A few years ago my in-laws bought all of their kids and their wives digital cameras as Christmas gifts. We had long had a digital camera, so for my husband and me, a chest freezer appeared. It was the perfect gift for us, and we were both surprised at how perceptive my husband's parents had been.

At the time, my husband was still in graduate school, and I was running my own business from home to support the family while juggling our kids, of which we had three at the time. We often tried to take advantage of sale prices on meat and produce and freeze them, but the tiny freezer atop our apartment fridge limited our ability to do that as often as we wanted.

The chest freezer has worked in many ways for us: holdings sides of beef or sale-priced ham, providing space to store blanched garden and farmers market vegetables, frozen smoothies for school lunches and meals made a week or two in advance.

But does buying in bulk really help us save money, or does it just cause us to be wasteful by constantly purchasing and storing, only to throw it away or forget about it until it's too late to eat?

Do you buy your food in bulk? How do you manage rotating your food and making sure it all gets consumed?

I am a meal planner. I used to think that meal planning was only something cranky obsessive-compulsive crazy women did to micromanage every second of their kids’ lives.

And then I tried it.

And realized how having a set schedule actually allowed for more time for family fun and spontaneity because I wasn’t constantly wondering what to feed the kids for snack, lunch, or dinner. The food was already in the house, and the kids ate what was on the list, simply because that WAS WHAT THE LIST SAID.

There’s something they don’t teach you when you leave the hospital: your child will argue with you, but not with a piece of paper. Go figure.

Since I use my slow cooker so much, I usually can get away with only cooking dinner 3 to 4 times a week---we eat leftovers on the days in between. If your family refuses to eat leftovers, don’t serve the same food two days in a row. Instead, package up half of it and freeze the leftover portion to pull out later in the month. Some people are weirded out by eating the same thing two days in a row, yet will happily eat it a week later. Go figure. Again.

When you first get started meal planning, make a very simple menu for breakfasts and lunches. Our family rotates through: cold cereal and juice, yogurt and fruit, bagel and cream cheese, hot cereal, and toast and peanut butter. Adam usually makes pancakes on one of the weekend days, and then we repeat.

For lunches, we do salami and cheese on toothpicks, cream or soft cheese wedge on a rice cake, mac and cheese, canned soup, chili, and quesadillas or grilled cheese (I’m realizing we eat an awful lot of cheese!). I pack the kid lunches for school, and my girls like to eat out of thermoses, which has opened a bunch of doors for packing leftover dinner food.

We’ve been on a huge popcorn kick lately for afterschool snacks---and that’s great, since popcorn is so inexpensive. I pair the popcorn with fresh fruit, and the kids pretty much graze on popcorn and fruit throughout the afternoon before sports practice. If you have picky kids, you might want to introduce new food as an afterschool snack---they come in the door famished and are more likely to be adventurous.

The most dreaded question at the end of the day will always be “what’s for dinner?” If you have a slow cooker plugged in, congratulations! You are already ahead of the game.

Slow cooking forces you to plan ahead, because you’re not going to be able to rush out to the store at 5pm to pick up ingredients. This is a good thing.

Meal planning is a great way to involve the whole family in grocery shopping and food selection. I also appreciate how easy it is to stick to a budget when I do all my shopping on one day a week instead of wandering the aisles a few times to pick up odds and ends. I don’t know about you, but I’ll often pop into a store only to pick up a bunch of bananas and some orange juice and come out $50 later with an unneeded US Weekly and a bag of potato chips. It’s kind of annoying.

One of the easiest ways to meal plan with the slow cooker is to make what I call “Slow Cooker TV Dinners.” I like to buy my meat in bulk at a warehouse store, then take it home and break it down into meal-sized portions (4 chicken breast halves, 4-6 pork chops, 1 pound beef stew meat, etc.) in plastic zippered bags. Since I’m already fussing with the zippered bags, I go ahead and load in the spices, vegetables, and sauces needed for my favorite slow cooker recipes. I then freeze it all together in the plastic bag. The night before this meal comes up on my meal plan, I thaw it overnight in the fridge, then plop it in the slow cooker in the morning and cook according to the recipe’s instructions.

Some great “TV Dinner” options:
3-Packet Pot Roast
Steak Sauce and Mustard Steak
Lemon Pepper Ribs
Hawaiian Ribs
Lamb Vindaloo
Orange-Apricot Pork Chops
Marmalade Curry Chicken
Lazy Cooking!

I really like shortcuts. I seem to spend a fair amount of time in the kitchen, but I’m not one to have a zen experience while chopping an onion. I’d much rather get in, get out, and get on with my day. Planning ahead just a bit really saves an awful lot of time on a terribly busy weekday.

What are your favorite ways to make shortcuts in the kitchen? Does your family meal plan?

We're a busy family. With four kids, two soon to be in school full time, a preschooler and a newly turned two-year-old, our evenings are full of music lessons, sports practice and homework. While I work from home, I am constantly managing deadlines in between boo-boo kisses, diaper changes and art projects. My husband has an hour-long commute each way, leaving before the kids wake up in the morning and coming home just in time to help get dinner on the table.

Because feeding my family real food on an everyday basis is a priority for me, I need to be at least moderately organized when it comes to meal planning and considering my menu. Part of this is through stocking my pantry, but another important aspect is planning ahead, especially for those times when I know we're going to be busy running here and there and the square on the calendar looks more black with pen marks than a white day waiting to be filled.

On days when the schedule is particularly crazy or when the day just didn't go as previously planned, having meals ready to pop in the oven in the freezer can be a lifesaver. Those meals keep us together around the table as a family and out of the drive-thru.

Here are a few of my favorite make-ahead meals that have saved me in the past:

• Chicken Empanadas: Easy to make double and triple batches, and the filled pockets freeze well and bake up perfectly.
• Baked Stuffed Manicotti: This one is an oldie but a goodie. I like these more than lasagna even because they're just a bit lighter, and pairing them with an easy chopped salad or steamed vegetable makes for a perfect complete meal.
• Chicken Salad: Always a favorite, I make mine after we roast a large chicken or turkey. Leftovers can be frozen with dressing on, thawed in the fridge, and then just add in a fresh chopped onion or green pepper before serving. A few pieces of crumbled bacon on top make this easy meal extra special.

I think usually due to size, hams are often reserved for holidays and family get-togethers. However, there's no reason why ham needs to take a backseat to chicken breasts and ground beef on your family's dinner menu. Ham can be the perfect answer to your budgeting woes and can be incorporated into a variety of different meals throughout a week or two.

When my husband and I first got married we lived off an incredibly tight budget. We soon had two kids, and he was in graduate school, me supporting the entire family off my newfound self-employment. It was after a holiday that we discovered ham, drastically cut in price, and decided to toss the large piece of meat into our cart.

Realizing I was going to have a lot of ham on my hands once we roasted our prize, I instantly started thinking of different ways to incorporate the ham as our family's protein source in several different style meals so that we ate all of it without getting hammed out.

I’m a big believer in menu planning. I think it streamlines dinnertime, and it cuts out that nasty drive-thru habit that has a tendency to pop up when there’s nothing in the fridge. However, even the most organized menu planners don’t always stick to the menu.

Things come up, whether a meeting runs late, sports practice gets canceled or traffic is terrible on the way home. These are the times when menu planning gets trumped by a well-stocked pantry. Having a pantry that is full of everyday essentials can make these time-crunch moments and unexpected dinner guests seem like a treat rather than an inconvenience.

What to keep in the pantry?

• Flours
• Sugars
• Dry pasta
• Grains like oats and barley
• Oils
• Produce like onions, potatoes, garlic
• Canned/Jarred tomatoes
• Peanut butter
• Jams and jellies
• Honey and syrup
• Vinegars like white and balsamic
• Sauces like soy sauce and Tabasco
• Nuts like almonds and pecans
• Dried fruits like raisins and dried cranberries
• Dried beans
• Specialty foods like pickles, olives
• Herbs and spices
• Fridge items: eggs, milk, mayonnaise
• Freezer items: bacon, fruit, chicken breasts

Now that your pantry is stocked, what can you do with it?