Since this takes a lot of planning to keep a grocery bill down, I had to start off by organizing and taking an inventory of my freezers (yes, I have 2). So today, I started in the less full chest freezer and marked down everything I considered raw and everything that is ready to eat. This is how I prefer to organize my freezers, but someone else might prefer another way.
Ready to eat was anything pre-made, frozen veggies, frozen fruits, breads and such and desserts. Basically anything you really didn't have to do much to, to prepare. All my "ready to eat" stuff was put into my upright freezer. And yes, the OCD part of me actually organized all the shelves into certain categories to try and help make things easier to find as well. We'll see how long that lasts. My raw foods were anything that takes a bit more work, or were just bigger items. These were things like stocks for soups, raw, uncooked fish, meats that need seasonings (pork chops, chicken, roasts, ect), you get the idea. All "raw" went into my chest freezer.
I listed pretty much everything that is in there on a piece of paper and will be transferring all of that info onto dry erase boards. At this point, I am really grateful to my Realtor who has sent us handy dry erase boards with magnets on the back these past 2 years. This way I can keep them on the freezers while marking off what I've taken out or added, as we go.
Now that we have that taken care of, I know I'm ok for meats for a bit and will try to use up what I have before I buy any more.
My next step is to pull out my Dollar Store dry erase board that I sectioned off for each day of the week and start menu planning based on what I currently have at home. By the way, when I menu plan, I do tend to leave a day or two open for left-overs, so I really only have to plan for 5-6 days based on when my next expected shopping trip will be.
