Can anyone please share.....

LearningToSave.

any meal planners(if poss with recipies) that they might have?? im trying to get together a meal planner to save on our shopping as we are terrible impulse and convienience food buyers.for some reason im struggling with getting it together as its all a bit strange to me!!
thankyou,
claire x

pavlovs_dog

a good place to start is to get a piece of paper and write down all the meals you can cook, highlighting the ones that are particularly popular with the kids.

decide how often you want to rotate your meal planner - is it going to last 2/3/4 weeks?

once you have enough meals to fill up all the spaces for all your weeks, you just write it up neat, and hang it in the kitchen.

the hardest part is getting into the routine, 9/10.

Sarahsaver

Just repeat in your head 'i can make it at home for less' and do not buy anything readymade, even sandwiches. The cost of a lunchtime sandwich at work, at an average of £2 (how much?!?!?) adds up to the price of a weekend away over a year. Look at the cost of everything in relation to everything else, and you will soon have enough motivation.
I sit down every sunday and write what meals we are going to have during the week, it is a doddle and sometimes only takes 10 minutes, and its a great way of thinking about using what you already have.
Hang on in there, you can do it.

Jay-Jay_4

I want to do this too!

I go to asda for a loaf, spend £30 and come home with nothing for tea!

I know I can do it but I need some inspiration. I like real food, OH likes junk food, DD likes Super Noodles :rolleyes: and baby will only eat anything that's been homemade, like casseroles etc.

So!

Spag Bol -cheap and easy 'spur of the moment food'
Shepherds Pie - needs a bit of planning
Enchiladas - Yum but the kids won't eat them
Beef Casserole - always taste better the day after, much planning needed
Chicken curry - quick and easy but baby won't eat it
Chops, mash and veg- No problems there
Roast dinner - Can't have too many roast dinners

Can you tell that we like meat?

Then there's 'lunch' food and breakfast stuff to buy. Shall I break these down as well?

Come on folks, post your weekly meal lists on here!

fazer6

Come over to money saving old style and have a look at the store cupboard challenge and february grocery challenge. I take out every month the money I plan to spend that month on food, that way you can't overspend. I also have a small diary which I plan all my meals in, I've planned for what I have in the freezer and then when I get some meat reduced or bogof then I write in the diary when I'm going to eat it, I also cook double/triple portions and have the leftovers in two weeks time. If I'm running out of any staple items (like tinned toms) or cleaning stuff I write in on my shopping list which only contains items I need to cook the meals for that week.

I've been doing this the past month and have saved money, saved time and cut out any processed food. Not bad eh? Generally here's how my weekly evening meals work out.

Monday - chicken
Tuesday - fried rice/pasta bake/risotto/jacket spuds (basically carbohydrates and leftover meat and veg) or something with mince (lasagne, spag bol, meat balls...)
Wednesday - Caserole done in the slow cooker.
Thursday - Omlette and pasta/homemade pizza (once again uses up whatever meat or veg I have in the fridge)
Friday - Fish or a curry using whatever meat is leftover from sundays roast
Saturday - Caserole done in the slow cooker
Sunday - Roast dinner

Lunch is sandwiches with whatever meat I have leftover from sunday or leftovers from the previous evening meal. I also make pots of soup with whatever's in the fridge.

Make meals last longer by bulking them out with pulses and veg. Last week I made enough meatballs for 4 dinners for £2(ish) using - 250g beef mince 32p (reduced), 500g pork mince 69p (reduced), one carrot 15p(ish) one onion 10p(ish), I grated the carrot and added breadcrumbs (I don't throw out stale bread) to make 32 meatballs. The sauce was 3 tins chopped tomatoes 51p (aldi), green beans 5p (£1.62 for a pack but bogoff), garlic, handful of lentils and dried pulses and seasoning. Served with rice and there was enough leftovers for my other half to have some for lunch the next day and I froze enough for 3 more dinners.

spankymonkey_2

i find it a lot easier when supermarkets do the meal deal offers. iceland started the ball rolling with their roast dinner menus. now tesco have joined in. great for children eg. smiley faces, burgers etc. cant go wrong really

nicki_2

Can I point you inthe direction of organizedhome.com (link in my signature). We have a Once a Month cooking section and loads of recipes that can be made in bulk and then frozen for later use. Some of the recipes I've looked at have made 16 servings!

Plus menu planning is a BIG topic over there. Lots of hints and tips and links to other websites where you can get even more ideas from. There's loads of imput and they're just as friendly and helpful as the people here!

rchddap1

This might not help on the meal planner front, but this is what we do. My partner and I go shopping together for a start. So we both pick what we this we'd like. I'm always on the look out for cheap / discounted meat. When we get home this meat is then split up into 'meal bags' which is slung in the freezer. Every morning we get one bag out of the freezer for that night's meal. Sometimes it is pot luck, other times it is deliberate.

We have packed lunches at work etc... and find that this saves a huge amount of cash. Sandwiches are very cheap to make, but cost a bomb in the shops.

Edit: Forgot to mention that we don't 'top up'. We only go shopping every 2 weeks and we only eat what we have in the cupboards or freezer. Somethings of course like milk we have to buy extra every now and then, but as a rule its only 1 major shop every 2 weeks. For us this developed over time, but to us it seems pointless to buy any extras, when we have a huge pile in the freezer just waiting to be eaten.

crazyhazy

I posted a similar thread over on money saving old style, think it's called cooking from scratch, menu planning. Everyone gave me lots of ideas.

Sarahsaver

today for tea we had leftovers from yesterday made into
potato and butternut squash soup
vegetable and pasta bake
pudding leftover from yesterday.
I usually have leftovers on a monday, then theres little effort required, especially useful when u have that monday feeling.

tiff

nicki wrote:

Can I point you inthe direction of organizedhome.com (link in my signature). We have a Once a Month cooking section and loads of recipes that can be made in bulk and then frozen for later use. Some of the recipes I've looked at have made 16 servings!

Plus menu planning is a BIG topic over there. Lots of hints and tips and links to other websites where you can get even more ideas from. There's loads of imput and they're just as friendly and helpful as the people here!

I took a look at your link Nicki, and was really impressed with the site. I've not come across "once a month" cooking before! Now that needs to be looked at more closely.