Skip to main content

Budgeting, Meal Planning, Stockpiling, and Morning Routines

We did it!!  That's me and DD, we set the Budget, Planned the Meals (or borrowed somebody else's meal plan), got our Morning Routines done and made the big shopping trip to Aldi.  Now our stockpiles are set for a month.  whew!

If I truly had a full stockpile system in place, it would be for the better part of a year, not just a month.  But this is a starting place.  And it's done!    We have bought all the necessary ingredients for 25 dinners and it came to just under $180 Aus.  This is the meal plan shared here  ( http://www.iamthatlady.com/25-meals-for-under-150-at-aldi/ ).  I bought nearly everything on the list, and made up for the few I didn't get by picking up a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread just because K loves it and a few other items.

Overall, I am very pleased and surprised that food prices here in Aus are that close to what they are in the US.  In my own mind, I had figured we were paying double.

In our budget, we set aside $100/wk for food.  This is specifically food, not household goods, not hba, not cleaning supplies.  Just food, but it can be any form -- fresh, frozen, bulk, seeds, etc.  So I expected to spend more than just $100 for this shopping trip and expected (hoped) it would be worth it and we wouldn't be down to pb&j sandwiches for the last week of the month.

Without a budget in place, I wouldn't know if making this trip to Toowoomba to shop at Aldi would be a value, but now that I've done it, I see that it is, even with the cost of gas included.  And gas prices were 10 cents per liter less in Toowoomba so I'll fill up there next time instead of Dalby.

As far as the budget goes, out of the $400, I still have $220 left for the month to cover breakfast, lunch and snacks, but really I think I can bring it down at least to $100; afterall most lunch are just leftovers from supper and breakfast is cheap as cheap can be (eggs from our own chickens and oatmeal).  That should give us a savings in food of $120/month!  That's $1440 for the year!

Next month will be a test as I write my own meal plan.  I'll definitely keep some of the meals in, but some of our favorites will be plugged in for others.

And we never would have gotten on the road this morning without our Morning Routines.  I got up and got mine done, then got DD up and got her started on her own morning routine.  We set the goal of leaving the house by 8:30 which turned into 9:00, but that was ok.  We had snacks/lunch and water bottles packed, along with a box of toys for her.  Before leaving town, we had a stop at the ATM for cash and another stop at the gas station to fuel up the car.  And just outside of town, we had one last stop to move her car seat from the sunny side of the car to the shady side.

Routines, Budgeting, Meal Planning, and Stockpiling... some of the cogs on the wheel of our life.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Homeschooling and Field Trips

After reading Homeschool Adventures: Learning through Field Trips by Melissa Calaap, I knew field trips were going to be a regular part of our homeschool journey. Hands-on learning, experiences, talking with people on site.. that is where deep learning happens. And honestly, field trips were the best days of my own public school experience. Hello Ft Wayne Children's Zoo, Amish Acres, and Cotton Bowl Parade. My local homeschool community regularly organized park days, the occasional trip to the museum, IMAX movie, and other one-off meet-ups, but there wasn't a regular set pattern of field trips on the caliber of what I was looking for. So I had a decision to make. Did I sit and wait for others to create the opportunities I was looking for or did I do it myself? Now, coming from the public school background I came from, my first inclination was to wait for others to come up with the idea and organize it. I mean that's how it worked at the schools, right? In fact, the school a

So Much Stuff

We live in a world of SO MUCH stuff. It's overwhelming just how much stuff there is in our world, at least in the US part of the world. Yesterday, I had a couple of hours to kill, and because my husband and I have decided we would prefer to furnish our home with antiques, I decided to take a walk through the local antiques mall. The antiques mall is in an old building downtown that used to be a JCPenney, so if you're familiar with the JCPenney stores of the 1970s and before, you'll know what I mean when I say it's big, really big, as in 3 floors of stalls of antiques. And the antiques range as far as they can from crochet-edged hankies to pyrex bowls to cast iron hand pumps to hoosier cupboards. Truly, if you're looking for a specific item, and you're willing to spend the time, you'll find it in this store. So much stuff.  Most of it just sits there, collecting dust. Like wall-hanging thread holder which I first spotted the first time I w

Learning about Home Education and Homeschooling

What is home ed? How does homeschooling work? Will my kids be behind? How do I choose a curriculum? Will my kids have friends? and more are all questions that get asked when parents start looking into home education for their children. So where is the place to go to get all this information? Where is the best place to learn about the topic of homeschool? My friend, there is not one place to go. There just isn't because home ed is as varied and individualized as the families that choose it. And even within families with multiple children, it varies. And that is one of the many, many benefits of home ed. So where to start?  And that, I can help you with. There are many, many resources for learning about home ed and they come in different media, so go with works for you, for where you are right now. And later, once you know a bit, then push yourself into something less comfortable. FILMS Class Dismissed -  http://classdismissedmovie.com/ Self Taught -  https://www.selftaughtmovie.com