Thank you Eat at home!

So Ive tried to menu plan in the past but always fell short. Lets just say Im lazy.
SO in an effort to make dinner time easier on myself I decided I should actually try a little harder!
I found this awesome site called Eat At Home. This site gives you a weekly menu which includes 6 dinners and 1 dessert! Not only that but you get the recipes and a shopping list!!

This being my first time using a REAL menu plan, it took me a while to get everything together into a coherent plan. Not only did I need the food on the list but I needed the normal stuff too.
I shop at Winco every 2wks. Its a small distance for us so I don't go back weekly.

First I went threw my pantry and refrigerator and cleaned them out. Things that had gone bad or were half used(and couldn't be used again). This gave me a good idea of what we did have to work with and how much we would need.
Then I picked out my menus for 2wks. On each menu I picked a dinner that I like the least and replaced it with steak night. That will keep Jared happy!
My next step was to combine the 2 shopping lists and take out what I already had on hand. It was pretty simple since a lot of the ingredients were similar so I just had to up the amount.
Then I added the things that we needed that were not on the list i.e. things we get normally that are not dinner items.
I then tipped up a new list just because I can lol. I left it in the format of the website though. Produce, Can/dry, meat etc.

So I was ready for grocery shopping. The only things I dont by at Winco are meat products. The commissary has much better pricing on their meat. I bought 4lbs of ground beef 1lb ground pork, 1pack of 3 thick cut Top loin(N.Y.) beef. For about $20. I cant hardly find steaks at Safeway less than $13 or 1lb of ground beef for less than $4.

OK on to Winco. Once again this store makes it possible for me to buy everything I need and stay on budget!
I spent $173 at Winco.
Thats 12 dinners, plus breakfast stuff, plus lunch stuff for us at home and for Jared to take to work plus snacks. I had 97 items.
My most expensive item was a 3lb bag of frozen chicken breasts for $5.98. The close second was the self dispense Clover Honey which is $3.23 per lb costing me $5.07
Everything else was under $4(usually $3 or under).

My 2 menus are Week 14 and Week 3. I wont be making the depression era bread from week 3 though.

Last night I made the Shaker Tomato Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
The soup was AWESOME. Its the perfect easy way to spice up basic canned tomato soup!