A Side of Beans & Rice

In attempt to meet a financial savings goal, my husband and I are making some changes to our spending.  We are already debt free (excluding one mortgage) but we really feel the need to buy a piece of land to live off of and build a new house.  In addition to cutting out some extra's like cable tv and dining out, I am revamping our grocery budget.  I stumbled upon Danielle over at Blissful & Domestic and was inspired to start menu planning again.  Instead of doing a week at a time like I did previously... long ago... I am shooting for a monthly menu plan.  We'll have the same basic theme every week (Fish Friday, Pizza Saturday, Crockpot Sunday, etc.) to make it easy.  Hopefully I'll put a lot of the pinterest ideas I have to good use so we won't get bored!  Another tip I like from Danielle's blog is to shop monthly instead of weekly like I do now.  There are some things I'll set grocery money aside for (like sales and perishables) but for the main part I would like to have one major shopping trip a month.  This will take some getting use to!  We are going to start January since we are in an busy month of meal times with family and travel.  This will be a big help to our budget!  Once I get started, I'll post our daily theme schedule and the monthly menu to hopefully inspire you!  Oh, one more thing... as of now, we spend about $220 a week on groceries (including toiletries, cleaning supplies, etc.).  We spent less when I was doing a weekly menu plan.  What do you do (besides couponing) to help cut back on your spending?