Make sure you read the introduction prior to reading this post.
This week brought about an unexpected challenge. I was not in the mood for the meals on my menu plan. The reason this is a challenge is due to the fact that I do my grocery shopping based on my menu plan. I don’t always have the ingredients on hand to make what I’m really craving and I refuse to make extra trips to the grocery store. That’s part of how my husband and I got into trouble with our budget and it’s not part of the rules since once the shopping for the week is complete, the extra money goes into the fun envelope. And it stays there. So what was I to do?
Well, I had two choices: I could eat what I really didn’t want or I could go searching in my pantry/freezer for something else to cook. So I went with option two. The vegetable stir fry pockets were replaced with Mexican pasta salad, we had leftovers one night and there was one other meal that was so unmemorable I cannot recall what it was. I know that’s sad but it’s honest!
While I’m being honest, part of the problem with some of the meals was that ingredients were missing. I used the Aldi menu planner to generate all of the meals for this week but the Aldi where I shop did not have all of the ingredients. And considering how close I was to going over budget, I couldn’t pick up all the ingredients at the grocery store. This made it difficult to make some of the dishes. In the moment of shopping, I didn’t think it would make a difference but when it came down to the actual cooking and preparing of the meals, it did. I consider it a lesson learned for future weeks.
Although I didn’t stick to the plan, we did not go out to eat on those days that I didn’t want to stick to the menu plan. I still prepared meals at home using what we had in the house. It’s a reminder of why having those basic pantry staples is so important. It’s also a reminder of the fact that when all is said and done, homemade meals taste significantly better than those from most restaurants (except for those pesky dishes. They never seem to wash themselves). And the difference in taste has nothing to do with the money that stays in my wallet.
