Questions

Wanda over at The Shambled Shack posed a few questions that I figured I would answer. 

1. Why is it so hard to stick to a menu plan? Honestly, I have no idea but it happens to me all the time.  I end up making meal plans with meals that I love on them but something ALWAYS happens that makes me deviate from it.


2. Am I the only one that deviates this much? Definitely not.  Life happens and you deal with it.

3. Is it really worth making a plan if your constantly changing up the plan? I think it is.  This week I didn't make a meal plan at all, and I went food shopping without a list and I felt kind of lost.  I just bought things on sale or things I wanted to buy and it felt weird not knowing where everything was going to be used.  Even though a lot of things don't get used as they were intended because the meal plans change.

 4. When making your plan, do you grocery shop first or plan your meals around what is on sale for the week?  I make my meal plan and then go shopping.  I generally stock up on proteins whenever they're on sale or I can get a good deal so I don't plan my meals according to the sales.  I just go food shopping to pick up random missing ingredients and veggies/fruits.
5. How often do you grocery shop?  It depends..  usually every other week or so but sometimes weekly.  If I'm feeling particularly lazy it can go about 2.5-3 weeks.  It's just me and my husband so it's not like we need gallons of fresh milk in the fridge. 

6. How in the world do you get your pantry stocked up enough to do a pantry challenge for an entire month?   I'm a packrat?  I don't really.  I think it's a combination of going shopping while hungry so I buy weird things and then stock up on random sales or whatever looks good.  Then I get home and forget what I bought so I make other things and the new random foods get stocked into the pantry.  I also tend to forget what I bought so one week I may buy 5lbs of chicken because its a good sale.  Then the next week I might do the same because I forgot that we have plenty so then we end up with a ton of stuff. 

7. What problems have you had with menu planning and how did you solve them?  My main problems are just sticking to the actual menu plan.  I always put good stuff on there.  Life just jumps in the way.  Friends/family want to go out to dinner and of course I'm not going to say no.  Plus, sometimes I'm just not in the mood for that meal on that day when it actually happens.  I've learned to solve these problems by just going with the flow and hoping for the best.  I keep making the plans and sometimes I stick to them sometimes I don't.

8. What kind of variety do you give your menu plans? Do you stick with only three or four and rotate them?  They're all completely different.  Depending on if I'm following a diet plan (which I should be currently.. ) there may be certain meals that I really like and I know will help me stick with it.  I generally like to try out new recipes so there is at least 1 recipe that is new on there and an old standby.  It would probably be easier to rotate a few different plans but we like change and trying out new/different food so that wouldn't work for us. I find that if I'm eating lower carb, I tend to make monthly plans.  If I'm eating lower fat or just whatever I want, I make 1-2 week meal plans.  I have no idea why I differentiate, it's just always what I've done and I know it makes no sense whatsoever.
 
 
As for Food Waste Friday: No picture sorry.  I dumped out the mashed potatoes from last week and one leftover chick pea cutlet. There's quite a bit of leftovers in there that we need to finish up this weekend.