Meal Planning - how do you do it?

Magentasue

My meal planning is not good - not disciplined. However, when money is tight, I do it properly.

I make a list of seven meals. If, say, I had a cauliflower to use up, cauli cheese would be one of them. Then I list what I'll need to make them. I have at the back of a notebook a list of essentials (milk, butter, cleaning and bathroom stuff etc.) and add what I need for that. When money is really tight, I'll put it in something online (mysupermarket, for example) and work out total cost cutting back or substituting, if necessary.

So far, so good. In the shop, I'll be flexible. If there's something cheap, I'll knock a meal and items of the list to buy it. When I get home, I don't stick to the meal plan but I know I have the wherewithal for a week's meals. I tend to think 'What needs using up?' and make that meal first.

I also plan chain meals - for example, if we have chilli one day, I'll make extra and use some for lasagne next day.

irishwexford

When I first came on theses boards I started meal planning as I wasted a lot of food. Managed to cut down my monthly shopping bill by £50 but the last two months have been busy with allotment and bowls so food bill went up again even though I am using home grown veggies. Decided to take myself in hand again even though I hate sitting down and doing the plan. I buy enough toilet rolls and cleaning materials to last the month also things like cereals and tins then plan my meals before I buy meat. Best of luck.

newlywed

irishwexford wrote: »

Decided to take myself in hand again even though I hate sitting down and doing the plan.

I keep all my previous meal plans (I usually do roughly a month at a time). That way when it comes to meal planning I can look over past planners and decide what we haven't eaten for a while or what I've forgotten about.

I also have a list of the main meals we usually eat and they are grouped into "chicken", "mince" etc so if I have lots of mince in the freezer I can space out the meals so we don't feel like we're eating mince for a whole week

So if I plan to do lasagna one week, I'll make a double batch of the sauce and put it in the freezer and put down for shep pie or spag bol the following week. Means that one is an easy meal.

I've recently worked out that chilli is one of our least expensive meals so I have planned that through the month for roughly once a week

daleigha

i meal plan each week. I sit down at the computer with a spreadsheet and my recipe folder, and flick through it until something catches my fancy! beforehand i usually check the fridge incase there are a few random veg etc lurking, and i'll incorporate them into a meal early in the week before they need binned. i do breakfast, lunch and dinner (probably dont need to do brekkie - milk and cereal arent that difficult to remember lol!! )

i print the planner off, and then go through the recpies, listing the ingredients i need for each one, and the weight if necessary, to avoid wastage.

when i shopped in Sainsburys i used to then re-do the list according to the layout of Sainsburys, but i dont bother now as i go to Lidl and tesco.

stick on any extras on the end, like loo roll or cling film etc, and put it in my bag for shopping!

i go to Lidl first, and get what i can from the list there, and then to tesco to get the things i couldnt get in Lidl.

i only takes me about ten minutes now, as im starting to learn the recipe ingredients list by heart, as well as what recipes are in my folder!! (note to self - must get some new recipes lol!! ) and i couldnt do without it now!!

xxx

Bunny200

I have to menuplan, I found its been the single thing to make my life easier and save money. The problem is that I'm so indecisive and unimaginative, without the menuplan I used to alternate spag bol & chicken every night whereas I have now ventured into new territories. I still find the writing of a menuplan tedious and repeatitive so I'm going to try a new strategy in new year. I want more variety in our diet so was wondering whether to have a chicken night, a veggie night, a freezer stock night etc. Does anyone else use this method or are you all more free and easy than I am? I find we end up having the same meals with annoying regularity and if I had a framework to start I would HAVE to find a new recipe otherwise we'd have the same meal every Thursday iyswim? How do you start menuplans? What works, what doesn't?

ifonlyitwaseasier

hi bunny!

i tend to look over old meal plan ideas, check the recipes at the start of the GC and talk to my OH.

recently made chicken cobbler (cobbler topping recipe from MrsMc , it's on the GC links) and it was lovely, i made up a chicken casserole base with a thick gravy and then put in an oven proof dish and added the topping, hubby made very appreciative noises whilst eating it!!

how about changing from bolognaise to lasagne? same basic meat sauce can be used for both.

hth

ioiwe x

thriftlady_2

Although I don't follow a menu plan myself, well, I do a couple of days at a time, I have a good framework for menuplanning in a little book by Katharine Whitehorn written in the 70s called How to Survive in the Kitchen. Here it is with examples of meals for each category.

Monday - 'Joe's Caff' -egg and chips, sausages and mash, beans on toast, burgers in buns. You could update it and have 'fast food night' with hm versions of fast food- pizza, chicken nuggets, burgers, fish and chips

Tuesday -Leftovers anything made from leftover Sunday roast or other leftovers -pie, curry, hash, pasta sauce

Wednesday -Something cold like a bought pork pie, corned beef, ham, cold cuts, smoked mackerel with baked potatoes and salad (lettuce and tomatoes etc in Summer, cabbage, carrot, celery and apple in winter)

Thursday -Gunge this is basically a one-pot dish. A bean stew, cauli cheese, macaroni cheese, an egg dish, cheesey veg, rice dishes like risotto or pilaff

Friday -Something different here she suggests a takeaway or going out, but failing that something exotic. I'd suggest a curry night or hm Chinese food.

Saturday -Family Standby this is where you wheel out all your favourites; spag bol, lasagne, shepherd's pie, chilli, chicken casserole, corned beef hash

Sunday -Swank a piece of meat -roasts, steak, a stew or braise, or some fish fillets

That's just one idea. Think up seven categories like this -maybe;

mince, chicken, fish, pasta, rice, fast food, roast, veggie

or

curry night, pizza night, soup and sandwich night, leftover night, meal from the freezer night, baked potato and filling night

then list all the meals you can think of for each category and use your lists to keep your meals varied yet easy to plan. You could have 14 categories and do a fortnightly plan for even more variety.

I might go and do the same actually;)

Bunny200

Thats sort of what I was thinking of, atm I have
Monday - Leftover
Tuesday - Veggie
Wednesday - Mince (might just make that general meat!)
Thursday - Slow Cooker
Friday - Cheap & Cheerful
Saturday - Treat
Sunday - Roast

Might give me more variety although I'l probably end up in the same place as I am now!!!

OrkneyStar

I's usggest you have a look at some of the recent meal plan threads (there is one every week and one starting today!) for some actual meal inspiration. Your basic 'template' looks good although I tend to have roast or treat, not both, but thats just us! (we have treats in the form of HM biccies lol).
x

thriftlady_2

Bunny, another easy option is to cook twice or even three times as much as you need at one meal. Then stash the extra meals in the freezer if you have room. Do this for a few weeks and pretty soon you'll have a stock of freezer meals and one of your days can be 'freezer night'. The slow cooker would be useful here (and it isn't often i say anything good about slow cookers:D ).