In thinking that meal planning can’t be out of the ordinary?

[Fono]

I’ve always operated a system within my household where I will sit down every Sunday morning and plan all of our meals (lunch and dinner) for the following week and then formulate my shopping list based on everything we need specifically for those meals. This means we have minimal wastage at the end of any given week, prevents over-buying and everyone knows exactly what we are eating and when.

I have a board in our kitchen where I’ll write up the meals for the week and recently every time I’ve had a visitor to the house I’m met with the same shocked reaction about meal planning, like it’s a completely foreign concept.

I’d never previously thought that I did anything out of the ordinary and I’d assumed most households did this? If not, I’m genuinely interested to know what other families do? Imo given the cost of living crisis, meal planning is more important than ever!

I feel exactly the same as you OP!

I'm the butt of jokes in my friend group for how much I like to meal plan but I always ask how do they do a food shop without knowing what you're having? I can't comprehend it 🤣

I just have a massive freezer full of options. And decide as I go. And replace as certain items are gone. Ask DD what she fancies and go from there. Always have 3/4 Joints / Meat options to take out the day before. I'm jealous of people who are so organised. I don't always "feel" like a big cooked meal and sometimes we have something more simple... just keep cupboards full all the time.

I meal plan in my head, and I know what dinners we’ll be having this week but none of it is written down. If i visited someone with a whole meal planning board I’d be surprised and impressed.

Do you ever swap meals round OP? Or do you stick religiously to your board?

I don't mean plan. We just decide what to have each evening when it's evening. So might require a little trip to the shops before dinner, or maybe we'll have something in.

The problem with me meal planning is, firstly, I can't think that far ahead 😄, but also, I like to decide what I want for dinner that evening. Sometimes I might crave a lasagne, but other times might want a pizza... and it also depends what I've had for lunch. But it does mean we frequently pop to the shops for 'bits'.

I voted YABU as what you have sounds a bit joyless with little room for spontaneity. I'd hate to have it dictated on a Sunday all my meals for the coming week. I do think about what I'll eat and shop accordingly, but I then swap and change depending on what I fancy etc and I make sure I have jars of sauce and other ingredients to make up various dishes that won't go off.

We do. But have many times seen/heard couples wandering fairly aimlessly around shops asking what they should have for dinner, putting about 4 items in and going to pay. Presumably they do this daily.

I mean plan as it makes my life so much easier,, a number of my friends do too.

However I do know others who don't and they're usually the ones complaining about cost of their weekly shop

I meal plan. I don't stick to it rigidly e.g. if tonight is pasta but I fancy a burger I will swap but I buy the stuff to make 7 dinners, and enough for 7 lunches. I find it leads to way less waste. My mam on the other hand is a disaster!! Keeps saying she will plan but never does. Ends up in the shop most nights a week, buys stuff that is on offer because it's on offer then ends up with a jam packed freezer which I ended up rummaging though to clear when I stay with her.

i have chicken/sausages/mince/fish in the freezer, along with vegetables, mixed peppers, spinach
tins of toms,
always have lentils and beans, onions, carrots,
today i plan to buy, on the way home, yoghurt, cheese, baby peppers, tomatoes. dog treats. - thats all i need , oh and bread and milk.
i can always whip up something, dont buy convenience foods, apart from an occasional pizza

That's not controlling, @Probablymagrat

Telling somebody who's done ALL the work in planning, buying & prepping a meal that they've Cooked The Wrong Dinner, & creating an argument over it, however ...

The former except the "trying". I just look at what i have and make things.

Frankly, with the abysmal stock situation in many shops, improv skills is quite handy

What happens if you meal plan requiring chicken thighs, and there are non in the shop?

You cook much the same meal, with a substitute chicken/meat, of course!

I plan but I wouldn't stick up a wall chart . Breakfast porridge lunch PNB on toast dinner what's in fridge

I go on the gousto app every week and choose mine.

I plan six meals for the week, one day is a take away / eat out.

I don't plan what we will eat on which day, that depends on dates / what looks like it will last to the end of the week when it gets delivered.

I fucking hate doing it though.

Tbh I take bit of an offense about this "rely on convenience food" assumption about people who don't meal plan🙈
It's not that hard to make something out of bunch of fresh ingredients on a spot. 😁

What about freshness with a weeks worth of food? How, by the end of the week is anything fresh?

yes me too @BosaNova

It’s not stressful at all.

When we shop we just buy veg, meat, breakfast things and top up the storecupboard when we are running low on certain things. We always have veg in, different cuts of meat, oil and yogurt for marinades, a big cupboard of tins, stocks and spices. Our freezer always has mince and fresh pasta frozen. If we want to try out a new recipe that requires specialist ingredients, then we’ll go out and shop specifically for it. We cook everything from scratch, it wouldn’t possess me to buy a tub of pasta sauce as we enjoy cooking together.

generally we’ll just look in the fridge and decide what we want to eat! We get a takeaway each week so if we don’t fancy what is in the fridge- that’ll be the takeaway night. Today I’m probably going to make curry- but we could easily have burgers and salad, or chicken goujons, or Mexican style chicken and veg, or steak…probably more options if I went to look.

a big planner isn’t my style- but people have to do what works for them and I know some people have to be more organised. I hate knowing what I’m going to eat- stops me looking forward to it and I always end up fancying something else.

I meal plan but it's on my phone so people don't see it. I'd waste a lot of food if I didn't because I'm funny about veg that is past it's best and need to plan so it's all used.

i am far too contrary
if you say black i wold say white.
i still ahvent decided what we are eating tonight

I grew up with my parents doing meal planning - Friday evening they would decide what the meals would be for the next week, and they'd shop on Saturday morning with that in mind. Meals were written up on a whiteboard in the kitchen for the week ahead. I didn't understand when other people would sometimes say "but what if on Tuesday you just didn't fancy pasta?". Eh, what did not fancying something have to do with it - it was written on the board, that's what we were having! And tbh then as a student I would find it rather frustrating to hear flatmates moping around at 6pm complaining that they had no food in, didn't know what they wanted, oh no they'd have to either go to the shop or get a takeaway... as though the concept that they would need an evening meal was a total shock to them each day.

I don't meal plan now but that's because I live by myself, generally have a freezer full of bulk cooked meals and lots of stuff in the cupboards, as well as time to pop into a supermarket on the way home to get ingredients if I decide I want to cook a particular thing. If I was a parent who was working full time and had kids to deal with then damn right I would meal plan, so much easier to sit down and make the decisions for the week in one go then plan ahead! Why inflict decision-angst and faffing about whether you have the right ingredients and more shopping every single day.

For some reason the act of meal planning makes me feel angry. Having the weeks meals displayed on a list would make me want to rebel and order take away every night.
I'd find it far too hard to think on a Sunday morning what I want to eat on Friday night.
I can do about two days in advance or have a rough idea that I fancy doing a lamb tagine and DC want a curry but that's as far as it goes.
I do a big online shop of store cupboard staples and buy other stuff as I need it. Morrisons same day delivery is great for this.
We don't have a lot of waste this way. I don't know if it's more expensive, I'm happy to spend on food and love cooking.

I don't meal plan to that extent. I'll think of a few main meals for in the week, buy stuff for them, anything else I like the look of and then basics like bread and sandwich stuff. I don't waste anything but rarely think of what I'm actually going to make until the day before.

I do meal plan, it's not strict and sometimes I move meals from the date I planned them originally due to use by dates or changed plans.

My mum never meal planned, she still doesn't. It meant she would just shop randomly and fill the fridge and freezer constantly. It is now just her and my dad and she still has 3 full freezers! She probably wouldn't need to shop for a year if she went through it all and used it up x