Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

HowlinWolf

I'm about to go and get joe from granny's now but if you're about later perhaps we should talk about it some more. Is it time we all had another skype meeting?

I think for me a lot of this feeds into what you want to achieve with the project and whether you want to help the most people quite a bit or whether you want to help a few people lots and lots. But then I may be reading the situation and peoples reasons for wanting a value planner incorrectly.

With much love and respect to Sian I am afraid that I don't really buy the value range argument. I think the Shirley planner and the Kitty planners are very attractive as they are. I'm not sure they need a value range planner to make people see the benefit of them.

I am concerned though that a value planner which is quite extreme and repetitive (perhaps not for you Weezl as you are very dedicated and have done the 50p a day thing, but for a lot of the target market might be) might put people off the rest of it.

As I said I have funny brain at the moment so I might be hitting way way off base. :):):):)

weezl74

howlin, the other bonus tho about the blue stripe planner is that it leaves a bored shirl with another option for another month, and with £23 extra in her purse, they could have the chicken and onion pie and roast dinner from her planner once a week each and a bit of choccie and some sausages too quite easily with that.

I'm up for a skypemeet, a few peeps didn't get to participate in the last one, so it could include them. I personally found it a great boost and a way of knowing there are people willing to be part of this with me which is a great motivation

System

Why does it have to be a month-long menu plan? Ten days would be perfectly adequate. People could repeat it if they wanted to, or do something else for a while then come back to it. A month is a very big commitment in terms of diet planning, and likely to be a major factor in putting people off *any* of the plans. People pushing diets usually suggest one or two weeks of menus, because that seems manageable to the consumer. Ten days seems like a sensible target to me, since it offers more than the minimalist week, without looking as though major devotion is required.

If it were me, I would present the hardcore plan as follows:
1. Explanation as before.
2. Shopping list for a month, to allow price comparison with the other plans.
3. Menu plans for ten days, with advice to cut the shopping list accordingly if not following for a month.
4. Explanation of how a day's menu plan is composed, with a breakdown of what is needed on a daily basis, so that people can do their own plan to extend the plan further. Teaching to fish, and all that.

If I have counted correctly, you already have nine one-day-plans (wyebird, twinkle_star, you, me), and several people said that they weren't yet in a position to think about it so there may be more in the pipeline.

By the way, I was surprised when I realised that there is a sense in which this planner is actually *less* off-putting than the first one. When I look at this hardcore shopping list, the only ingredient which I wouldn't normally consider buying is the ox liver (although I would normally buy organic fresh semi-skimmed milk, the switch to UHT skimmed is not unconscionable). When I look at the shopping list for the first plan, I am put off by the lard, the pig's liver, the use of SmartPrice brand-points for eggs, beef, chicken and bacon (it's not an unconscionable switch for the other SmartPrice items), and the vast quantities of oil (not on health grounds, but on palatability). The cost of the hardcore plan is more likely to be achievable in shops other than ASDA (it comes in at well under £100 at Ocado, for example, which makes it likely to be an affordable plan even for people with no option but to buy at a village shop -- rural poverty is a big problem in the UK, and a plan based on ASDA-specific goods doesn't help those who are struggling in remote areas with poor transport links).

Now that I think about it, I'm probably more likely to try this hardcore plan than I am the currently published one -- at least for a very short time. I don't think I could last more than a couple of days without at least a raw carrot or an apple, though, even if they aren't needed for the RDA! ;-)

EDITED TO ADD: Looking back at the existing month's plan, it looks positively lush in comparison! :-) Makes me think that the idea of consumers choosing the one-up-from-the-bottom item has mileage.

weezl74

Avocet wrote: »

Why does it have to be a month-long menu plan? Ten days would be perfectly adequate. People could repeat it if they wanted to, or do something else for a while then come back to it.

I'd say the main reason is that we didn't want to be like some of the websites which say: this meal only costs £1.15! But then you have to buy a kilo of chick peas for it and several other things, actual real cost £12 even though you have leftover ingredients. With ours it has always been We say it's 100 quid a month and it absolutely is, you don't buy a whole bottle of balsamic vinegar for just a slosh of it in one meal IYSWIM?

I always thought this was quite a key USP for our site, but if that's not so major, perhaps we can rethink?

Avocet wrote: »

A month is a very big commitment in terms of diet planning, and likely to be a major factor in putting people off *any* of the plans. People pushing diets usually suggest one or two weeks of menus, because that seems manageable to the consumer. Ten days seems like a sensible target to me, since it offers more than the minimalist week, without looking as though major devotion is required.

If these are 10 different days like the ones that have been mooted, then....ummmn I think my main struggle is in terms of my hours involved (sorry to have to mention this again) I was imagining offering a similar number of meals as shirley has, but this is double the recipes. So double the coding and publishing time. But also double the time of me doing recipe testing tweaking and photography. It's mammoth for me to make something that varied, I'm sorry if anyone is disappointed.

Avocet wrote: »

If it were me, I would present the hardcore plan as follows:
1. Explanation as before.
2. Shopping list for a month, to allow price comparison with the other plans.
3. Menu plans for ten days, with advice to cut the shopping list accordingly if not following for a month.
4. Explanation of how a day's menu plan is composed, with a breakdown of what is needed on a daily basis, so that people can do their own plan to extend the plan further. Teaching to fish, and all that.

If I have counted correctly, you already have nine one-day-plans (wyebird, twinkle_star, you, me), and several people said that they weren't yet in a position to think about it so there may be more in the pipeline.

can you say a bit more about point 4 I know I'd really struggle to teach anyone to do this for themselves:o, so I'd be interested to hear how we make that feel achievable

Avocet wrote: »

By the way, I was surprised when I realised that there is a sense in which this planner is actually *less* off-putting than the first one. When I look at this hardcore shopping list, the only ingredient which I wouldn't normally consider buying is the ox liver (although I would normally buy organic fresh semi-skimmed milk, the switch to UHT skimmed is not unconscionable). When I look at the shopping list for the first plan, I am put off by the lard, the pig's liver, the use of SmartPrice brand-points for eggs, beef, chicken and bacon (it's not an unconscionable switch for the other SmartPrice items), and the vast quantities of oil (not on health grounds, but on palatability). The cost of the hardcore plan is more likely to be achievable in shops other than ASDA (it comes in at well under £100 at Ocado, for example, which makes it likely to be an affordable plan even for people with no option but to buy at a village shop -- rural poverty is a big problem in the UK, and a plan based on ASDA-specific goods doesn't help those who are struggling in remote areas with poor transport links).

that's interesting avocet, I noticed the other day that you said about this. I thought we were fairly clear on the site that we'd only quoted asda prices as they were the cheapest, but that of course people can go where they want. But I think you're saying something else has put you off but I haven't quite seen it, but I do really want to understand?

weezl74

'EDITED TO ADD: Looking back at the existing month's plan, it looks positively lush in comparison! :-) Makes me think that the idea of consumers choosing the one-up-from-the-bottom item has mileage. '

me being a thicket today! But did you mean shirl's looks lush or joels does?!

SusanC_2

weezl74 wrote: »

If these are 10 different days like the ones that have been mooted, then....ummmn I think my main struggle is in terms of my hours involved (sorry to have to mention this again) I was imagining offering a similar number of meals as shirley has, but this is double the recipes. So double the coding and publishing time. But also double the time of me doing recipe testing tweaking and photography. It's mammoth for me to make something that varied, I'm sorry if anyone is disappointed.

I'm not saying you should do ten days of meals if it's all that work but I think possibly the reasons people feel like so many more recipes are needed in Joels planner than the Kitty/Shirley ones are:
- by having the same ingredients every day there is no variety in ingredients so the variety is all in the recipes.
- psychologically it sounds very samey to have the same ingredients every day so it makes people feel more like variety of recipes is needed.

Incidentally, have you taken into account the water going into the bread wrt the drinking water recommendations? Just thought it worth mentioning as it may reduce the drinking water requirement.

shanks77

Hi sorry not been very helpful this past week:o All the "gate" stuff was a bit technical for me and afraid not very good at looking at ingreds and thinking ooh lets have... Avocet and Weezl seem so good at it i think i would be embarrased to put my tuppence worth in.
As to variety as i said i am happy with the same meal two or three times a week if its something i like but i think Susan covered my concerns with her post.

weezl74

hmmmmn. Well it may just be that because you aren't all normally involved in this part then it's seeming really samey, but by the time I've turned it into a planner it's ok, or it may be that 5/6 Joel days will always be a problem. Shanks is saying it'd be ok to have something twice a week, so that'd be 3/4 rotating Joel days so that sounds promising...

But then I wonder if others are saying it needs to be 10 or perhaps not worth doing?

shanks77

Next time we are skyping we can get peoples thoughts on what they feel and why

weezl74

potty, shanks and I were just skyping about a possible brainstorm tonight at 7ish if anyone's up for it?

Skype is pretty easy to set up. Do give me a shout if you consider yourself an interested party and I'll add you to the group