Why No-Brainer Meals?

Just like everyone else, my family has been affected by the recession and we've had to change the way we live a bit. I've always tried to live by a food budget, but I've never been really good at it. It takes too much time so I never wanted to plan out my meals. Now, meal planning and budgeting have become a necessity. So, why no make it easy for myself. If I plan out some favorite recipes, list the ingredients, and calculate what each would cost, I can have a little database of my very own to refer to anytime I need to shop. Well, I decided I shouldn't keep it all to myself and a blog would be the perfect place to store and share the information at the same time! I hope you enjoy it!

Now, I need to disclose a couple things. First, this is not a "foodie" blog; it is a "cheapie" and "fastie" blog. If dinner takes more than 20 minutes to make, my kids go crazy. Second, I'm a vegetarian and we don't eat a lot of meat at my house. All of my recipes are vegetarian, so if you aren't and want to add meat, please feel free. You can substitute real meat for any of the fake meat in my recipes. Just cook it (obviously) and add it to the recipe already cooked. All of the fake meat I use is pre-cooked and just needs to be heated.

In my budgeting, I'll try to be as accurate as possible, but prices vary from store to store and from city to city. I'd love to hear your comments on how I do for you, so please comment. I'm excited about this new venture! Let's get started!

How to do it
Using the search function or the No-Brainer Topics listing, pick out as many meals you need to make for the week. I usually have some go-to items to pick from for breakfast and lunch, so I mostly plan for dinners. I'll include recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and dessert on the blog.

You'll want to open 2 documents on your computer. I recommend Word or WordPad for your recipe list, but I recommend Excel for your grocery list. It makes it easy to total up your budget using a couple simple formulas, which I can show you how to use if you need help.

Now, once you find your recipes, just copy and paste the recipe into your list. That way you can just print it out and stick it on your fridge so you know what you're cooking for the week. You can then copy and paste the grocery list and do the same thing for shopping. I know it is a little work, but it is way easier than figuring it all out on your own.