Budget-friendly Tips for Smart & Healthy Meal Planning

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I really think that one of the best ways to keep your menu in check with your health goals is to make a shopping list before you head to the grocery store. Usually on Sunday mornings, my husband and I will sit down together (and solicit input from the kids) to plan our meals for the week before we buy our groceries. We know that on a couple of the evenings, time is hectic due to soccer practice and other activities and these are the nights when we plan to utilize the crockpot, have a freezer meal thawed and ready to be cooked, or we plan to grab a meal out. This really saves us time figuring out what to make for dinner at the last minute and gives us the opportunity to budget our meals based on what is on sale in the ad at our preferred grocery store.  Planning ahead really does reduce a lot of stress associated with last-minute meal decisions (which can often end up in a drive-thru line that costs more and is less nutritious than what could have been planned in advance).

Here are some budget-friendly tips for smart & healthy meal planning:

Crunchmaster Gluten Free Crackers

Crunchmaster Gluten Free Crackers are some of the tastiest crackers I have ever had!  I have tried quite a few gluten-free foods that have not tasted good, but each and every flavor of the Crunchmaster brand crackers was great.  In fact, one of my interns was placed on a Gluten-Free diet by her physician and I brought in the bag of the White Cheddar Multi-Grain Crackers to try.  The only problem was that by the end of the work day, my co-workers and other interns had ate the entire bag!  Oops!  I will certainly be buying these crackers to keep in my home and after looking around, found that they were in many stores around town.  Other flavors I tried were Multi-Grain Roasted Vegetables & Sea Salt and the 7-Ancient Grains in Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper & Herb.

The texture of these crackers from the rice is very pleasing to the palate.  They are very solid for putting spreads on and a perfect match for soups.  One of the wonderful things about the Crunchmaster crackers is their recipe tab.  You can use these crackers in many recipes to create amazing Gluten-Free dishes such as Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Casserole, Gluten-Free Breaded Chicken Tenders, and Gorgonzola Stuffed Celery.  These crackers rock my socks off!  They have a store locator and a coupon on their site, so check them out.  Even if you are not following a Gluten-Free diet...these crackers still apply to you!  Thanks so much to Crunchmaster for letting me try these Gluten-Free crackers at no cost for my review.  All opinions are 100% my own.

Thank you Paul Newman

Yesterday I was spending a few minutes printing off some coupons for my weekend shopping trip and when I was visiting www.southernsavers.com I noticed there was a link for a $3.00 off Paul Newman products coupon.  Wow!  I absolutely love their salsa & pasta sauce & especially their Organic Light Balsamic Dressing.  Of course, in all honesty...their popcorn needs a lot of work.  Ick.

So I clicked on the link which brought me to the Newman's Own website:  www.newmansown.com and saw the ad to get the coupon.  The only catch was you had to sign up to volunteer with Volunteer Match.  I had never heard of Volunteer Match but checked it out:  www.volunteermatch.org/nourishthegood and there are so many volunteer opportunities available!  I put Hickory, NC in to the seach and 51 different opportunities came to light.

This was by far the best coupon link I have ever seen.  One of the purposes of this blog is to feed your soul and one of the best ways to feed your soul is to volunteer.  Some of the opportunities even say whether you can bring your children!  My heart grew three sizes coming across this wonderful resource and I hope that you check it out and share it with others as well!

Coupons for Beginners

I love using coupons.  I especially love using coupons when I am buying an item that is already on sale. The problem is, I do not have a ton of time to devote to couponing, in fact, I have completely ignored all of the extreme couponing shows because they will only get me fired-up to taking my thriftiness to a whole new level that I just do not have time for. 

Having my young ladies in the house, I do have some pretty standard weekly staples that I include into my budget.  One is for them:  Simply GoGurt  & One is for me:  Coffee.  And when I say Coffee...I mean fancy coffee.  I don't like your standard coffee (such as a regular brick of coffee, or even a can of coffee).  I like a good grind the beans, let it brew, followed by an "I just stepped out of a Christmas Folger's commercial" cup of coffee.  But with this expensive taste and the increasing cost of coffee, I feel better if I can get a deal on it. 

There are always coupons for Simply Go-Gurt http://yoplait.com/SimplyGogurt/ which is both Mom-the-Dietitian & Kid approved.  The ladies love it as an easy snack because it's fun to eat and it tastes good.  I love it because it's a good dose of calcium & it is a healthy snack choice.  And you can freeze it to trick the kids into thinking they are having "dessert".  Whahaha!

Here are a few of my favorite coupon sites:
For those in the South:  www.southernsavers.com :  This site links the ads to the coupon match-ups.  It's pretty much perfect.  Sometimes you have to sign into a product site to get a coupon, but that works out because often they send you more coupons!

For every one else:  www.couponsuzy.com and http://smartsource.com :  Start saving now!