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 don’t meal plan, but this is helped by having a chest freezer & big range of store cupboard ingredients.

I got some turkey strips out to defrost this morning, which I could turn into fajitas, stir fry, curry, stroganoff… loads of options.

I just try to rotate if I’m getting out red meat/ white meat/ fish, have the occasional veggie night etc. The only annoying thing is salad as I always wish I had it if it’s not in the fridge, but when I buy it it goes off!

I think meal planning would limit how much I could buy on special offer, which is what drives my shopping really.

Yep, have done this for many years, otherwise we were getting in from work and realising that we hadn't taken anything out of the freezer/didn't have anything in and would order takeaway. Notebook with Mon to Sun and Lunch/Dinner on left hand page, and shopping list on the right. Don't necessarily eat in the order they are listed. Much less waste and much less faffing.

I don’t do a plan for lunches but always do for dinners as DH & I both work so it saves having to faff about or end up getting a takeaway which we can’t really afford. Obviously it does change sometimes if the one cooking is too tired or something else comes up but generally it works for us & helps to save wastage. DD13 always eats separately so she doesn’t come into the equation ( she’s neurodivergent & her “ safe foods” often change). I actually enjoy sitting down & thinking of different meals for us to have, although at the moment we’re trying to use up stuff in the freezer & we have shedloads of baked beans!

random shops are great for bargains/reduced items
so what if they are in the freezer,
i will eat them and enjoy them even more for being reduced

i couldnt manage without my microwave to defrost things though!

I meal plan alongside my online shop so only get what we need.

As we have a delivery pass I tend to order twice a week so all the fresh stuff stays that way. Seems to have saved us about a tenner a week doing it this way somehow.

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.* 😁

Same. I don't have any meat in the fridge but I have my usual staples of eggs and tinned tuna, tomatoes, rice and beans, red onions, frozen peas and peppers so off the top of my head I could have tuna quesadilla, black bean quesadilla, roast vegetable pasta, shakshuka, bean chilli, omelette with peppers and onions, tuna pasta, black bean burgers, peperonata, egg fried rice, huevos rancheros, stir fry noodles etc. And that's before consulting Google.

I know someone who died this. It seems a needles waste of time and effort to me! But she cooks fresh. I don't, so don't need to check I've got the right stuff in.

Planning is normal and can mean quite a wide range of things from a rough guide in your head to meticulously written down.

Being too regimented doesn't work for me... some of what I regularly buy is currently unavaliable due to Christmas stock shunting it out of the way. A lot my ingrediants are mix and match anyway. I don't necessarily know what I want to cook/ eat in advance. I used to "plan" too much, buy something for every day and waste some because life happens. Better to buy half of what you expect and top up if needed or use the freezer/ store cupboard.

I think I've got a plan for lunch now. No idea what I want on Wednesday night!

Because to me the predictability is deathly dull. If we as a family had something to eat on Saturday night this weekend gone, we wouldn't have stayed on to eat at the gastro pub and as it happened the night is more enjoyable. My DH works away loads in the week and the we have together I want it to be sometimes out of the house, luckily he feels the same and the sacrifice of not seeing each other in the week as much for the better income is worth it, he says that all the time. Plus we have a 15.5 year old and an 11 year old, the 15 year old often tells us he's joining mates family for dinner or they are getting a takeaway pizza at someone's house bought by the friend's parents and sometimes us. My DD is old enough to eat out in the evening without disruption so it works for us. When you have young children maybe it is different but older DC have unpredictable schedules especially at the weekend IMO.

Oh pressed to soon

I also have a shared calendar as we all have Apple phones. So everyone can see what's planned

I meal plan dinners and lunch is usually leftovers or sandwiches. I agree massive savings. I'll also make sure I'm needing same veg etc for multiple meals or il make a pasta sauce and blend half for a soup.

I've done it for years. It saves time in the supermarket too as I do it in the correct order for the aisles.

I do a weekly menu too. Some of my friends thought it a little odd when I started (30 years ago) but some now do it too. It cut down on our food waste hugely and saved money too.

We don't. We buy whatever looks particularly good that week at the farmer's market and then decide what to cook, but we still never plan ahead more than 24 hours. I have tried to meal plan before our weekly shop but then I didn't like the look of some of the veg on offer, or the supermarket was out of a certain essential ingredient, I'd decided on Sunday we were going to have a certain dish on Wednesday but something turned up that meant I didn't need to or want to cook it... There was always some reason why it didn't work out.

We hardly ever throw food away. I do however find myself eating a plateful of unappealing leftovers at least once a week.

Why does not mean planning mean it needs to be convince food?
I can cook. I can look at ingredients and turn them in to something. I rarely use a recipie, unless we are trying something new, or I'm baking.

I meal plan and put what I cook for every meal of the week that I cook. But it doesn't mean there is no flexiblity. If we ended up going out or getting a takeaway, I just shuffle the days along and cook what's planned later. You just adapt next week to buy less. I also sometimes switch what I am going to cook with something else using similar ingredients because I fancy something else.

I don't know how you go to shop if you don't have a plan what to cook at all. I suspect those who don't plan still have an idea. Just not committed to paper.

No Iv never done that and never will. What a waste of time. I’m not sure why anyone would write it down on the board for the week either… what’s the point in that?

I go to the supermarket and buy whatever I fancy making for the week or I buy what they have on offer and make meals around that.. I know what I have in the cupboards already without looking so no need to have a proper think about it.

The only person I know that meal plans like the OP is a women that wants to be seen as the perfect housewife.

I couldn't live like this, it's too rigid for me (particularly the lunches aspect). What if you suddenly fancy something that isn't on the rota for that day? Or you're not hungry one day so just want something light instead of a full meal? I need a bit of spontaneity in life.

One thing is I don't actually go to the shop or top up. I am too busy to have time to go to the markets. I pretty much know what's in stock in Ocado and plan from that. So that probably helps with the out of stock situation.

I always meal plan for dinners each week (not lunches though) otherwise I'd end up spending a fortune buying random stuff and probably not have all the ingredients in once I decided to make something!
I shop online and hate nipping to the shops for stuff mid week as I always spend more than I mean to.
I also plan rough days when we'll have stuff as sometimes the kids hav clubs so I know it needs to be a quick meal etc, but I dont stick to it rigidly.

Yes we meal plan. I get two shops delivered a week and I plan 3 or 4 days meals and write on the fridge. Only evening meals though not lunches. Me and OH both work full time and have 2 primary age children so it just makes things easier to get in and then not have to think about what’s for tea, it’s already written down and ingredients are already there.

Im not trying to be the perfect housewife 🤣🤣 just how we do things.

I don't really plan lunches but always make a list of dinners - not necessarily what day we'll have them on. I have no idea how I'd shop without knowing what meals I was going to make, especially we're only 2 adults so they'd be so much waste otherwise. I shop then put a lot of it in the freezer so we can be flexible

I think you hit the nail on the head with "more in control." That might make you feel more secure but it's exactly what puts me off meal planning - the regimented nature of it. It's perfectly possible to eat healthily with minimal waste without planning everything down to the last mouthful for a week. The moment I see a meal plan I go off it.

I use store cupboard and freezer items, and just put together what I fancy on a given day.

I don't find it at all stressful! And I prefer it to meal planning, which I find a drudge and tedious. But then again, I'm slovenly like that - I don't iron clothes either

I eat very healthily - there are no pizzas in my freezer I mainly use grains, pulses, lentils, spices, herbs, vegetables, fruit, fish, nuts, seeds, etc. All stuff that can be frozen, dried or tinned.