Couponing and Menu Planning?

So, I may be late getting on board the couponing and menu planning train, but I've finally decided to try it. If you know me and my husband, you know that we LOVE eating out. I can't really explain this love, because I also LOVE to cook, and my husband likes to help me in the kitchen. Perhaps it's the fact that I hate cleaning up after cooking.

Anyway, over the last few months we have decided to cut back on our food budget. This equals less eating out (which can prove to be very difficult when working with a bunch of college kids at church). However, I am also guilty of cooking fancy meals that end up costing as much as it would if we had eaten out. In an effort to combat these problems, I contacted a friend of mine that is amazing at couponing. She sent me a powerpoint that she has used to teach people at her church how to coupon effectively, and I am slowly learning the tricks. Let me just say, it is not easy! It takes a lot of diligence and time. However, if you know me, you also know that I love solving puzzles. To me, this is all a big puzzle to solve each month!

Another method that I am now trying in order to save money in our food budget is menu planning. This is completely new to me. Honestly, I am starting off easy. I am only planning 3 meals per week. The other nights we can either eat leftovers, find something else around the house to cook, or those will be the times that we eat out. Also, I am not being super strict about which nights we eat those 3 meals. I think the key to me sticking to the menu plan is going to be allowing it to be flexible. If I am successful with 3 nights per week, perhaps we will increase it next month. The advantage that this is giving me is that I can make less trips to the grocery store which equals less impulse buys, and I can plan ahead for using the coupons that I discussed above. I can also plan ahead meals that don't cost an arm and a leg to make but are still good and maybe even healthy.

So...all of this will start on Monday with Apple Dijon Pork Roast...which though it sounds expensive, it really isn't. Feel free to ask me how this is going. I'm looking forward to it, and hopefully I will blog more often to tell some of the recipes I use, and how it is going.