Meal Planning/Freezer Meals

          I've set myself a challenge that will be difficult to face. We spend about $200 more per month on grocery's than we should.... maybe more like $300 some months. It doesn't help that now I am making a little extra cash for myself (babysitting my niece) so I can spend the extra bucks on all the yummy fresh produce and whatever other goodies we enjoy but wouldn't normally buy. But if I'm honest, I really should be saving that money for things that are more important(like a possible future little brother or sister for Noah).
           In an effort to offer some relief to our wallets I am using 12 different freezer meal recipes. I will be prepping everything this week, taking pictures, walking you through it. Some recipes were found on other blogs, and some through Pinterest. Since it is my first month doing anything even remotely like this, I ask that you bear with me! I am also hoping to make some bread and muffin batches and plan to no longer buy any bread products at the grocery store. I will share those recipes as well along with pictures to show how they came out. Some of these recipes would be fairly simple to just put together in the morning and throw in the crock pot(because they use canned goods along with the meat) but I thought what could be easier than freezing it all together and writing instructions on the bag, then when the morning comes I can pull it straight from the freezer(or thaw in the fridge over night) and plop into the slow cooker without having to prepare anything at all? So with all this said, I present you with my list of things to make for the month... if things go smoothly I will have all of the freezer meals done in one day, make the biscuit dough the next and bake the other goods the next. I also purchased a bread maker today for $50. Not bad eh? Hopefully it works well. Most reviews raved about it so I am crossing my fingers. If not, Amazon has a great return policy.

Baked Goods:

2 loaves of oat/whole wheat bread(bread maker)

1 loaf cinnamon swirl bread(bread maker)

6 batches freezable biscuit dough

1 batch chocolate muffins

2 batches baked oatmeal cups(for the kids)

1-2 batches oatmeal breakfast cookies

Freezable Meals:

Mock Wendy's Chili(crock pot)(will use left overs for Frito chili pie and chili dogs)
Cilantro Lime Chicken w/corn(crock pot)
BBQ Chicken(crock pot)
Chicken Pot Pie(bake...recipe makes 3 to freeze)
Vegetable Beef Soup(2 batches)(crock pot)
Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo(crock pot)
White Chicken Chili(crock pot)(freeze leftovers in 1-2 serving portions)
Beef Enchiladas(Baked)
Twice Baked Potatoes(baked)
Sesame Chicken (2 batches:crock pot)
Beef Stroganoff (2 batches:crock pot)
Chicken Tortilla Soup


I hopefully will get the chance to go shopping tonight or tomorrow and will post once I have finished putting together all my freezer meals :)