Menu planning has been neglected this summer in favor of spontaneous grilling out and going with the lazy summer flow. School begins for us this week though and I need to get back in my menu-planning groove. Since I was working on our own planner, I wanted to share it with you so you could see what we have planned for this month. I hope it will inspire you for your own family meals this month.
1. Old-Fashioned Spaghetti & Meatballs (Make double batch of meatballs for later in the month)
2. Sloppy Joes & Seasoned Baked Potato Wedges
3. Caesar Chicken Pasta Salad With Homemade Pitas
4. Pita Pizzas (made from leftover pitas) & Salad
5. Parmesan Chicken Drumsticks, Steamed Broccoli, & Rice
6. Oatmeal Waffles with homemade syrup & orange juice
7. Leftovers Night
8. Chicken Broccoli Lo Mein with Rice
9. Herb Baked Tilapia, Chicken-Flavored Rice, & Microwave Corn in Butter Sauce
10. Meatball Subs on Homemade Rolls (meatballs from freezer)
11. Jerk Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, & Baby Peas
12. Homemade Pizza Night
13. Slow Cooker Lemon Chicken, Rice, & Steamed Broccoli
14. Leftovers Night
15. French Toast with homemade syrup & orange juice
16. Italian Pork Chops over Spaghetti
17. Chicken BBQ with Pretzels & Carrot Sticks
18. Salmon Pockets, Rice, & Baby Peas
19. Chicken Pasta Milano with Salad & Bread
20. Homemade Pizza Night
21. Leftovers Night
22. Yeast Waffles with homemade syrup & orange juice
23. Chicken Tacos with Tortilla Chips
24. Sarah’s Tilapia, Rice, & Corn
25. “Roasted” Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, & Baby Peas (save & shred leftover chicken)
26. Chicken Salad Sandwiches (from leftover chicken), Pretzels & Carrot Sticks
27. Bread Machine Calzones With Dipping Sauce
28. Leftovers
Snacks: Banana Bread, Chewy Granola Bars, Cinnamon Muffins, Air Popped Popcorn, Rice Krispie Treats, Oatmeal & Chocolate Chip Muffins
I also made a printable version of my planner and am making it available for you here:
I hit the grocery store and accomplished all of our grocery shopping (including food for breakfast & lunches) for one month for $175. That leaves us an extra $25 in the budget for our milk and anything else that comes up. Our budget has gone up a lot with the grocery prices, but it also gone up because I have not been planning as well. I am hopeful that we can stay on track this month.
Looking for more tips on menu planning? Be sure to check out my article on how I do my menu plans! It offers an overview on some ways you can start menu planning and find the right style of planners for your family!
With grocery prices rising, what is your grocery budget for your family? What style of menu planning works for you (planning weekly, planning monthly, no plan at all)?
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27 Responses to “Back To School Free Menu Planner”
I’m amazed at $175! We’re a family of 8 (almost) and I can do it $100/week if I have a little extra every once in awhile to stockpile. We’ve brought it down from $200/wk since winter. I think I’m going to shoot for an average of $125-150/wk for 8 of us, including diapers, toiletries, food, eating out, etc.
Here’s my basics to menu planning: http://www.lifeasmom.com/2008/05/meal-planning-101.html
I love this kind of stuff! I am back to work and menu planning is a necessity for me to maintain my sanity. Thanks for the month of meals!
wow less then 200 bucks for a month where do you shop? does that include your kids lunch box or does he buy lunches?? mine is picky and packs a lunch every day!
Your menu sounds delicious – just the kick in the pants I need! I have always been a faithful menu planner, but I’ve gotten away from it this summer too. We are homeschooling Ryan this year (K) and he will also be starting Fall baseball in a couple of weeks, so getting back to menu planning is a must!
Our grocery budget until the first of this year was $125 for the month. That covered those extra gallons of milk and loaves of bread.
NOW, I don’t know. I’ve probably been spending close to $300 a month, but I know that is mostly because of the sloppy way I’ve been shopping. I don’t expect I’ll see $125 again, but I think I can get it to $200. I shop for the month as well, but I’m trying to make it to September with what we have already.
Thanks for the inspiration!
I’ve been struggling with this the last few months. First I was going crazy with coupons and marked down food and menu planning from that stash. Then I realized that I felt physically bad from all the prepared food we were eating (and it wasn’t that much compared to Average American). Now I’m struggling with needing to lose weight (this is not a new problem but I did gain some weight eating not-from-scratch) and wanting to eat more whole foods. I don’t know why my brain is not engaging very quickly on this matter…plan meals, go shopping, prepare meals, eat. Not hard, right? We’ve had a stressful summer (both good and bad stuff) and I think my mental acuity is G O N E.
Can’t wait to see other folks ideas to get inspired.
Lisa
ps I’m having some great success using sparkpeople.com to track exercise, diet and small goals. The website is free and there are lots of ads to ignore but the information is solid and super positive.
We spend about $650 a month on groceries and work on a monthly planning routine.
I love your menu planning and it has inspired me to start doing my own. However, I do want to know more about your breakfast & lunch foods. What kinds of meals are you serving at those times? I'm always at a loss of what to feed my family for those two meals.
Thanks!
Thanks for the inspiration. I just threw the stuff in the crock pot for bbq chicken. I also bookmarked three others. I often get into a slump and need ideas from others. I also like that they use regular ingrededients that I normally have on hand. Thanks again Amy.
Fishmama- There are only four in my family so I think yo are doing great on your budget! You should be really proud!
teachingtinytots- I did almost all my shopping at Aldi, but hit Meijer this week for meat (they had a sale on buy one get one free on tilapia & on packages of frozen chicken breasts). I did have a few of the items in my pantry, but bought almost everything on my shopping day. My son will be in half day kindergarten so he will just eat at home so lunches & breakfasts are factored in for everyone.
Anonymous- Our lunches & breakfasts are a little less inspired
My kids like routine so we do bagels, toast, cereal, and/or eggs for breakfast. For lunch we do macaroni, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, or tortilla pizzas for lunch. I am not very inventive, but I try to make up for it with the dinner hour 
Nicki- That chicken bbq is a favorite in our house. The longer you cook it, the more the BBQ flavor shines. I don't cook it as long because my kids like the sweet & tangy side of things. I hope you enjoy it- let me know how it turns out!
I am in awe of you. First, to shop for a month at a time, and also to do it so frugally. We live very frugally, and I still struggle with the food bill. Part of the problem is that there are six of us and we eat such different foods. Three are vegetarians and three are carnivores. I do plan out a week or two of meals prior to going shopping. I am inspired by you to try a month at a time. Thanks for your tips and advice.
Debbie-
I am sure it must be very difficult with family members with different dietary needs. I know our budget would change a lot if we had any dietary concerns. I am sure you are doing a wonderful job and thank you so much for the comment!
its about 15 mins away but if it could save me that much i might have to give it a try!they had a couple of things i was intrested in for their special next week anyway!
We have been aiming for $40-50 a week and we do usually have just a bit of the staples piled up in the pantry. This includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner plus snacks for our family of 3.
With our dietary issues (my son is allergic to dairy/soy and I have insulin resistance) it runs up a little more than I would like, so without those issues it could be less!
I participate in Menu Plan Monday over at http://orgjunkie.com/
Your menu sounds great and even though I couldn’t possibly think about doing one for a month, I’m definitly borrowing some ideas.
BTW the link for the lemon chicken goes to another recipe.
Thanks!
Love, love, love Organizing Junkie! I was planning to participate yesterday, but didn’t have everything done in time. Definitely next time!!
Brandy- The lemon chicken is there- just scroll down and it is the last recipe listed. I should have noted that- thanks!
Amy, you’re amazing! I love your site and your tips and menus are great. I shop almost exclusively at Aldi so I’m delighted that I can get mostly all of these ingredients from there. I can’t wait to get to work on my menu planning….or maybe I’ll just snag yours!
This could not have come at a better time. I am a believer of menu planning but unfortunately I’ve been slacking in that dept. this summer. It’s just been too hot to cook or eat. With our girls returning to school and sports within the next few days, I spent some time on Thursday evening preparing a menu for 2 weeks and making my grocery list. I went shopping on Saturday and my total was $183. That will get us through 2 weeks. Typically we spend about $400/mo. for a family of 4 (2 teen girls and my husband who is also a triathlete – he literally could eat us out of house and home depending upon his training schedule). My goal is to cook from scratch but on occasion I do allow myself a ‘night off’ by using some convenience foods.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Nice menu Amy.
You’re post got me thinking about being “menu challenged.” After looking at your menu and visiting a few others, I finally realize why I’m menu challenged and possibly what I can do about it. Thanks.
Being married to a guy with a Ph.D. in nutrition has its ups and downs. He’s got some pretty firm “convictions” about food and one of them is vegetables – at least 3 with supper plus others during the day (btw, potatoes don’t count). I also have to factor in some food sensitivies.
Menu plan tutorials (or frugal budgeting 101) usually don’t help me because they skip the veggies or only list one. For me, getting the veggies planned is my biggest challenge.
Right now I basically buy staples and meat in bulk for a cheaper prices and see then what’s colorful and in season for produce. I generally decide what we’ll eat as we go, but I’m someone who really does like a plan.
After thinking about it more this morning, I’m thinking about trying to plan a month of main dishes, go shopping for veggies and come home to plan the veg menu one week at a time. That might just work for me.
Does anyone else struggle with vegetable and/or side dish planning? Or doesn’t anybody eat vegetables???
Amy – I love your planners and recipes. You cook like a “real” person and break it down so easily! And, these recipes look yummy too – you’re just the best!!
Our grocery budget is $75/week but that includes formula and hygiene items. That may have to rise a little since I’m convincing my son to pack his lunch everyday – we’ll see.
I prefer to plan weekly just because I’m not sure that I would actually stick to a monthly plan. And, since I grocery shop weekly I can use supplies from my stockpiling and fresh produce each week too. But, with my kids back at school, it would definitely be more efficient to do a monthly plan since I’d have more time to plan it out. I’m up to try anything and see how it goes – I just want to save time and headaches in the end, and your advice always helps with that!
Janel- Sides are definitely a difficult aspect of menu planning and seem to be overlooked a lot. We do one or two vegetables usually per meal and I just buy the frozen packages of veggies to make things easier. We do fresh broccoli, fresh carrots, and salads. In the freezer I stock lots of bags of frozen vegetables for the end of the month, when we start to run out of the fresh stuff. I am also relying on my garden this year for tomatoes and fresh herbs to add some flavor to our dishes.
Thank you guys so much for sharing!
Thanks for all the great links! I’m always looking for new recipes to try, and after a few “duds” my new strategy is to only try recipes suggested by others for awhile!
I posted for MPM a little about how I currently menu plan, stop by if you’re interested.
Basically, I am working week to week now, but my goal by the end of August is to start working toward a monthly plan. I like simplemom’s method of taking 2 weeks of menus and shuffling them so each meal gets fixed 2X for a month long menu plan.
I am definitely going to hit Aldi’s very soon, we just had one open up in our area!
Amy Clark, you rock! Thanks so much for these meal plans!
I have been trying to whittle away at my grocery bill. It averages $125 per week & I have cut way back on the Starbucks. Our local grocery store Meijer's has been good about buy one get ones on things like meat so that has helped too. Our treats out now are Little Caesar's $5 hot n ready pizza or $5 footlongs at Subway. The thing that kills us when we get back to school is lunches – so many things to put in them!
Thanks for the great recipes and ideas. I can’t wait to make a few of them!
Thanks so much for sharing your menu plans! I love your recipes and it has inspired me to get back to making dinner.
Just wanted to say THANK YOU for making this menu. I’ve been using it all month. I changed the order a bit to fit with our schedule. So far we have enjoyed each recipe. There are a lot of new things that I’ve enjoyed making, like the pita bread! We never have pita bread because it’s not available at Aldi, and I never considered making it myself. It was delicious. I have never made fish before, because my husband doesn’t like it. I made the tilapia recipe last night because he was not home. To my surprise, my picky daughter loved it, and my son had a second serving! I am an Aldi shopper so it’s nice to know that almost everything can be purchased there. So thanks for making my life easier and all of our lives yummier with this menu!