Meal Planning - how do you do it?

sb44

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

kaz you beat me to it. feels like we are stalking each other


sb44 you might like to read the whole thread which can be found HERE- its really broken down my meal planning barriers

Thanks, off to take a look now.

Confused_Newbie

Hi All

Just logged on and am completely astonded by the replies. You are all so great!

I have just had a scan read but going to sit down later and have a good read at all your hints and tips! Menu planning here I come! Determined to make it work! lol

xoxox

tim_n

Where is the weekly menu planing thread? Can't find it...

champys

And here's a little tip for when you become advanced: if you keep a log of your meal plans over a year, you can check back at what you were eating in the same season last time...... I am often amazed at finding nice dishes I had totally forgotten about.

pavlovs_dog

hey confused newbie.

glad the thread is helping. think my main piece of advice is dont get too ambitious. it takes a while to get into the swing of meal planning, so start small (ie a few days or a weekly basis) and build it up. nothing worse than trying to plan for a month, it not working out and then feeling like you've failed. rome wasnt built in a day, so go slow, and im sure you'll do great :j

kazmeister

Agree with pavlovs dog in that you need to start small, I too started by doing a week at a time before realising that it didnt take much longer to do the whole month. What I did to start with, was to list all the meals that I usually cooked and that everyone liked and then put them into the different categories. This made it easier to do the actual plan. Then I began to look at new recipes (think easycook ) and added those.

Good luck

pavlovs_dog

^ what she said

Pinkylouloubell

May sound like a bit of a silly questions,
but when planning meals before going shopping to you literally decide on each and every meal for the week and then buy the ingredients accordingly.

am really trying to save money now and lessen the amount of waste we throw away, but at the moment just tend to come home and decide what I am going to cook depending on the time of day and what I fancy??

Want to give the planning a go though/

thanks

Hardup_Hester

I think some people do Pinky, but I buy 'building blocks' my hubby is a fussy eater so there are a limited amount of things I cook.
I have a list of 31 meals, I check what I have in the freezer & cupboards, I then buy whatever is needed to make up the shortfall.

Ishtar

That's pretty much it - I plan what we're going to eat, then buy accordingly. Obviously, I also take into account anything we already have in, like meat in the freezer, what's in the cupboards, and so on.

Our food wastage is way down, along with the amount we save at the supermarket - we still sneak in the odd 'off list' treat though! We also take a calculator to make sure we don't spend too much, but this is something we've always done.

HTH
D.