When my six kids were at home I always made a menu and it helped to save lots and lots of money, now that it is just hubby and me, and sometimes just me because hubby works out of town alot, I don't do it but really need to go back to it. Our apartment complex was doing a food drive for the elderly and so I thought I would go through the cupboards and see what I could donate, OMGosh I ended up throwing out almost $100 worth of out dated food. I had cans of Campbells soup that were outdated (do you know how long the shelf life is on soup, about 2 years and I had it outdated by months). If I were still making menus and buying only what I needed that would never have happened!