Couponing101 - Part 1: Menu Planning

Just joining the Couponing 101 series? Catch up here:

• Inroduction

First thing to note: If you are not planning your meals each week and grocery shopping according to your menu - DO THAT RIGHT NOW. Without cutting a single coupon you will start to see a savings in your grocery spending, just from using recipes, menus and a grocery list.

There are several ways to organize your shopping list, plan your deals and coordinate your meals. I have tried all of these at one point or another.

Planning Meals Option #1

1. Go through weekly store ads (these come in your mail and/or in your newspaper each week) and note the best priced meats.
   
2. Find recipes based on items that are on sale that week.


3. Add to your grocery list any other ingredients you’ll need or any other sale items you want to stock up on.

There is a bood blog post on Mummy Deals on how to plan meals around the sales.

Planning Meals Option #2

1. Plan a week of meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner)


2. Write down all ingredients needed for recipes.


3. Go through weekly store ads and note any items (that you may or may not need for your weekly meals) and make a list of items you want to buy because they are on sale.

Planning Meals Option #3

Sometimes I get busy. I start to dread pulling out my cookbooks or scouring the internet for recipes. I detest the hours I spend trying to put together weekly meal plans. So, I've found that there are ways to get other people to do this for you!

Use any of the following meal-planning websites to help you cut down on the time you spend finding recipes and meal ideas:

• E-Mealz
  
• RelishRelish
  
• WovenFare
  
• Menus4Moms

Currently, my couponing "workflow" looks like this:

1. Plan my menu for the entire week (breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks).
   
2. Go through all of the recipes for my menu and write down any ingredients I don't have in my stockpile and that I need to buy.
   
3. Browse the weekly grocery store ads and note if any of the items I need for my menu are on sale at any of the stores.
   
4. Browse the weekly grocery store ads and note if there are any items on sale that I need to stock up on.
   
5. Peruse Hot Coupon World for all of the grocery stores I shop at and note if I missed any *hot* deals. (Don't worry - I'll talk about HotCouponWorld and deals soon!)
   
6. Print off my grocery list.
   
7. Cut out any coupons I plan on using.
   
8. Head to the store(s)!

You can download a copy of the spreadsheet I use to organized my grocery list(s) here or in the sidebar to the right.

I also wrote a fairly extensive post on organizing your recipes and meals here.

As always, feel free to ask any question. I'll be hanging out in the comments section to talk deals and steals!