Since I have been married almost 30 years now,. I have always spent half  a day in the kitchen and made all of the food for the week. I find this easier, less clean up and there is always food prepared ... good for dieting. It reduces the temptation to pick up something from a fast food restaurant that is not good for your waistline or budget. When I worked full time that meant Saturday morning was my cooking time. I would have both crock pots going, the oven full and before you know it the meals were prepared.

This does require some preparation and fore thought to make sure you have all the ingredients on hand. It all starts with what is on sale this week at the store, any good buys on meat, or produce and what is left in the freezer. And sometimes the whole menu changes when I get to the store because there is a great buy on beef and I was planning on chicken for many of my dishes. I always try to do a soup, 2-3 main dishes, and prepare some type of meat. I know this system may seem like a lot of work for some but once you do it, the fact you don't have to fix the main course for the whole week really helps cut  down time in the kitchen. At dinner all there is to do is fix a salad or vegetable and dinner is ready. In fact my husband always gets out what we are eating for the meal and I fix the vegetable or salad.

I will give you an example of what was done after Thanksgiving.

We had a 20 pound turkey, we baked the turkey and cut the breast meat into serving size portions and put them into the freezer. The rest of the turkey we took the meat off the carcass and packaged it up into 3 cup servings which was used in the dishes below.

1. Sliced Turkey breast....white meat
2. Hot and Sour Turkey Soup....with the turkey carcass
3. Turkey tacos....prepare the dark meat with seasoning and freeze
4. Turkey Enchiladas... casserole with the dark meat
5. Turkey pot pies....dark meat

All this took around 3 hours of prep and then there was cooking time. So by late morning everything is done and cooling.

Package up anything that was left to be used in the future. After the meals were prepared they were divided into serving size portions and frozen. Since I cook every week there is always a large variety of food in the freezer so really leftovers are something that's not an issue. The dishes are rotated with beef, chicken, pork and fish dishes everyday.

I hope this will give you some inspiration into how to save money and  time in the kitchen.
Tamara

 We are interested in health but it must be good food not taste like "healthy  food" that only a brave few will eat. Also I'm always looking for a way to save a buck and spend less time in the kitchen. So I thought I would share some of my tips that we always do when shopping.

In our family there are only the two of us, but these tips will work for any size family. Have one of the children search on line for the ads or be responsible for the grocery list. We don't clip coupons because most items are on processed foods which we never buy. So the the price matching works best for us.

PRICE MATCH
The day before we shop, one of us looks at the ads on line for the grocery stores in our area since we don't get the local paper. If we need some type of meat and chicken for example is on sale, I will base a few meals around chicken. We also price match, for example we have a Walmart in our town so if one of the other stores has pineapples on sale and it's not a store that we frequent I will buy it at Walmart for the same price as the competitors ad. I write the item and  competitors price on our grocery list. Walmart will match it at the check out, just tell them the competitors price.

Who to Check on line
Edwards Grocery in Harrison
Aldi in Harrison
Aldi in West Plains
Town & Country in Mountain Home
Harps in Mountain Home
Walgreens in Mountain Home
Sunfest in Gasville

MAKE LIST
It's the simple things in life that are the hardest, like making a grocery list and getting out the door with said list. If you are going to save money and do any type of meal planning a list is a must. Our solution is a piece of paper held on the refrigerator with a magnet. When ever we notice we need something, we write it on the list. We only go to town once a week, we pay bills and stop at the bank along with other stops. So if it's not on the list we do not make a special trip in town gas costs money.  This is a training issue once you get use to using a list getting out the door with it is the next big issue. So now you have your list with your price matching items on the list you are set to go.

KNOW YOUR STORES
We shop 3 different stores, one has a great meat department and baking section, the other which is Walgreens (who would guess)  has the best price for milk and eggs, the basics. The third is Walmart which will price match the competitors prices. So we start at one and end up at Walmart, the reason for this order is if there is an ad for an item and the product is out of stock or looks a bit under the weather Walmart will match the price, so you always get the best value.

BRING A CALCULATOR
In our small town the stores don't give you the price per unit on the labels so we do check by taking the price of the product and dividing it by the ounces to find what the price per unit is of the item. You will be amazed even if the item is on sale a smaller size might be a better buy. If you are shopping with children this is a good math lesson while instilling how to be a good consumer.

I hope some of my tips will help you plan your next shopping trip and save you some money.
Tamara