12. Going Beyond... make a reusable shopping list

This next step is when we really start winning back more time again. After we have thought about how to freeze all or a portion of our recipes.

 Lastly! Make a shopping list. Once you have your menu and recipes, halved them, and figured out how you can make freezer meals with them, its time to make a shopping list. You could do this a few ways.

1. Will you be making ONE meal of everything. Shopping for one week only at a time. and preparing only ONE meal each time you shop? If so, make your shopping list by running down the list of each ingredient and make a shopping list like you normally would.
2. Will you be freezing any of these meals for eating them at a later week?

Each of these choices are completely made by preference and how you yourself operate and do things. However they make a BIG, BIG difference in how you make your shopping list.  If you are shopping to freeze any of your meals later, you will want to make 2 separate shopping lists. One for your freezer meals which you will be making multiples of only one time, and another for your fresh items. The freezer meals shopping list you will only be using once, where the fresh items list you will be shopping from each week you plan on eating that menu and the freezer meals you have prepared.

• Freezer meal shopping list. I chose to make each of my weekly freezer meal menu shopping lists for 2 meals. (a whole recipe worth, just divided in half, remember?) I can easily multiply it to make more, depending on how many I think I will need from year to year.
• My Fresh items shopping list. I chose to make this shopping list for ONE half recipe. I can easily multiply it as well from week to week if I am cooking for a big family or company, using more than one freezer meal. This is where I place each the items that are NOT in a freezer meal, such as all the gather items, meat, and side dish ingredients. I do this for 2 reasons. 1. It keeps the cost of my freezer meals down, so that I really can afford to make so many meals at a time (and not needing every single ingredient, such as expensive meats). 2. I can make sure that I have EVERYTHING for the week menu I would like to make that week. Before I head to the store, I check down the list, and if I have it already I cross it off. This way I can keep my eye open and buy things on sale, like meats, ahead and use it for meals weeks down the road.

I have recently started all my half recipes onto photo cards and having them printed and collected in its week menu photo book. Amazingly nice!