More on Planning:::Monique

I've been intrigued by a few mothers that use once-a-month shopping.  While right now I only plan by the week, I would love to be organized enough and have the money to go to Colorado and do my shopping once a month at Vitamin Cottage.  I love this place.  I know I can save us money by doing this also.  For instance, I can buy plain old, pesticide-filled apples here at a grocery store for at least $1.50lb.  Sometimes it's almost $3.00lb.  At Vitamin Cottage I can buy ORGANIC apples for .99lb!  I can also save big on the almond milk we buy.  We buy it by the case because we go through it so quickly.  I can save $8-10$ a case when I purchase it at Vitamin Cottage rather than our co-op here in town.  

I'm still pondering this thought though.  I've learned some about once a month shopping from one of my favorite blogs.  I also have heard about seasonal planning, which also intrigues me.  The ideas here is again the long term planning so you don't have to sweat it every week, but also so that you have a rotation of meals that is specific to the season.  For instance, lots of people don't want to eat heavy, hot foods in the summer when it is 100 degrees out.  So things like chili would be in the winter rotation.  Lighter foods would be in the summer rotation, and then you might have special foods for other times of the year such as Christmas and Easter.  I would love to be able to plan out a whole month or season and then just rotate throughout the year.  I would have a master list(s) of meals and then a master shopping list for each of those rotations as well.  I can't seem to make it jump from my head to paper though. :(  Here is an example from another of my favorite blogs.  

Anyway, maybe by writing about this it will help me make that jump!