1 Down, 100 to go!

       Number 18 on my 101 List is to create a recipe board using recipe cards.

       The idea here is that if you plan out a couple of weeks worth of meal plans you are much less likely to eat out because you don't know what you can make for dinner or don't think you have time to cook. Also, you will spend less money (or at least spend more wisely) when you grocery shop. This is really important to us since we are trying to free ourselves financially. I already coupon and price match almost every item that goes into our grocery cart! It saves us a ton of money!! (if you are interested in couponing and how to get started, I highly recommend Hip2Save!)

       My plan is to consistently plan out two weeks worth of meals, allowing for a night or two of eating left overs, we can work to eliminate the frantic calls between John and I at 5:00 on our busy days trying to figure out what we can do for dinner that night. We already do crock pot meals, and that helps a lot - but hopefully this will help us free up some of that wasted budget space on fattening fast food and unused groceries.

Background for Menu Board 1

       I got my idea for a menu board from a few places, Pinterest primarily though. I really like the idea of creating your own dry erase board so that you can easily write out your plans and any memos to go with that days meal. I also really liked the idea of having recipe cards so that I wouldn't fall into a rut of having the same things over and over again simply because I couldn't remember other things we liked or would like to try. My solution to create a hybrid of the two is to put a pocket on the dry erase board with recipe names and where to find that recipe (if needed...I obviously won't be putting a recipe for your basic spaghetti or quesadilla etc.) and that will allow me to just flip through the cards when it comes time to make meal planning decisions.

       For my board background I was going to use a cute piece of scrapbook paper. BUT, I'm was work, there was nothing to do since no one was in the office after Christmas; I was determined to get started on the project, no use in wasting the first of my 1001 days! While poking around on Pinterest looking for a solution to not having scrapbook paper or time to stop at the store tonight, I stumbled upon one of my (forgotten) favorite things by Martha Stewart for weddings! And, right below it on her website was this other gorgeous printable template, so between the two - I had my pieced together background for the board.

Background for Menu Board 2

When I got home and went to frame the paper to finish the project I found a much larger frame than what I had remembered having. So, this is my finished product! It will let me write out the menu for two weeks, any grocery lists, messages etc. Then on index cards I wrote out the name of dishes we make and if I anticipate needing to reference the recipe I notated where I can find it.

(The picture quality isn't the greatest, but you might be able to see that on Wednesdays and Thursdays I have listed "Biblical/Sandwiches". We have church activities on Wednesday and we coach basketball practices on Thursday so we either have a Biblical meal, seek and ye shall find ; ) or we plan ahead and take sandwiches.)