Menu Board

This is one of the other projects I am very proud of.  I started meal planning and I use a board to plan the whole month at a time.  I was inspired by someone else's blog.  You can view it HERE.  She made a menu board and actually sells them or the components of them.  I did a board very similar but modified it to fit my family's needs.  It is a work in progress.  As I get more completed I will update but this is a start and it is working very well so far.  I am spending way less money on groceries and wasting less food.  I hate waste and I hate spending money.  Just ask my husband.

How it works:
I go through my recipes (books, pinterest, emails, websites, blogs, friends...) and print several off.  As I get more completed I will have my own recipe cards to use.  I have templates on the computer and recipe cards started but only a few so far.  I actually copy the recipes as I put them here on my blog and paste them into my card templates.  I have several different categories of foods (i.e. chicken, beef, mexican, pasta, breakfast, salad, beverages, desserts, etc.) and I will print each category on a different color of card stock.  I will then put them in a recipe box which I have yet to buy.  I will explain more about that later as I get it finished.  When I have the menus planned, I go through each week and make a grocery list for each week using the recipes.  The grocery lists are held on the side with magnets.  I also have a miscellaneous grocery list for other things we need around the house that are not food and I get those as I can.  I also have a no no food list on that side which lists food ingredients my daughter cannot have since she is allergic to corn.  This helps when other people cook so they can check ingredients.  Corn is hidden in so many things and goes by so many names.  We are still learning.  On the bottom of the board is a cork board strip with push pins.  Those will be used later but I have not really used them yet.  I have many more plans to implement.

Here is a picture of the board so far.  I also use dry erase markers of different colors to show the different food categories.  Some are doubled because there are only so many colors you can get in dry erase markers.  But it helps to see the variety in the menu.  This picture is from this month and I implemented the board half way through the month so it is only halfway filled out.  Next month it will be full.