[Cassandra]

I'm going to echo planning meals. It is a lot easier to do than you think.

I didn't start planning meals until a couple months ago, but since I have, there have been a lot of changes to how we (fiance, brother, and myself) eat. For one, it is a lot healthier. I cook most nights so we no longer eat the frozen and boxed dinners (which we used to buy more of). Grocery shopping is also a lot cheaper. No more buying things we *might* need because we don't know what we are having for dinner. We have a list of ingredients to get and we know that everything will be used and nothing will go to waste.

Here is a little tidbit to think about: restaurants plan menus based on common ingredients. Menus are planned so that every ingredient is used in at least two or three recipes. Then there will be one (or two) recipes that don't have a lot of ingredients in common with the other recipes.

Mimicking how a restaurant works will save you money. Start by picking a "theme" for each week. If chicken is on sale, look on the internet (myrecipes.com has become a favorite site of mine) for different chicken recipes. Pick three or four that have some ingredients in common (maybe you see two recipes that each need half an onion and a clove of garlic, etc.) and plan on making those. Then think about what else you would like to have that week. Again, look for recipes that have some ingredients in common.

Planning meals is really easy to do. The first time you plan your meals for the week it might take awhile. But soon you'll be really good at it and wonder why you thought it was so hard. Good luck!