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| Yes, I look this sexy when I'm sick |
You may be wondering what took me so long to write my latest blog post
and the answer is simple; I was sick and avoiding having to write another fail
blog. Being sick is one of the most annoying and time-wasting things, but I
think getting a cold was my body’s way of telling me to slow… down. These days
I have been stretching myself thin with work and French classes.
When I started this debt repayment process, I was stuck in a lot of
habits like using my debit card for everything, eating out, not saving, not
planning and lately I find that I have gotten back into some of my old habits
that got me into debt. In my typical fashion, the week started out with really
good intentions; I was ready to make a meal plan and figure out how I was going
to find ways to cut my outside-of-the-budget spending. The problem is that I
never got around to making that meal plan. Not only did I not do the plan, I
took out my weekly allowance and still used my debit card to go out and buy $60
worth of records (I’m a sucker for Florence
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| My personal motto |
Now without being too offensive to the people with kids and spouses, why
is every financial book geared towards you guys? Don’t these financial planners
know that I am perfectly capable of effing up my finances without a family and
a mortgage? The majority of all the meal plans and recipes that I find are for
families, which has pros and cons. The pro is that the meals you make will
stretch out for a long time. The con is that it’s easy to get sick of something
when you eat 6 portions of it. I remember seeing one meal planner for couples
on someone else’s blog where she talked about going through flyers and looking
at what was on sale and making a plan based on that. That is all well and good,
but for me, that’s a lot of work and I don’t keep any flyer of any kind. She
did have a good idea or two, which I will now steal and add into my own
planning.
Anyway, I have decided to use this blog post to make my meal plan for
the week. Now I have no excuses, sigh. I did do some research and I found a
couple of interesting ideas from other blogs. This time of year it is more
important to implement a meal plan what with all the holiday parties,
pot-lucks, work lunches and so on that keep coming up, or maybe that’s even more
of a good reason to be having a meal plan? The first thing to do is to get a
program to make a list or spreadsheet. Certainly, it pays to plan ahead and it
will save you time in the long run when you are out grocery shopping or doing
something similar.
I want my meal plans to start on Wednesdays because that’s when I get
paid and I find that people tend to overcrowd the grocery stores on the
weekends so when I shop on a Wednesday I can avoid the clutter and find more
selection. I worked at a grocery store for 4 years so I know that major grocery
chains get new stock in every day, but it runs out when there are more people
around and when there are sales - obviously. Usually when something runs out
it’s because everyone has ordered a lot of it and they don’t have enough to
distribute or else the person who does the ordering is incompetent. Imported
items take longer to restock because of where they come from, so you might have
better odds finding everything you are looking for if you go on a weekday.
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| The ultimate time saver! |
Start your list by putting in the days of the week (duh). Next, add in
all of the meals that you are going to have to make. For example, each day
should have breakfast (if you eat breakfast), lunch, dinner, and 2 snacks
because let’s get serious; most of us have a little afternoon craving for
chocolate or some other delicious food most afternoons at work. If you’re
sharing groceries with a partner, then add them into your plan as well. If you
know that you are going to be really busy one day, then don’t choose to do a
complicated meal where you end up eating at 10:00 pm after an 11 hour day. I
have had days like that where we want to kill each other over how hungry we
are. So, make sure that when you plan your recipes that you look at the cooking
plans or choose recipes that can be cooked in a Crockpot.
Here’s an example of how my week could
look (the J is for me, the R is for my partner):
Wednesday
Breakfast: J: Oatmeal; R:
Cereal (Kashi);
Snack 1: J: Banana, yogurt;
R: off
Lunch: J&R: Tuesday
Dinner Leftovers
Snack 2: J: Carrot Sticks
with dip; R; off
Dinner: J&R: Rosemary
Chicken Skillet with Potatoes (Recipe)
Thursday
Breakfast: J: Cereal; R:
Toast with Peanut Butter and Honey
Snack 1: J: 2 Mandarin
oranges; R: off
Lunch: J&R: Leftover
Chicken Salad Sandwich
Snack 2: J: Cliff Bar
Dinner: J&R: Thai Red
Curry Shrimp with Jasmine Rice
Friday
Breakfast: J: Oatmeal; R:
Cereal (Kashi)
Snack 1: J: Banana and
Yogurt; R: Cliff Bar
Lunch: J: Lunch with Cafeteria
with coworker; R: Leftover Curry Shrimp
Snack 2: J: Banana; R;
Almonds
Dinner: J&R: Butter
Chicken with rice
Saturday
Breakfast: J: Oatmeal (PC
Blue Menu); R: Cereal (Kashi)
Snack 1: J: off; R: Cliff Bar
Lunch: J&R: Friday
night leftovers
Snack 2: R; Almonds
Dinner: J&R: Lasagna
Sunday
Breakfast: R: Oatmeal,
smoothie
Brunch: J: Bacon, eggs,
toast, orange juice
Lunch: R: Leftover
Lasagna
Dinner: Potluck Dinner: J
making Roast Turkey and Stuffing
Monday
Breakfast: J: Oatmeal (PC
Blue Menu); R: Cereal (Kashi)
Snack 1: J: Bagel with
Cream Cheese; R: Cliff
Bar
Lunch: J&R: Leftover
Turkey
Snack 2: J: Almonds; R; Banana
Dinner: J&R: Leftovers
Tuesday
Breakfast: J&R: Cereal
(Kashi)
Snack 1: J: Oatmeal; R; Orange
Lunch: J&R: Chicken
Salad Sandwich
Snack 2: J: Carrot Sticks;
R: Protein Shake
Dinner: J&R: Whole
Wheat Pasta with Tomato Sauce
Now you’ll notice that I don’t include drinks on weekdays in here. I
have a coffee club at work, so we all just buy some coffee every month and
contribute that way instead of buying a coffee out every day and the ol' balls and chain works at a
restaurant, so he can get his coffee or tea there. This plan not only saves us
money, but time as well. I also bought a water jug for the office so that I can
have filtered water on hand to drink everyday instead of having to buy bottled
water or something like that. The oatmeal is the instant kind that I bring to
work. It’s really that simple, so just get it together and you can be well on
your way to being a successful debt destroyer like me!
On a side tangent,
I have now paid off $15,000 worth of debt!
Isn’t that incredible?
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