No Mom Talk Mondays: The Grocery Game

Life is going to change real fast! In a week, I’ll be going to back to work while still trying to manage a household.  I’m already struggling and I can at least grocery shop during the day and start dinner at 4:30pm. I’ll be surprised if this house doesn’t crumble once I return to work.

In university, I used to love grocery shopping. Pushing a cart down those aisles represented my newly attained freedom. I was no longer eating from Mom and Dad’s fridge. I could eat what I wanted when I wanted. Bring on the kraft dinner! Bring on the garlic fingers! Bring on the Reece’s Peanut Butter Puffs! Bring on the freshman fifteen!

Slowly, my enthusiasm for grocery shopping started to diminish once I started shopping with Dan. He would tell me that I should be eating healthier. (WHAT?! Living off canned and boxed food isn’t healthy? Shuddap!). Not only were we attempting to buy more real food, we also had to be concerned with price (why do you think I was buying Kraft Dinner, huh?).

Now that we’re a family, grocery shopping has become akin to a chore.

And once I go back to work, it is only going to get harder to accomplish.

So, I’ve decided the best way to solve my problem is to get organized and make a game of it.

Step One: Get Organized!
In other words, I need to start meal planning. Give each day a theme. We don’t need to stick with the same recipes weekly, but having a place to start will make planning meals so much easier.

Here’s what I’m going with:

• Monday: White Meat (most likely, chicken)
• Tuesday: Casserole
• Wednesday: Pasta
• Thursday: Vegetarian
• Friday: FUN (ie: Pizza or Tacos)
• Saturday: Red Meat (most likely, beef)
• Sunday: Slowcooker
• Backup meal if we want a change: Fish