Once A Month Cooking! Part 1

Saving Time AND Money with Once A Month Cooking! ;)

I am going to be doing this "blog" in 4 different parts! Sooo.. I'm not leaving you hanging! ;) Its just a LOT easier than me sitting here typing for 4 hours! If you have any questions message or email me!

Don't you HATE when you come home from a looooong day at work and have to slave over a stove cooking for a few hours?! Even though I don't work, I do go to school full time and by the time my husband and I are home the LAST thing either one of us wants to do is slave over a hot stove cooking! BLAH! I HATE it! I absolutely HATE cooking unless its SWEETS! ;) We usually bust out the "menu basket" and search for some sort of take out we could pick up in a hurry, no matter the cost! After you do this a few times, it REALLY does put a strain on your wallet! At one point, I added up the take out bills for a month total and it was wayyyyy over $300.00! WOW! That could have been a car payment!

After doing some research, I discovered Once A Month Cooking about a year ago! So what is Once A Month Cooking, you ask!? It is a method of cooking at which you pick ONE day out of the month and cook/prepare ALL of the meals for a month! You freeze ALL these meals that you prepare and then just pull it out on which ever day you have decided to cook it!

Even though you will spend more at the grocery store ONCE... you WILL save money! By using coupons and organizing my Once A Month Cooking shopping list, I was able to cut my grocery bill down from about $500.00 a month to around $175.00! So thats only $43.75 a WEEK I spend on groceries! **Note this does NOT include diapers nor fresh fruit or fresh veggies other than potatoes! I RARELY buy fresh fruit as I think frozen is just as good.. some studies even show its better! So this DOES include Frozen fruit and veggies, but NOT FRESH, like grapes, bananas and oranges!...BUT it DOES include paper and cleaning products!** During the month I do have to go buy those fresh fruits I listed because well..I've got a growing 2 year old!

How to start!

1. At the beginning of the month, I make out my menu for the ENTIRE month..THIS includes Breakfast, lunch, AND DINNER! I find it easy to use one of those giant desk calendars! I know what we will be having.. and which day we will be what! IF we want to eat out.. I set a budget! For example, Recently we have started eating out ONCE a week and usually our budget is $20.00 for that ONE time! When times were tough financially for us, we ate out maybe once a month or none! Whatever the case may be.. I write it ALL out! The key to this whole ordeal is PLANNING and ORGANIZATION! You will then need to designate a day for you to do all of your cooking! I prefer Sundays or Mondays!

2. Once I have everything planned and written out on the calendar, I then make ANOTHER list--"TO BUY LIST"! This list all of the ingredients I am going to need to make ALL of these meals! If I want to include fresh veggies or a salad.. I write out what I will need and which week I will need it!

3. Since I do stockpile, I see what's available in my pantry and freezer. If I have a product in my pantry then I mark it off the "TO BUY LIST."

4. I do the couponing deal next! ;) Match up sales with coupons...etc. Then I go shopping!!

5. Then its Happy Cooking Day! I make sure I do my OAMC only a few days after I get the groceries! Remember.. You DO NOT need to Freeze.. then Unfreeze.. then Refreeze meat! Its not healthy! Also, I like making a list of the order I am going to cook stuff! Like I have a have 3 meals that require baked chicken... I bake all the chicken needed for those 3 meals at once! Then I can just create those chicken meals together! ;)---ORGANIZATION! 

IF you are afraid you don't have a big enough freezer then you can always take the Once A "Month" and turn it into Once A "WEEK" or Once Every "TWO WEEKS" cooking! It doesn't always have to be Once A "MONTH!"

Next Blog....Cooking Days & Recipes!