Obsessive Compulsive Disorder...

There are many times that I feel I have OCD. For example, today I felt the need to type a list of everything in my pantry including expiration dates. Some of you may read that last sentence and think that I am crazy! But let me explain to you why I do it and then you can tell me if I'm crazy or not.

Around March of this year, Jon and I would sit down every Sunday night and we would make a menu for the coming week. I would have two pads of paper next to me; 1. For the menu and 2. For the grocery list. Jon and I would decide what we wanted to eat every day of the week. Once the menu was done, I would go through all of our supplies in the pantry, fridge, and freezer and make a grocery list of what we did not have for the coming week.

1. The menu came in handy all week long for a few reasons:
- Once I got home from work, I didn't have to wonder, "what should I make for dinner?" That question caused us to go out to dinner quite often. We would be hungry as soon as we got home and instead of trying to decide what would be good to make, we would eat out cause it was faster.
- I would know if anything needed to be thawed. I could pull it out of the freezer the night before or right before I left for work in the morning. As soon as I would come home from work, I knew what to start making.
You can imagine how much this menu saved our budgets and caloric intake! There are soooo many calories in restaurant food! I can make similar dishes at home with 1/2 the calories.

2. The grocery list was fabulous to have...again for a few reasons:
- I only had to go to the grocery store once a week. When I looked at our budget, we had so many different trips to the grocery store, around 4-5 a week. I would estimate that 70% of what we bought, we did not need or already had. Having the grocery list cut down our grocery expenditures a lot! Plus, that is only one day a week that I had to deal with annoying people at the grocery store. :)
- I didn't double purchase something that I already had in my house. There were many times I would make a recipe and buy all the ingredients I needed at the store without checking my pantry first. Most of the time I had everything I needed at home. What a waste of money :S
- If I ran out of something while making any meal, I had the list on my fridge and I could immediately write it down. Then I wouldn't have to think back 4 days and try to remember what I needed to buy.
You can imagine how much money was saved by having a grocery list on my fridge at all times.

After a few weeks of doing this, I decided to catalog everything in my freezer in the house and in the garage. I printed the sheet off and hung it up inside a cabinet in the kitchen so I could always know what I had in there. I started referring to that list when Jon and I were making our menu for the week so we could eat up everything in our freezer and not waste money on freezer burned food. Once we used something on the list, it was crossed off.

Now we come back to my first paragraph...do you think I have OCD for starting a list of everything in my pantry? I feel that it will continue to help me cut back on extra spending, eating out, and will help in making my menu every week. What do you think?