreed that I should become a stay-at-home mom (SAHM). He didn’t want them to be left with a stranger either. Our main concern was the money issue. We’d be giving up around $70,000 a year. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? I sat down and did our budget to see if we could afford for me to stay home. After gas money, clothing for work (anything worn into a factory gets ruined or smells like oil—so you have to have separate clothing), lunches, dinners out because I’d be too tired to cook most nights, babysitters, taxes and other incidentals, I would actually only get to keep about $10,000 - $15,000 a year of that money. It hardly seemed worth it. So, we took the plunge and I began the annual ritual of reviewing our budget to see where we were being wasteful. For a while, I became the coupon queen of Greenfield, Indiana (where I lived at the time) and prided myself on my great deals. I once got 100 boxes of Banquet chicken for free (just had to pay the tax) and stuffed my freezer to the gills. I must have phoned every person I knew and dragged at least two of my neighbors over to see my stocked freezer. I was so proud of my ability to make our dollars stretch. Boy did we get sick of chicken fingers! I don’t care if I never see another chicken finger again. I quickly learned that couponing worked but took up way too much of my precious time. If time is money, and I only have so many hours to work (because after all my children are always my first priority), then I was actually losing money with the couponing. There had to be an easier way to stretch my money.
I then discovered weekly menus. Researching different sites online, I put together a weekly menu for our family. This worked well in the sense that we knew exactly what we were going to eat and what to get when we went to the store, but I was spending about $150 per week on groceries for a family of four. I redid our budget and realized that not only were we spending $150 a week, but we were spending about $400 per month eating out because we were sick of repeating the same menu over and over. So, not only was I spending too much on food, I was wasting food. I can’t tell you how much food I threw out each week because it had gone bad. It was downright depressing. So, I started “Googling” again. I searched for frugal meal ideas. More menus. Ways to save money on groceries. Anything you can think of about money and food and saving money on food. While there wasn’t a solution, it all began to spin in my brain as I thought over the ideas and how I might use them to save money. Onc site talked about using a chicken for three meals. Broil a whole chicken. Leftovers for lunch. Scraps and broth for chicken and noodles or soup. Another site talked about planning out your meals for two weeks so you always knew what you’d be having for dinner.
This book is the result of my brain twisting all the information out there and coming up with my own meal plan. This system works well for me and I believe it can easily be adapted to work for anyone out there. It can work for stay-at-home moms (SAHMs), for working moms, for a single person, a family of two, a family of four, or a family of twelve. If you have more than twelve, then God bless you and you probably need more help than I have to offer here. I hope this system saves you money and helps you eat at home more (which will save even more money).
God bless and happy eating!
Lori Soard
Excerpt
There was one thing I knew about our family menu plan—it had to be flexible. My husband is notorious for springing things on me at the last minute. Our friends like to invite us to lunch after church without notice. My husband’s family often calls a few hours before a party to invite us. Other times, we have people drop in to visit. Our meals had to be planned, yet flexible enough to incorporate additional people or to be cooked one, two, or sometimes several days later than originally planned. When I did my first two-week menu, I made it out for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on. I quickly saw that this was not going to work out. Let me give you an example…
I had planned to make sirloin steaks on the grill. I’d gotten a great deal on these steaks. Only $6.00 for four good-sized, good-looking sirloin cut steaks. Just thinking about those steaks makes my mouth water. I planned to also grill some corn on the cob and have a big salad with lots of tomatoes in red and yellow. Yum! Those steaks were our Friday night meal that week. I figured we’d celebrate the end of the week with a nice meal. I thawed the steaks. On Thursday at about five o’clock, I marinated the steaks, letting them soak in my special mixture of herbs and Worcestershire. At six o’clock the phone rang. It was some good friends of ours, inviting us to dinner. I wanted to go to dinner, so we said yes. But, the steaks! Oh, we’d just have them on Saturday. They’d only been unfrozen two days. They’d be fine. So we went to dinner…
Saturday rolled around and we found out that my husband’s step-grandmother was ill and in the hospital. Although her son had been a lousy step-father, she herself had been very good and kind to my husband and as adults we’d often gone to visit with her. We felt that we needed to make the two hour each way trip to see her. Two hours to Indianapolis; lunch at the hospital; an hour visiting; we might as well see other family while in town; two hours home with a stop by McDonald’s to eat something resembling food. The steaks still marinated in their not-so-fresh juice. Sunday rolled around and we were invited to an after-church lunch with some friends. Stuffed from lunch, we didn’t want dinner. The steaks marinated—or maybe decayed would be a better word. Monday morning found me staring into the fridge and willing my once juicy and luscious steaks back to life. But that cow wasn’t mooing. I sadly bagged the steaks and stored them in the freezer to throw out on trash day. I’d just wasted 6.00.
Clearly this idea wasn’t working. So, I came up with a new plan that was more flexible. Instead of days, I’d come up with 12 dinners and base lunch around those dinners (leftovers). I came up with three rules of thumb for this new meal plan.
Professional Reviews
Wow! Fabulous Info
I am completely impressed with this book. I loved the way Lori broke down the process so that I can come up with my own menus. My husband is happy, because he has "real" food again. And I'm happy, because I'm saving money and my precious minutes. Thanks, Lori!
~Wanda D., reader
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