Blog.EmealsForYou

By now, if you have been following along with all my meal planning posts and rants, you are feeling pretty good about yourself.  You think you are doing a good job, or maybe you think you are at least better than you were at planning your shopping needs.  Like any good training tool we now come to the test.  How well do you actually do cutting back on unnecessary purchases, saving money and feeding your family better?

The grocery store has assigned all its marketing efforts to FORCE you into those impulse buys.  They lay in wait at every turn with their endcaps designed to COERCE you into purchasing that package of cookies.  Candy is only a short reach away.  So here is the challenge: each week for the next 4 weeks gather up your grocery register receipts and enter them on the attached spreadsheet.  Enter the unnecessary items, impulse buys, things you just couldn’t live without, and those things that just FELL into your cart in the spaces provided.  I know that we are approaching the holiday season and we all are a little prone to slightly ease up on our discipline but just think; if you can get through this how easy the rest of the year will be.

Add up the columns and see exactly how much you  are wasting each week/month.  In these tight times wouldn’t that money be better spent on something else.  The other lesson here is that after you complete this list and spend the time you will realize that using some of that time to plan meals and write down a shopping list will help with your budget and maybe your sanity.

The bottom line is that if you make the effort; whether you plan using paper and pencil or “spring” for the www.emealsforyou.com solution you will find life becomes a little easier.  Click here register receipt challenge to open and print the tracking sheet or click here to email Chef Jake if you prefer the MicroSoft Excel version to request the file.