Does this sound familiar to you?

• Wake up early, hit the ground running
• Try and get kids to eat breakfast and stop 3 year old from feeding bagels to the dog
• Try and get a shower yourself while getting your daughter to stop teasing her brothers
• Get the kids dressed and the kitchen cleaned up so that you will be able to accomplish schoolwork
• Trip over toy trains while running laundry to washing machine
• Dinner???? Are you serious???? How on earth can I think about dinner now??? So, you just do the next best thing. You go out to eat, spending an average of $25 for a family of four.

A homeschooling parent has tons of planning to do. Plan schedules, lessons, curricula, field trips, play dates, bill paying, etc. You get the picture. And just when do I have time to fit another planning session into my day? Understand, dear one, you are not alone.

Grocery planning and meal planning are essential to saving money. You can’t expect to walk into the store and gaze up and down the aisles and buy whatever jumps out at you and still save money. You have to plan. Even a simple list will help you save.

What I do is so easy and it’s a lot of fun to get the kids involved. It takes about 3 hours a month for me to plan and buy food for the month. Here are the steps to what I do:

1. Gather all your local supermarket ads (those of you with a Super Wal-Mart nearby will be more fortunate). If you can’t find them (ads), most places will have an online version of their ad that you can look at.
2. Go through each one and write down the sale items that they are advertising and that you will need for your family. I list each one on a separate sheet of paper for each store, comparing sales. If milk is cheaper at Martin’s, I list it there instead of Kroger’s.
3. Make a list of other things that you need that are NOT on sale. ie…paper products, cleaning supplies, pet food.
4. Check your coupon box to see what you have coupons for on your list and put them in a separate envelope.
5. If you have a Super Wal-mart they will match all competitor’s ads for exact amount and like product. For example, if Martin’s has their store brand (Spartan) of instant oatmeal on sale for $.99 a box, then Wal-mart will match that ad with their brand (Great Value).
6. Write one list that has each store in a separate column with their sale prices. When you go to Wal-Mart, have the ads with you. You can also bring the printed out version from online if that is what you used. I also check Wal-Mart’s prices, since many times they are lower than the other store’s sales. Be aware!

When you are finished with your list, separate all the price matched items by store for the cashier. It just makes it easier on them and you to verify a price. Then I place all other items at the end. If you are not able to go to a store where they will price match the lowest price then you could also just go to each individual store and buy just the loss leaders or sale items and finish your list at the cheapest store. In my area, Wal-Mart often has the lower prices on other items as well, but you will need to check. Knowing your prices takes a little time. I personally used this as a unit study for economics for my kids. We would go to the different stores, and write down prices of each item that our family normally bought. I keep them all together in a notebook that is easy to access. This has helped save money for us, since I knew which store had the lowest regular price on macaroni and cheese.

This is a sample of what you would find in my notebook:

If you have friends that are willing to save their grocery receipts for you then the job of knowing what prices are at each store becomes easier. Planning takes time and energy but the money saved in the long run makes it all worthwhile!

What to do with all those groceries when you get home? Do some things just get pushed to the back of your pantry shelves, never to be heard from again? Is your freezer hiding little tempting morsels that are seemingly gone forever? Here’s what I do to help prevent that: INVENTORY LIST.

I make another list with all the different places that I store food such as freezer, pantry shelves, and deep freezer. I usually don’t have one for the fridge since that seems to change very rapidly. Every item is put on there, under the category where it is located. For example, I have 6 boxes of Hamburger Helper (on sale for $1.00 and I had a $.75 off coupon!) that are in the lower pantry shelf, right next to the 4 cans of Manwich sloppy joe mix. In the freezer, I have 10 lbs of hamburger. This way, I can plan meals easier. When you take an item out, simply update your list. It’s a little more work in the beginning, but can make meal planning so much easier. Here’s an idea of what mine looks like: As far as meal planning goes, I know of frugal moms that plan their days out, such as “meatloaf on Monday” and “tacos on Tuesday”. That’s fine, but with my personal schedule, how am I going to know that 5 days from now I will have time and energy to make that meatloaf? And what if the kids aren’t “in the mood” for that on that day? Something to think about is to make up a menu list of meal ideas (based on what you have in your inventory list) and just pick from day to day. Each child gets to pick one day of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have them pick the whole day the night before so that if need be, I can pull something out of the freezer. In my house, this has avoided the “I don’t know what to make” blues, as well as fighting off the urge to order pizza on those nights. The kids are more eager to eat different things since they know that it was their choice.

All in all, planning makes the money go much farther. Now, if I can could just plan our history studies…

Heather is a stay at home mother with 3 blessings to take everywhere with her. Teaching women to shop and save and get the most for your dollar are a vision that has been a long time in the making. She enjoys sharing her trials and triumphs at the local stores, as well as some good (and some not so good) recipes to help make those dollars stretch. Her column, “Practical Penny Pincher” is a must read for the thrifty homeschool mom. Visit her blog at Titus 2 Woman.