Are you a visual person like me who prefers to know what meals to create after a busy work day vs thinking about it once dinner time decides to creep on your shoulder? Yup I know the exact feeling too! So, to make cooking dinner easier for us, one of our must have items was a medium size rustic dinner menu board. And yes we are all about that rustic life!
Amazon was our first go-to place but unfortunately their price was $39.99. Next we thought “ehhhhh why not check out some thrift shops?” Can you guess what we did next? Yup you are exactly right, we kept unpacking more moving boxes in our apartment hahaha! Once we were done with opening up our 10th box, we decided to check out our local thrift shops around Boston.
Now keep in mind, we did not find our dream rustic dinner menu board the first time or even the second time around. We actually found it a few weeks later on a random heatwave kind of day when we were not even looking for it (which in my experience is always the case). This lovely $10 dinner menu board came with its own dinner ideas, which we (and when I say “we”, it was mainly me) jumped in extreme joy.
Our next step was to find something that would not only store the lovely gems that came with our board but also our future meal ideas/recipes. Luckily for us, we found a family recipes box for $2.99! Now, to create/add our own recipes to the board, we had manilla folders hiding in one of our boxes.
Once there were found, we decided to write the meal on the front and the ingredients on the back. That way we were able to determine:
(1) what ingredient we needed for the recipes
(2) what ingredients we actually had at home
(3) what was needed from our super market
This not only saved us planning time but also added such a nice touch to our kitchen!
After the hunt for our meal planning board, this is what was saved:
Total thrift shop cost: $12.99
- $10 rustic dinner menu board
- $2.99 family recipes box
Total saving: $27
- Compared to $39.99 rustic dinner menu board on amazon
I hope you enjoyed today’s post and remember to always keep your eyes open, especially when you are on the hunt at your local thrift shop!
Cindy
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