Last week we started on our plan to reduce excessive food spending and food waste by using up all of our leftovers, not eating out, not letting food rot in the fridge before we got to it, and buying according to our meal plan, which allowed for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks for the snackie ones.  Also, the ingredients for making deserts are always on hand, you just have to want them enough to make them.

So, on objective one, we did use up all of our leftovers last week, so I am quite proud of that.  That has been our second worst issue when it comes to food waste, whether it be from cooked food or takeout food.

We cleaned out both fridges before making a meal plan so we knew exactly what we had that was good and could be used.  It wasn't a lot.  Of course we had all the meat in the fridge, so we didn't even have to buy that at all.  So starting with what we had, we then looked in the garden to see what we had to use there.  And then I made a meal plan up that would use those ingredients up for the week and might use items in the sales ads as well for fruits and vegetables and other staples.  We were out of nearly every kind of cheese we use.  I have to limit my cheese use, but I found a brand of thinly sliced Havarti that is only 120 mg of sodium per slice, so I can use two slices on a cheeseburger instead of one.

But everyone else eats a lot of different types of cheeses, so I did stock up on that, and because I was going to be making breakfast burritos and egg muffin sandwiches.  Grocery shopping went well, we stuck to buying for the meal plan.  I stuck to the budget and that was while buying 70 pounds of organic carrots to can ($69.93) last week.  We will be buying 100 pounds of yellow potatoes to can out of the next budget on Friday, but that will still cost less than the carrots, because they won't be organic.

So we stuck to our meal plan and we did not let food rot in the fridge.  As for eating out, well that is something we did not do, though it came close, mostly because I kept falling asleep due to the cold medicine I was taking.  I was falling asleep at 3:00 and sleeping until 6:30 or 7:00 for 3 or 4 days last week.  So I started making stuff up ahead of time and telling my son when to put it in the oven and the Instant Pot so it would be ready at dinnertime and to just cover my plate and put it in the fridge and I'd warm it up when I got up.  It worked out great, except the fish night where I didn't have him cook mine since I don't like warmed up fish.

So far I have not fallen into a cooking funk, but it has only been a week.  I am not meal prepping except for breakfasts.  I want to do lunches, too.  I am not making freezer meals for dinners, yet.  But all and all, things went really well for my first week.  And since I have had a horrific cold, I think it is excellent progress.  I'll post my next meal plan in a different post.