food&family on a budget

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Hello I am Marilyn, a mom of two beautiful children, my boy is 9 years old and my princess in only 12 months. I am married to my other half, soul mate, partner and best friend.

Very young I had taught myself to be organized, to plan ahead and to save money anywhere I could. I earned very quickly that this would be part of our lives forever the moment that we had our first child. It’s not easy to be ourselves when we have children, you don’t have much free time for yourself nor time to organize or plan what you are going to do in the next 15 minutes. During the day, I play it as it goes, but when it comes to saving money and budgeting that’s a different ball game.

I love cooking, so I enjoy having what I need in the pantry and in the fridge before cooking.

One day my mom said, ” Wow Marilyn, you have such an amazing blog and your recipes are delicious and the photos are great!”. Then she said, “You must spend so much money on groceries to make your recipes?” Believe it or not the answer is NO. We don’t spend more just because we have a blog. We choose wisely when it comes to buying groceries. All the recipes on our blog are meals that we prepare for our dinner. We make enough food for about 6 servings so that there is leftovers for lunch the next day. Amazing Hey!

With all said, I am going to share with you, how we do our grocery shopping. It’s a simple method and after doing it a few times, you’ll get used to doing it this way. I have shared our method with a few people and they have been able to save up a lot and eat healthier. Now, they stick to the same budget week after week.

So how do we keep in the budget?

Here is a short list to help you out.

Make a list of what is missing in the fridge and pantry.
Plan what you are going to have for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner. (this process becomes mechanical after a few weeks)
Only do grocery shopping once a week. That is it! If you forgot to buy something that week, simply add it to the list for the next week.
When entering the grocery store, go directly to what’s on the list. Don’t walk down each isle, if you don’t know were an item is, simply read the board over each isle before going in. Yes, this is what I do!
Do not go hungry to the grocery store. Believe me, if you go with an empty stomach, you are more likely to buy more.

These are my tips to help you save money when going grocery shopping. If you follow this list, I know that you will keep in your budget.

As a mom I know that all you moms and dads are busy and have so many things going on at the same time. So I will help you every week with meal planning. Other moms have told me that it has been a huge help. When going through our family food recipes you will notice that our recipes are simple, homemade, tasty, healthy and made with simple ingredients. They are recipes that we make for our weekday dinners, weekend lunches, snacks and our Sunday breakfast.

Hope you can join us and thanks for visiting.