DAY 235 -- Making a menu plan.

I am a list person.  I have to-do lists, master packing lists, birthday lists, wish lists, and even a bucket list (although I prefer to call it a life goals list).  So when I make my grocery list, I usually start with a list of meals I plan to make for the week, or a menu plan.

I've been a menu planner for years, but recently I read that planning menus was an inefficient way to cook because if you have a set plan, you have to buy certain ingredients which might cause a trip to more than one grocery store trying to find said items, or it might cause added expense to the grocery budget when the needed items are not on sale.  The article claimed that it was best to go to the pantry, see what was on hand, and make something with those ingredients.

Like a silly head, I bought into that theory and gave it a try... for a few weeks... then went back to my tried and true method.

I re-learned something about myself: when it's meal time, if I don't have a plan and go rummaging around in the cupboards, I can never figure out what sounds good and end up wasting so much time trying to decide what to cook that I get overly hungry which leads to snacking while I continue to forage for a meal and eventually just ask my husband to bring something home after work.  Definitely not efficient or cost saving!

Maybe I need to start another list titled: What Was I Thinking?