What's equitable to the mental load of food planning?

[TheBeesKnee]

My partner finds the planning and shopping part really difficult. I don't mind it. We both can cook.

I am on maternity leave at the moment and I can feel a creep of responsibility where I'm ending up doing all the mental work and I don't want to end up in a situation where that's expected and so I raised it with him today and said I could take that on as long as he took on something of equal contribution that I never have to think about.

He jumped at the offer but now we're stumped as to what that could be.

Any ideas?

Laundry maybe?

Yeah I'd say washing too.

Finances.

But only if he’s not going to fuck it up!

Planning and carrying out a cleaning 'routine' - life is so much easier if you know you're dusting on x, hoovering on y, cleaning or deep-cleaning bathrooms on z, inside of windows on a month with a z in them etc, rather than doing what I have a tendency to do and assume it can all be blitzed in four hours on a Saturday.

Respectfully, I disagree. I don't think one person in a partnership should ever be responsible for the finances as a whole.

Contribute, advise / question, yes, but never all on one party.

I think that's a good comparator, but watch out for mission creep ... with the cooking , you are both planning and shopping. He could plan the cleaning but then spend the equivalent shopping time doing it, perhaps a once a week 'deep clean' job from the list

Later on, possibly the mental load of childcare ... the pick up drop offs and holiday clubs.

Shopping is about an hour a week, maybe 2. So that's maybe equivalent to a few laundry loads, or running the hoover round or whatever you don't like doing.

Food planning is coming up with 5-7 meals per week (assuming you each sort out your own breakfasts/lunches) every week of the year. Potentially plus having people over for meals, parties etc.

There is nothing I find as draining as doing all of that continually over time (although that is because I don't like eating the same things too often, so it could be less if you don't mind recycling the same menu plans).

So I would say something like: he manages all life admin around e.g. bills, cars, insurance, and planning and booking holidays (which includes asking for your input on them, but doing the legwork himself). Possibly also sorting out cards and presents for all family birthdays. Your mileage may vary depending on how elaborately you eat! And how much that's going to be disrupted by having a new baby in the mix!

Three week meal planning. Once you've done it, it's all in place, and you don't need to think about it again. If one of you gets bored, you can bin the meal from the plan and do another on similar lines.
Eg:
Monday: pasta bake
Tuesday: mince based - lasagna, bolognese etc
Wednesday: fish
And so on

It was the only thing that helped me stay sane when I was recently separated. The DCs didn't even realise we had a meal plan and I knew what I was doing.

I don’t mean full control of the finances - I mean the boring bits of making sure that the electricity bill is paid on the 7th and the water bill on the 17th. And shopping round for car insurance quotes etc. And the endless faff of moving money from one account to another to make sure that we maximise interest owned (current account pays 0.001%, linked savings account pays 4.2%) but can still pay the gas bill.

Dh has always done that in our marriage (when we first got married there was this new thing called “internet banking” that dh was all excited by and I was… well… not so I agreed to go with it if he used it to pay the council tax.)

Big decisions such as where to put our savings and whether to switch our mortgage we make together as it should be.

I do that job, and I'm with those who say it is one of life's drudges... keeping track of the freezer, cupboards etc as well as coming up with food ideas every week / every day! As the kid gets older and says 'what's for dinner?' Repeatedly .... I might have been known to say ' whatever you're making' in response (to be fair they sometimes do!)

Mental drudge equivalents I'd say house finances - utility bills, boiler service, car service, insurances, mobile phones, house maintenance etc... but I hate all that too! (Still have to do it thought!)

I think a good comparator to the 2-3hrs/week meal menu planning and food shop would be any of these
-weekly towel and bedding washes plus striping and remaking beds.
-weekly dusting of house top to bottom (every surface)
-all the ironing (if you iron)
-hoovering house 2-3x a week

If it needs to be a mental load thing he can
-take over family social calendar including all family days on weekends and holidays

House finances aren’t really 2-3hrs a week of drudgery every week. Most can be put on autopilot.

Definitely not finances - that should always be joint. I’d suggest laundry or cleaning. But I am very happy to plan and cook meals, I don’t find it a chore, especially with online shopping

I really like cooking, meal planning, food shopping. and do 90% of it. Am now wondering how i can use it as leverage mwahaha

I cut back time on the meal planning by making an excel spreadsheet with a list of meals we like divided into meat, vegetarian, fish etc and ones the whole family like to eat which we keep for the weekend when we can all eat together. I looked through our cookbooks and put the recipe title with page number and main ingredients, and also took some of favourites from cooking websites like smitten kitchen and zenaskitchen. It took about an hour to make the excel and it has sped things up - ahead of an online supermarket order we look at the lists of dozens of dishes we like and order enough food for about ten. Then I do four that are just easy stuff like fish cakes and baked potatoes, tortellini and garlic bread and so on. All done! And when you come across a recipe on social media or find one on a food blog you can just add the link to your spreadsheet.

exciting stuff eh?!

How is it taking people 2-3 hours to do a meal plan and online food shop? Takes me less than half an hour (I use the Lollipop app).

In our house, the split is that I plan and shop, and DH is default cook (obviously I step in if he's caught up at work/going out etc). I think I've got by far the best end of he deal.

I am the person in our house that takes on all meal planning, food shopping and cooking. If it were left to DH we'd eat beans on toast every night of the week.

In fairness to DH he does all washing up and strips the beds, washes the sheets and makes up the beds every week. He also does all the boring things like taking the cars for their services/MOTs, reviewing utility suppliers etc etc.

We share cleaning, clothes laundry and all childcare.

Basically we play to our strengths/what we prefer doing. He hates planning meals, shopping and cooking so I do it. I hate changing bedsheets and sorting out the cars so he does it.

There’s absolutely no reason why it should take 2-3 hours per week to menu plan and do food shopping when you can just get it all delivered.

That said I also find the meal planning tedious. I find it helps to have 2-3
ideas for decent, quick store cupboard meals so that if I can’t be arsed for a few days it doesn’t matter.

Also meant to add I love the good food app. They also do meal plans of various types with shopping lists. So super easy.

But again, setting up a DD / SO takes 5-10 minutes at most.

My bank released a load of new savings rates a few weeks ago and it took me about 15 mins to move a few accounts around.

Tarting CCs / insurance / utility comparisons etc is a once-a-year job which you could kindly attribute a day to, at most.

Everything else (MOTs, servicing) gets dropped into an annual calendar and you set up reminders for three months / a month / a week in advance.

Even self-assessments are really easy jobs these days.

Modern finances are, for the most part, really easy and automation does the job for you. I don't think it's anything like the daily task of meal prep and shopping.

How about food cleaning.

So washing up, putting dishes away, cleaning out fridge, cleaning oven, obviously fridge/oven less frequent jobs but they are boring ever so boring jobs.

This thread has made me realise how very low my standards are in terms of the amount of time I spend "adulting"

😂

I gave my husband the pediatric appointments and vaccination schedules AND the children's haircuts.