Aibu to think all meal planning is for "budgets" what do you eat if you're not on a really tight budget?

[hardhatonforthis]

I think we are stuck in a rut. I don't want to eat beans or parsnips every night?
Don't like hello fresh.
Shop at ocado because it suits us for a variety of reasons.

What are you eating this week?

Meal planning isn’t just for people on a tight budget, it’s to save time and to avoid food waste.

We eat a lot of fish! This week we have tuna steak and salad, jerk salmon with rice and peas, Thai green curry and salmon, and then some kind of fish curry yet to be decided.

I meal plan as otherwise I end up with lots of food items that don't come together well into meals. I like to sit down at the weekend with my recipe books and pick one or two new things to include each week, sometimes they later get added to the regular rotation of other meals, sometimes not!

I don’t meal plan to save money I meal plan because I absolutely despise waste

I meal plan so I only have to go to the supermarket once a week. I'll have an idea what I'm going to cook but it's not set in stone and the days might be mixed up depending what we fancy. Eg Sunday - roast; Monday - eggs; Tuesday - something with leftover roast meat; Wednesday - fish: Thursday: pasta; Friday: something with mince. I don't do curries as DH doesn't like them so I make a batch if he's out so I have portions in the freezer. Also make triple helpings of mince and casseroles and freeze for days when I'm too tired to cook or home late.

This week:
Last night : Stilton and ham gratin with shredded sprouts and baby carrots
Tonight: steak with mustard mash, French beans and wilted spinach
Tomorrow: Mexican beef stir fry with fajita seasoned oven chips
Friday: duck confit, French beans, nice potatoes of some sort
Saturday: either mushroom or mixed seafood risotto
Sunday: possibly a curry feast day - making a couple of large pots of different curries, proper pilau rice and HM naan breads - with leftovers being frozen in single serve portions

Haven’t thought beyond that yet.

I meal plan because although I like to cook I have to do a big weekly shop so have to have an idea of what I’m making every night. I’ll research recipes or tweak one I already know and stick with a few firm family favourites to keep things varied. Tonight we’re having homemade lasagne with a tomato and basil salad and garlic bread.

I Kal plan do that I have the food in I need to feed my family. Have not ever needed to budget.

Spag Bol yesterday
Steak and sausage pie today
Burritos tomorrow
Lasagne ( See above) Friday
Chicken parmigiana Saturday
Go shopping on Sunday

I don’t really get the question?
We don’t shop to a budget. We don’t have to be careful around what we spend on food. We meal plan, so that we have what we want/need in the house for dinner and to avoid waste.
Tonight we’re having steak, dauphinois potatoes and green beans. We cook a lot of Thai food. We also like to experiment with cooking different Indian dishes. Some standard meals like pork, butter bean and chorizo stew, chilli con carne etc. We buy our meat from the local farm shop as much as possible. It’s all planned.

It's not really clear what you're asking because your title doesn't really relate to the OP.

Anyway, we meal plan to save money but also to eat better. We have busy jobs and are often tired in the evening so if there's no meal plan/shopping then we're likely to get convenience food or a takeaway.

We don't plan what we'll eat each day but we do a monthly plan then shop for everything we'll need apart from fresh fruit and veg.

We'll cook double portions and freeze so we have easy meals like spag bol and chilli for weekdays.

There'll be some easy stuff in the freezer like burgers (either homemade or bought).

It does help with budgets and we'll do a very cheap meal plan for this month as we're really skint.

I meal plan so I can plan around activities, prep some dinners in advance etc and know what to buy on a once-a-week online shop. I don't really have a budget constraint (partly because we don't have particularly expensive tastes)

This week we have chicken & noodles, vegetable curry (I'll make double, will have two nights), crispy chicken with wedges, pasta bake with a tomato/veg sauce, steak.

Oh ok, I guess when you’re googling it’s coming up with very low cost meal plans and that’s not really what you’re looking for.

Here’s our plan for dinners this week:

Monday: Roast pork, roast potatoes, roast carrots with honey and thyme, Brussels sprouts with streaky bacon and chestnuts, red cabbage (this was our Christmas dinner with my daughters who spent Christmas with their dad)

Tuesday: beef rendang and pak choi

Wednesday: jacket potato with beef and tomato sauce, cheese, and a crispy salad

Thursday: Smoked mackerel and potato salad with quail’s eggs

Friday: Prawn and courgette linguine

Saturday: mousakka

Sunday: Roast beef with herby potatoes, a celeriac and red cabbage remoulded and a couple of vegetable sides (not decided on those yet, we’ll just make something with whatever veg is left in the fridge)

Oh and things like sea bass with avocado salsa. Scallops. Monkfish stew.

Sigh. *a celeriac and red cabbage remoulade

We’re having;

Chicken curry with egg fried rice, home made flat breads.
Pizza.
Roast chicken dinner
Steak burgers
Spaghetti Bol, garlic bread.
Slow cooked beef dinner
Steak, chips, onion rings, egg fried rice, fried tomato.

I shop pretty much daily for what I fancy, or bring something home from work. I live very close to a sainsbury's where I use the post office daily so it's no more effort really, I wouldn't like to meal plan as I dont know what I'll want or even how hungry I will be...also, all my organisational skills go into my business so nothing left for home life!

Another one here who primarily plans meals to avoid food waste. Zero Waste Scotland state that food waste is even worse for the environment than plastic waste.
Also I really dislike wanting to make something and not having the ingredients that I need. It helps to keep me organised.

Meal plan so not to waste but also regardless of how much money I have I don’t see why supermarkets should have as big a chunk of it as they could if I wasn’t focused

Most people that actually cook (rather than bung something in a box in the microwave or oven) plan their meals OP so they can do a shop. Because otherwise you can't cook any meals and can only live on shite and snacks 😳

Can you cook OP?

No budget restrictions but meal plan to some extent to make side there is food in the house and prevent waste . Frequently eat food past it’s useby date too .

Make sure

We are not on a particularly tight budget, but I meal plan because otherwise we end up wasting food or the kids end up eating too much of the same meal over and over again.

Today for example as we’ve been at home for both meals, the kids have had salmon, rice and homemade vegetable sauce for lunch. For dinner they had pitta breads toasted with butter, cucumber slices and chicken tikka pieces.

Tomorrow will be sandwiches or pitta bread for lunch and homemade cottage pie and veg for dinner.

I did the same as lanbro before having children, but now it’s easier to meal plan as I have to feed my children regardless of how hungry I am, unfortunately

We meal plan but we don’t... like we’ll decide we’re having spaghetti, fajitas, mince, fish n chips and buy the ingredients we need with decent dates but it’s not like Monday’s x, Tuesdays y etc. Just roughly we’ll be eating these things at some stage.

Last night was Lemon Chicken, tonight is Steak Pie.. which may roll on to tomorrow because it’s about the size of ds .

For ideas I tend to look at ready meal or kits and then diy my own versions to suit ds’s allergies and dp’s fussy arse.. ironically the former vegans the only one that’ll eat anything in this house. But I suppose our window shopping for ideas works best instore.

We meal plan because if we don’t we can never think what we fancy on that particular day and end up having takeaway