Help me to meal plan?

[Swinningforza]

Sorry to ask. But I am spending about 500 pounds per month on groceries and I don't even manage packed lunch for the kids or me! It's only me, and two primary school age DC.
Can anyone help me plan my time and shopping list and meals?!

Exh and i split the week which actually seems to make it harder for me to plan meals than easier, I don't know why.

I always have them on a Mon and Tues, he always has them on a weds and Thurs and then we do eow.

Any suggestions gratefully received

So start with evening meals when you know you’re all together. Work our how many you need a week and then go from there.

I have a big wipe clean monthly calendar in my dining room that I write breakfast/lunches/dinners on so on a Friday night I look ahead to the next week and write my shopping list based on that.

You don’t have to stick to it rigidly, and make sure you have some easy meals in (frozen pizza, pasta etc) for when you’re knackered and the meal you planned is too much effort!

Plan in snacks and treats, drinks etc. I find a weekly shop helps me to save as I’m not just buying loads of stuff in a panic to last for ages. I’ve got my food bill down from &150 a week for dd and I (!) to £75.

Sit down the night before you do your weekly shop and work out what meals you'll have for the next week. You'll know which days you need to plan to include the children and which days it will be just you, so you can plan differently for those. If you cook bigger things when the children are with you, plan to make enough for a serving that you can have as leftovers later in the week. Definitely include plans for packed lunch things. Check where you're at for longer terms things like cereals or washing up liquid or whatever. You can keep a running list of those whenever you notice you are getting low.

Then make a shopping list based on your meal plans. And here's the crucial part: stick to it.

If you need to make changes you can go for one top up during the week, but try not to get into the habit of doing this all the time. That's often where the budget gets blown.

I'm terrible at this so am watching this thread for tips. I

I use plan to eat it's an app and website for £30 per year. You put the recipes in the website then drag them to a calendar and then it automatically generates a shopping list.
It keeps me from buying and wasting crap!

Thank you for tips! Any meals or cookbooks anyone particularly recommends? I am in such a rut

I use the bbc good food website a lot.

When I’m meal planning I try to cook for more than one day at a time, for example spag Bol one day, with a double portion of the mince (lentil version) so I can use it for a shepherd’s pie or lasagne the next day. Or I’ll freeze some.

Any particular likes/dislikes?

Pork and Parmesan meatballs are delicious.

Fajitas- make leftovers into quesadillas for lunch or dinner next day

Slow cooked pork shoulder, just chuck in casserole with salt, pepper and an inch of water and cook for 4/5 hours at about 150.

We love sweet potato chilli, it’s super cheap and makes loads www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/veggie-chilli/
You can dial down the spice if too much.

Each Saturday, I look at each day the week ahead, and everyone's evening commitments.

So, evening meetings, phone calls, or travel away for DH, ballet for one DD, riding for another, school commitments, and tutoring sessions.

This helps me figure out whether there's time and commitment for a time consuming and meat and veges meal, or whether we're all going to be under the pump, so doing something like a lasagne or maccy cheese, that I can do ahead of time, and it's quickly served and eaten is better, for a particular evening. This also helps me assess leftovers for lunches, or whether I need to get in for sandwiches.

So for an example for the next week:

Monday - 6pm teleconference, nothing else - did bangers, mash and a shed load of veges.
Tuesday - DD pilates 4.15-5.15, won't be back until 6.15, other DD ballet at 8.15-9.15 - doing a chicken lasagne, salad, and garlic bread.
Leftovers from this will do a couple of days lunches.
Wednesday - Riding 6pm, so won't be back until 7.30, DH at a workshop all day, so doing a casserole and veges - can prep them in the morning, other DD can put them on at 6.30pm.
Thursday - Workshop again for DH, tutoring 6.30-8.30, so we'll be doing 'it tastes like honey' while the girls are being tutored. (Chinese noodley/stirfry dish).
Friday - takeout.
Saturday - DD's birthday outing will eat up most of the day so home-made hamburgers.
Sunday - Roast Lamb and veges.

Sorry if I've bored anyone to death. . .!

OP, I'd look at online shopping, and building up a list on your online account of your frequent purchases - really helps with time and money.

I break up my shopping list - ALWAYS have a list into these sections - Meat and Fish, Dairy (including bread and eggs), Fruit and Veges, Cleaners, sanitary products and 'other'. If you break it into sections it's easier to see what you've forgotten, and just allround more manageable to do.

I meal plan on Sunday evenings and have a note on the fridge door where I write anything extra that we need that has ran out.

I do online food orders or Aldi depending on time.

I have just done an order with Asda for about £144, that will last us about 6 weeks (2 adults, 3 small children).

It will be topped up with eggs, bread, milk and cheese but that should be it. Sometimes we do eat random things near the end 😂

I use BBC website and bought Jack Monroes book where she feeds a family for £10 per week.

We also don’t eat much meat which I think may keep the cost down,

Big batch of chilli. One night with rice and the next with jacket potato and cheese on top.

Jack Monroe's a girl called jack book. Reduced our food costs dramatically, she tends to work from a pool of ingredients so once you have those ingredients its easy to switch around meals as if you want. I tend reduce the amount of carbs and increase the veg. Everyone eats green beans and broccoli so we often have these on the side frozen so no waste.

watching as I'm shit at this

I find it helpful to write a whole list of lunch and dinners the family eat- then around Thursday every week (food shop on Saturday) I'll pick out the ones for the next week. Cross check things I may already have in the house / any changes to the week's plans, and add: toiletries, drinks, fruit & veg, snacks= voila a list.

Also I switched from Sainsburys to Aldi and saved myself £40 a week

Jamie Oliver 5 ingredients cook book is great

Weekly I check the commitments for that week, who will be there, guests, nights away with work, clubs etc. Then I browse through my favourite cookbooks to find maybe 3-4 dishes. If any of them use a small amount of a herb or other more unusual ingredient, I try to find a second meal which will use up the rest. I then identify 3-4 'easy' meals like gnocchi, pesto and green beans, or pizza and salad.

Then I list what ingredients are needed. I shop on-line (if I go in a shop I buy anything I fancy). I also have a regular list of e.g. butter, milk etc. Plus stuff for packed lunches, fruit, ham, tuna, hummus etc.

We buy a lot of frozen vegetables now as it seems to cut down on waste, as with weekly online shopping vegetables for the later part of the week can be off by the time you get to them.

I write a list of the meals for the fridge door, marking any which are for particular days, and leave the others to be flexible depending on how much energy I have that night. Anything we run out of during the week is written on a fridge door shopping list and as I do my on-line shop 1 week ahead, I edit the order the night before it's due and add/change anything (i.e. if weather suddenly improves).

Anything left over in the fridge on the day of the shop gets turned into soup.

Don't do anything that's not on the meal plan for that week, otherwise you'll have the wrong ingredients, go for an extra shop and end up buying half waitrose.

We buy from Ocado with occasional small waitrose top ups for bread etc (though I stick an extra loaf and pittas in freezer each week to cut down on top up shops). We tend to eat veggie, with meat for the meat eaters just 2-3 times a week. Our bill for 2 adults and 2 primary children plus about half the pet supplies, packed lunches for 2 people and leftovers for 1 (DS gets school lunch) and all the washing liquids, bleach etc... comes to about £130/week and that's without skimping or trying to cut costs.

Favourite cookbooks -
Hugh FW - veg
Demuths
Ottolenghi simple meals

Some great advice here - one thing I’ll add from my own experience of budgeting for food shops - don’t add treats until the end (whether in store or online shopping).

Plan the meals as PP’s have suggested - BBC good food is a good start for recipes, get the necessary ingredients for those, then any cleaning supplies, toiletries etc.

If you have a few local supermarkets then check around for which shops do the best deals on certain items as well - were fortunate enough to have a Lidl, Herrons, Iceland, Wilkos etc so I leave any items that I know I can get from the above off of my online shopping list and get them in store.

Treats such as snacking items at the very end - DH used to do our online shopping (we do ours every two weeks - 2 adults and 2 toddlers plus 4 cats) and he’d always wonder why it was so expensive, thing is the first thing he’d add were his treat foods and because he’d not be anywhere near his set limit, he’d then add all of the items we actually NEED afterwards - which then pushed us over budget - so I took over the shopping 😂

I’m not saying don’t have any treats, but a good tip I learned growing up was if you’re that desperate for some chocolate or crisps then you will have the inclination to go to your local shop for them as and when you fancy them, if you have them in the house, you’ll find yourself buying them more and more.

As for basic meal planning, I started with figuring out my most go to meals and did my first shop to get my cupboard full of staples like - tinned tomatoes, kidney beans, potatoes, pasta (big bags), onions, rice, cous cous, stock cubes etc.

I know I can always knock up a decent meal with these - so I make sure to have them fully stocked up and then I only have to buy the additional items to go with our meals rather than starting from scratch every month. Perishables obviously we buy as and when required.

I really love Nigel Slater's EAT, especially for those times it's just you.

I use BBC Food website. Loads of recipes on there.

Its usually just me or one other. I make huge crock pot meals that can be divided up into portions and frozen. I find that really helpful because when I cba to prep lunch for myself I just take one of the frozen meals with me. Healthy and cheap because you've already paid for it!

I meal plan religiously- I spend on average £45, but rarely buy meat now. Last week I spent £55, week before £26, 2 adults and 3yo.

I food shop on a Thursday in Lidl. Wednesday night I inventory what food we have. I have a page that I keep food inspo on in my diary and then I pick from that for meal plans for the week. Then I write a list of what we need and take to the shop!

For those of you who shop bi-weekly (or every 6 weeks!) - what about fresh stuff (fruit, veg, meat, etc)?

We have a three week meal planner and I shop weekly in Lidl for the things we need (plus lunches). We spend about £70/week in Lidl for two adults, a pre-teen and a 5yo. We eat quite a bit of meat but don't buy much alcohol. I do cook some things from scratch but also utilise jars and off-the-shelf sauces. I avoid buying lots of luxuries every week and try to stick to my shopping list. I am good at avoiding the middle aisle What with Lidl not being huge, there is less choice and therefore chance to over spend than at a giant supermarket.

I'm not a great cook but I find the slow cooker is helpful for us. I do the prep the night before so it's all ready to go in the next morning. As others do above, I cook a bigger portion in the slow cooker so I can freeze portions and have them on other days when we're busier. There are some nice recipes on BBC Good Food and some delicious Hairy Biker recipes on BBC Food.

It also means, if we stick to the meal plan, we don't waste veg etc that we've bought and not used.

So much good info!! Thank you!! Loving the blow by blow account of Sunday night meal planning - it would never occur to me and makes so much sense. Do you then cook with what you have in from your shop or do a weekly shop?

I normally do a shopping list at the same time and a big asda order. I plan to cook with what I have in Monday and usually the delivery comes Tuesday.