First Time Monthly Meal Planning

There are so many methods and opinions about meal planning - what is best, what saves the most money and time, which is the easiest. When we were a family of 3, I shopped weekly and seldom used coupons, mostly just buying what our cravings told us. We spent $500/month on groceries (plus $200-300 eating out). When my family grew to 5, I got serious about couponing and sale shopping - I even had a massive 3" coupon binder and a stock pile filling up the coat closet in our kitchen. We spent $400/month but a lot of the items just cushioned my stockpile and took forever to get used. I did save A TON of money, but too often got sucked into the deal and overspent on things that we wouldn't use right away.

Currently, a family of 5 (almost 6) I shop every other week and plan my meals first based on what I have in the pantry, then by what is on sale and/or I have coupons for. I no longer have a binder, but a simple clutch and still save $50 on average every trip ($100/month). Another big change that I have made is that every two weeks I buy a share in a local produce co-op. For just over $30 I receive over 50 lbs of amazing fruits and veggies. Between groceries and produce I currently spend about $350-400 for our family of (6).

Recently, a friend and I were comparing methods and I got curious if I could save even more by monthly meal planning and shopping only once a month. I planned 25 meals (5 leftover nights), made a shopping list that was a little bit intimidating and set out to SAMS Club to shop. An hour and a half later I came home with my car loaded to the brim and everything I would need for the next 30 days. Here were the results...

MEALS (DAYS) PLANNED: 30
TIME SPENT: 2 1/2 hours (1 hour meal planning, 1 1/2 hours shopping)
MONEY SPENT: $350 (plus an additional $60 for the 2 produce co-ops I will participate in)
MOST EXPENSIVE ITEM: 16 pack of razors for my hubby ($45)

PROS: Less time spent at store and meal planning, ingredients for 25 meals on hand, less trips to the store means money saved on impulse purchases.

CONS: Less variety of items at bulk store, more purchased than needed at times, not able to use coupons, some items needed to be purchased at grocery store (multiple stores), obligated to prepare meals that were preplanned or repurpose ingredients into new meals.

If monthly meal planning sounds like something that would work for your family here are the printables that I used to keep me organized.
Monthly Meal Calendar
Shopping List_Large