menu planning+what's in my shopping cart

I'm trying something new this week and menu planning. First of all let me just say, I never menu plan. Basically I just decide every morning what we are having for dinner and go from there. However everyone says that planning what's for dinner each night makes life so much easier (and we grew up doing it that way) so I thought I'd give it a try. 

Above is what we're eating this week (only I decided to switch out the fish tacos for chicken). 

Now onto the groceries. Adam grabbed meat on his way home from work on Friday so I didn't have to buy any when I went shopping. 

I got groceries at Target this week. As I said before, we like to switch things up and shop at different stores, also that was where I was on Saturday and I figured why not just buy groceries then?

In the cart we have dairy stuff like eggs, cheese and milk, coffee (!), frozen veggies, some pasta, sweet potatoes, fresh veggies and fruit. Not pictured is are also chips, cheerios and apple juice for Adri.

Oh, I grabbed the Mott's pouches for Adri because I had a coupon but usually I buy them at Big Lots where I can get them cheaper and they're organic.

We always try to keep the pantry and freezer pretty well stocked so I only buy white potatoes, rice, beans, flour, sugar, oats, popcorn, pasta sauce, pasta, and frozen veggies when we are running low on them. 

As I mentioned on a previous shopping post we spend approx. $50-$70 total a week on groceries (food, paper products, household items and diapers). Sometimes more sometimes less.

I based our menu this week on what we had in the cupboards already, the meat Adam bought (even though some of the meat was frozen to use another time) and what you see in the cart. 

I'll have to see how the menu planning goes. Like I said it's something new and I have my doubts about how it'll work for us, but we'll see ;)

Below are a few snaps of what we've been eating lately.

Lentil and rice stew.

Taco bowls (a favorite around here).

Beef tacos for Taco Tuesday.

And my breakfast. Every. Single. Day.  Some form of eggs, toast, coffee, and orange juice.