Meal Planning and Couponing Series

It's still hard to get back into the normal routine of life after losing a loved one. It's even harder knowing that she was around the same age, just a few years younger. All I keep doing is wondering why, and it's been tearing me apart. But, slowly, we have to get back to our lives. We have to keep living and loving for those that are not here with us anymore. We have to honor them in our everyday lives. I have a post I want to publish, but it's not quite ready yet. I still don't have the words, but soon I will, and it will help to write. For now, though, I thought I would instead get back to what I had planned for this week on the blog: my meal prep and couponing series.

When I was younger, my mom was diagnosed with a condition called Syringomyelia, Not many people have heard of it, but it's a syndrome in which a tumor grows along the length of the spine. Due to the position of the tumor, most times it causes extreme neuropathic pain because of the pressure it puts on the nerves that extend from the spinal cord. It can result in loss of motor function, nerve sensation, etc. In my mom's case, it affected all of these things. They can not normally remove the entire tumor because it is too dangerous and could cause paralysis if the spinal cord was touched. They removed as much of it as they can, but it still resulted in horrible, chronic pain that she lives with everyday. Long story short, she was on bed rest for over 6 weeks after the surgery, and I was the one that took care of my three little siblings, with one of them being less than 2 years old. I tried my best to help cook, organize, and clean, and I went obsessive with cleaning. It was the way I could contribute to my family and relieve stress at the same time. I was good at it, and I was even asked to help clean other neighbors' houses that were having hard times of their own.

When I entered high school, however, I didn't care as much. I had a disaster-zone closet, tons of stuff under my bed, and a messy room at any given time. I completed retreated from my organized state.

Now, I'm back to the mostly organized and clean freak that I was during my younger years. I want to be a good wife, but I also love the feeling of everything having a place.

I'm also very organized when it comes to meal planning. I try my best to stick to a budget, watch the sales, and use any coupons I can. Just the other day, my husband and I went on a big shopping trip (our cabinets were mostly empty--I try to make meals out of what we have around), and we saved almost 40% on sales and coupons. That's money we can put towards better things, like purchasing new things for our home since I'm obsessed with constantly changing and updating things in the apartment. Anybody else like that? My husband might just get annoyed with it every once in a while, but sheesh, I'm just trying to make it better! Boys...

Many of my friends are constantly asking for cheap and easy weeknight meals, and I pretty much only have those types in my rotation. I don't get home until 5:30 from work, so I try to either have a crockpot meal planned and ready (I have several to share!) or a meal planned that I can easily and quickly put together. I will be sharing my meal planning strategies and steps, tips on how to coupon effectively and fast, sticking to a budget with grocery shopping, and best of all, an excel worksheet that tracks the ingredients for 15+ weeknight meals and organizes them according to sale and coupons for each item (and I'll be linking the worksheet!). I will also be posting each of the recipes for the weeknight meals that I rotate through each week, as well as some dessert and new entree recipes that I've been trying! I hope you'll stick around as I share these tips and tricks that work best for my family, and maybe they'll work for you, as well. Since I love to write, as well, there will still be other life postings, as well, of course. Thank you for reading!