Much helpy needed meal planning.

carlih1

Hi,

I have tried meal planning and am a complete failure. I have NEVER written out meals until this week when i already have the ingrediants for these recipies, (am only cooking three times as kids with mum other days). I am a single mum and have two children (3 + 7). I have to have a slightly specialised diet because i have problems with my kidneys so loads of fruit and veg, not a lot if any red meat (normally make one meal a week with it in) and healthy pucked lunchboxes. (ideas appreciated, i love some suggestions by Jamie Oliver)

I have made an inventory of my cupboards, i need to do one for my freezer, chuck out old stuff in there etc.

Where would u suggest i start. I am good with knowing what i want for dinners each day also packed lunches for dd for the week and ds for two days.

Are there any websites that can help.?? I am trying to do the flylady challenge and get more organised (well organised).

My problem comes when i need to write out a shopping list. I don't then i go round tesco's etc up all the aisles buying all the lovely stuff, i have got much better but it would help if somebosy could help organise me so i have a list then i can know how much i am going to spend etc.

I have some recipies of things i make at home (they're all from scratch and with as much organic stuff as poss). I can use these to meal plan but it all goes to pot when it comes to lunches dinners packed lunch, cleaning stuff i go mad on also

Thanks for listening

C x

Ruby_Pudding

I'll tell you what I do - it seems to work for me.....

I drew up a table on the PC - 4 columns and 9 rows and I labelled them with the days of the week and divided them into breakfast, lunch and dinner. I sit down once a week with my recipe books and pick out 7 different dinners and choose what to have on what night - I note down all the ingredients I need on a notepad at the same time. Then, I see what dinners can also be used for lunch the next day and write those on my menu planner along with other lunches such as soup, sandwiches etc. Lastly, I make a note of what breakfasts to have and add any thing I need to my shopping list too. Lastly, I make a note of any extra fruit & snacks I may need.

At the end of the night not only do I have 21 meals planned for the week but I also have a full shopping list for those meals that I can take to the market/Tesco the next day.

It's taken me quite a while to get this organised but it has made such a difference - the menu planner is kept on the front of the fridge so we know what we are eating when we get in and what needs perparing. Food wastage has been slashed as have the weekly shopping bills which has been an unexpected bonus.

Hope that helps

shell2001

I have just finished working out meals for October. I write the days out and then put a meal we eat against it (this is not set in stone and I can swap days around). I have just done my tesco order for home delivery - getting it delivered Wed as only £3.99 delivery charge and used a code for 1000 extra points so that £40 to add to my deals total (over £700 now!!).

Now my tesco order before deductions came to £160 (that includes 2 x lean mince steak, 2 extra large chickens (so at least 3 meals from each of those), drumsticks - do these in a HM BBQ sauce, kids love them with stir fry, 2 x packs of ribs, 6 cod steaks and pork mince). Have got 2kgs of Farmhouse Cheddar in that too as well as nappies, wipes, swim-nappies and pull ups - will be glad when we are finished with that lot. By writing my list and going through the ingredients I need I have ensured I only order what I need. I make my own bread so flour etc included and ordered 6 x 6 pints of milk to top of freezer.

I figure I just need to buy a couple of gammon joints from Market on Friday (have ordered a slicer so that should make it go further - sandwiches, ham egg chips, pizza toppings) along with a joint of beef for a roast (treat once a month instead of chicken!) and some pork steak and stewing steak. Then daily I go to the local greengrocers for veg and fruit. We make all our own biscuits and cakes as well as pizzas. I batch cook so have a stock of crumbles, lasagnas and bolognaise as well as pizzas so if I have a bad day i can just chuck something in the oven.

This will be my first full month doing this as we were on holiday for 2 weeks in sept but have noticed that my rubbish bin is only half full and is only collected every 2 weeks, usually at this point it is to the top and collection not due till Friday. I am sure its because nothing is being wasted. I feel so much happier and like I have achieved something, this is the first time I have not gone over our food budget! October better look out 'cos I wanna cut back to £300from £350!

With a little bit of planning this month the following months will get easier.

Sorry to have rambled on. Good luck!!

ChocClare

You are NOT a failure - it's very hard to do! I am (dare I say it) a good cook and yet can I think of six dinners in a row (we always have an Indian on Fridays)? Tough, isn't it?! There are plenty of people offering advice - see http://organizedhome.com/content-50.html, for example.

Personally, I prefer the other method, which is to keep a well-stocked store cupboard/freezer which ALWAYS has xyz in it, so that I can make up any recipe on the day (I usually know what I want to eat on the day!) and know I'll have the ingredients (as long as I remember to defrost them!), and only have to remember to replace things as I use them.

However, my friend's idea (which I do use as well) is to go onto the Tesco website (or fixtureferrets or whoever) and see what's on special offer in any particular week. It's amazing how that can sometimes inspire you - and if something's on BOGOF then why not!

Also, do you cook once and eat twice? If you make double quantities of something and stick one half in the freezer, then you've got a nice, possibly organic "ready meal" and one less thing to worry about/buy next week. That's what your bogofs are for! To give you an example, chicken thighs were recently on BOGOF - I have a recipe where you mix 6 tblsps wine, 3 tblsps soy sauce, 1 tblsp water, 1 tblsp sugar and a teaspoon of made mustard, put it in the bottom of a casserole dish, add your chicken thighs and mix well in the sauce, bung in the oven on gas 5 for about an hour or so, then take the lid off for the last half hour to brown them and eat. YUM - "Chinese" chicken. Serve with mash or rice to mop up all the lovely gravy and plenty of veg. You could make two of those at the same time using the same heat from the oven and bung the second one in the freezer. Actually, it's nicer if you eat it later as you can get rid of any extra fat.

My shopping list is in aisle order: if you know your Tesco's, you should find that you can "walk round it" in your head. I find if I do that, I can do a shopping list and don't vary from it so much. Unfortunately, my Tesco's has just been refitted and everything is in a different place, so I have to walk up every aisle at the moment and am spending far more than usual!!

Actually, joking apart, you might see about getting stuff delivered - I did this during the refit as it was such a nightmare going there in person and actually found I spent far less. OK, so you don't pick up the reduced-to-11p bag of organic carrots, but neither do you buy the candy-filled cell phone (not really, that's out of the Simpsons, but you know what I mean). If you go onto the Tesco vouchers thread on MSE I find you ALWAYS get a code which pays for the delivery and it is pretty wonderful to have your weekly shopping reduced to signing a palmtop machine and then putting stuff away rather than hacking round the shops with a 10-year-old in tow going "Mum, we just need...(candy-filled cell phone etc)". I've only not had a money-off voucher twice, and on each of those occasions I had a code for 1000 clubcard points instead - in other words, £10 worth of Tesco vouchers on their way to me.

Anyway, have gassed on enough and probably bored you to death. Main thing is you are not a failure. You are a flybaby for heaven's sake! Take baby steps, 15 minutes at a time etc. etc. You go girl!

carlih1

Hi,

Thank you for these replies, it really motivates me to know what people are doing. Does anybody know any superstore thaat accepts Visa Electron. I know ocado and tesco's do not!

Tracey04

very useful site, one listed above

JillD_2

Here's how I do it. Not sayiong its the best way or anything but works ok for us.

I wrote out a list of all the things we eat. There were some we all eat, some only the kids eat (eg fishfingers) and some only we eat (eg chilli or risotto).

Anyway I had easily 20 or so dishes so I printed out an empty meal planner chart (http://www.netmums.com/lc/food/mealplanner.php the one labelled Personal Meal Planner) and I wrote into each day one of the meals. I made sure things were varied so all the mincey things (spag bol, shepherds pie etc) weren't together and made sure on my work nights things were easy and the more elaborate stuff was left for the weekend when there was more time.

As I had 20 or so dishes on my list I was able to fill up 3 weeks of the chart and decided thaqt 3 weeks ahead is about as much as I can cope with.

I do my food shopping regularly every Friday morning. This is a new thing for me, I have always done it as and when, but this way if we run out in the week we just make do til the next Friday. I buy enough milk and bread for the week and freeze it (or make my own bread).

So every Thursday I look and see whats on the menu for the next 7 days and compare that to whats in the fridge/freezer/cupboards. I make a list of what we need to buy and use that the next day on Friday for the shopping.

I am a veggie and buy no meat except ham and cooked cocktail sausages for the kids. we eat lots of veg chilis, lasagnes, stews, hot pots, and quorn products. My kids have sandwiches or toast and hoops or toast and cheese or eggs for lunch. We eat loads fo fresh fruit.

I don't plan lunches but by stapes ecery week - eggs, cheese, ham, salad, tomatoes, kitkats (if we need them), yoghurts, value crisps, fruit. If we have, for example, tons of eggs left, then this will become apparent on a Thursday when I do my list and I dont bother buying them that week.
Me and H often have leftovers for lunch like leftover spag bol with a jacket potato or something. I also make sure we have a few tins of soup in for lunches.

I love planning meals like this. I no longer get to 5pm and think "what will i cook for them tonight ?". I just look at the planner on the fridge. Its fab. I just need to spend an hour or so once every few weeks to plan it out.

The shopping is easier too, I dont have to think about what to buy which means I can devote my time to stopping the kids (aged 20 monthsd and 3) from beating each other up in the trolley. We throw out much less stuff and therefore spend less.

the other thing is I do swop stuff around depending on how we feel in the sday sometimes eg I was going to make shepherds pie last night to eat tonight and couldnt be bpthered so we decided to have homemade pizzas instead which actually used up some leftover cheese and sweetdcorn anyway. So just because the plan says it doesn mean we have to rigidly stick to it.

The other thing we have is a notepad stuck to the fridge, as soon as something is finished we write it in the list. It took me ages to get Hubs to do this but it is second nature now and he gets relly huffy if I forget to buy something that he put on the list. this helps with toiletries and cleaning products too. As soon as we run out of Jif for example (or just before), it appears on the list and then I know to get it.

Well it all seems to work for us anyway

Good luck, you will get there in the end,
Jill

Julieboo

If you go around 7pm at night you get bargain prices and asda 7pm in morning also sundays around 3pm tesco=hope helps

Julieboo

I have several staple meal plans that I can always do but I change around things I can get cheap.
I used to spend £600+ on just food I have now got around £200 and we actually eat better and my fridge and freezer is full.
Today I had parents round so had 2kg bag of minced beef fom iceland £2 made large chili with ingrediants i had in (beans/onion/old chilli sauce/tin of mushrooms). Made chilli and baked potatoes for kids made burritos with an assorted filling tray (they're fussy) on the tray was hot minced beef, grated cheese, sweetcorn and chopped up hot dog they loved it and had bake potatoes too. Always have the fruitbowl full which they always fill up on and buy from market or morrisons which I find cheapest.

thriftlady_2

ChocClare wrote:

Personally, I prefer the other method, which is to keep a well-stocked store cupboard/freezer which ALWAYS has xyz in it, so that I can make up any recipe on the day (I usually know what I want to eat on the day!) and know I'll have the ingredients (as long as I remember to defrost them!), and only have to remember to replace things as I use them.

This system works well for me too I do make a rough meal plan based on what I've got in, but I don't shop for a meal plan if you see what I mean.

carlih1

JillD wrote:

I am a veggie and buy no meat except ham and cooked cocktail sausages for the kids. we eat lots of veg chilis, lasagnes, stews, hot pots, and quorn products. My kids have sandwiches or toast and hoops or toast and cheese or eggs for lunch. We eat loads fo fresh fruit.Jill

Hey Jill thanks for your imput, i would reallyl ike to know some of your veggie recipies if you have them i have a few of my own but am always interested to find out other peoples ideas.

carli