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!

Yes, I suppose to some extent I do buy random ingredients and also have reasonable supplies in store.
I made a pizza right at the end of our Covid isolation as it’s the sort of thing we always have the ingredients for.
The main danger is that you never actually use all your supplies and some might go out of date. I may occasionally get slightly stressed about being overstocked.
I think if both time and money are very scarce then meal planning makes a lot of sense, but I enjoy knowing there’s a certain amount of slack in the system to rustle up something from existing supplies.

I have a rough plan, in my head, I order online and adjust my plan depending on use by dates when the food is delivered.

Growing up DM bought whatever was cheapest and could only plan once the groceries were bought.

DH’s first wife had a seven day plan taped on a cupboard. One plan, no flexibility so every week was the same.

No idea whether MIL planned meals other than Christmas/Easter/birthdays when she planned a weekend of meals ending with a buffet.

I can quite understand that @Q2C4 & am no more shocked by it than I'm sure you are by the planners - we all do what works for us 😀

It you don’t meal plan how do you know what to put in your trolly at the supermarket? Would it not end up costing a fortune because you buy bits you don’t need, miss stuff you do and need to go back out for?

I wish I knew how to meal plan, I assume this is something OPs mum did and that’s how you learnt? We spent a fortune on food, have a horrible amount of food waste and also often don’t have the right combo of things for a meal. I’d love to learn!

I meal plan like you OP but I don't know anyone else who does.

For us it means less daily stress as we all know who is cooking and what and have all the ingredients in stock.

It also cuts out a lot of wastage - we have 2 supermarket deliveries a week so things stay fresh.

I write a list of meals whilst doing the online shop, then I allocate them to days once the shopping arrives so I can look at use by dates. The plan is on the fridge. DH cooks more of the dinners due to my working hours and he prefers to know what to make. The last couple of weeks the plan didn't end up getting written for various reasons and we both found it a bit stressful. But each to their own.

I wish I knew how to meal plan, I assume this is something OPs mum did and that’s how you learnt? We spent a fortune on food, have a horrible amount of food waste and also often don’t have the right combo of things for a meal. I’d love to learn!

There are plenty of sites that will teach you.

@Blueberrywitch , you decide on what meals you need for the following week.
When you shop, you buy the ingredients for those meals.
You can batch cook and freeze meals, then reheat them when you need them.

Never done meal planning. Always cook from scratch.
Always have pasta/rice/noodles/cous cous in stock. Freezer full of meat, fridge restocked with veg weekly as are fresh dairy products. There's always bacon, pancetta, chorizo in the fridge too which can be used if I haven't defrosted meat. I think about what to cook in the morning and get out things I need. Adult DS (now living back at home) can also throw a good meal together from any available ingredients. I only shop weekly.
I don't know anyone else who meal plans - other than friends who buy Gusto type meals as they obviously have to order what they're going to eat in advance.

When I run out of an item I usually keep in stock, then I'll buy it. I always have herbs, spices, lentils, pulses, nuts, seeds, various wholegrains, frozen vegetables, etc. in stock - all stuff I can make no end of healthy meals from, and all stuff I use. Nothing gets thrown away. So when I'm down to my last tin of kidney beans, for example, I'll buy some more, ready for the next time I fancy bean burritos.

I don't plan lunches but I do suppers. We hardly throw any food away.

I buy similar ingredients every week and then decide what to make on the day. We're mainly vegetarian, so with the ingredients I have in tonight I could do a paneer curry, could do a Thai veg curry, could do a stir fry or could make a lentil pie. I think as long as you have a good stash of herbs and spices, tins like tomato and coconut milk you can just decide on the day.

Clearly meal planning works for lots of people though

I'm the opposite, I can't see why people are so military about meals!

We buy bits and bobs most days and eat whatever's in the fridge or freezer. Always have veg, baked beans etc to accompany a pack of fish cakes or something.

I'm not fussed on lunches, just soup or a sandwich if hungry. Pop to the shop if needed.

I don't know why a meal plan is needed. Just boil up some pasta or pop have cheese on toast and spend time on more exciting things!

I shop every 2 or 3 days.

I make a list of things that have run out.

I look in the fridge and see what we need.

Most of the dinners I make will be a big batch of eg curry, lasagne. Some eaten on the day of cooking and some frozen. When we run out of dinners I buy more ingredients and cook a new one.

Lunch is a sandwich. We always have cheese, egg, chicken available, tomatoes, lettuce, sweetcorn.

I have tried to meal plan in the past but it never works out. Something changes or goes wrong . So I find this system works better for us and reduces waste.

It depends on how rigid you want it to be. I’ll mealplan-ish - for example if there’s a join on Sunday I’ll know the meat will be another week midweek. If I have energy Sunday that might be a shepherds/cottage pie thrown together then and there or I might pull the meat out midweek and use storecupboard stuff to make tacos or curry, whichever I fancy.

Right now in my fridge I have a big pack of pork chops, a pasta bake I threw together at the weekend (there would usually be two but we ate one yesterday), a sweet potato and bacon hash also thrown together at the weekend and a pack of pigs in blankets. I also have a fruit and veg box our local guy does very cheaply. I know that the pork chops will probably do two meals with veg, the pasta bake will be a meal with leftovers for lunch and the pigs in bacon will make baby toad in the holes. I know the veg box will also make leek and potato soup and tomato and bean soup. The hash will be my lunch whrn there isn't leftovers So I guess I have a meal plan? But what days will we eat what with what veg I will decide later.

I put in there what I fancy making…

Anything I buy will get used eventually so doesn’t really matter if I already have a garlic purée etc and buy another one.

I never miss stuff off as I already know what I do and don’t have at home so will just pick up the bits I need.

I would LOVE to to do that but I just don't have the brain capacity and am totally unmotivated. In Nigeria where I'm from it's very normal though. We have set meals for every meal that we don't even need to write it down. Everyone in the home knows it by heart already.

I go back to front. I see what is cheap/reduced/in the veg box and work around that. Pitta bread is reduced? Excellent, the kids love pitta bread pizzas. I have a chicken for Sunday? Then it's chicken pasta and chicken and sweetcorn soup in the week. Cheap leeks in aldi? Ooo potato and leek soup.

I do, to an extent - I'll plan a variety of meals for the week, and but ingredients for them, but won't plan the order to have them in. We aren't rigid about it - if I plan a toad in the hole and don't fancy it, I'm use the sausages for something else or put them in the freezer. Nothing is written down.

I certainly am not one of those people who have a plan like, day A, cook roast chicken, day 2, curry with leftover, day 3 soup from the bones!

That's far too far for me 😂

I put whatever i fancy and looks nice and fresh AND is actually in stock😂
You don't end up missing things because you can miss what you don't need kind of thing.
You just use what you have and if you use some self control, you know how much you are eating so you shouldn't have much extra, if any

I meal plan on a section of my calendar, so I can make sure that I have appropriate meals for our activities - i.e something quick like a stir fry if we're not getting in til later/skipping meals if we're planning on going out etc. I don't meal plan breakfasts (cereal, porridge, fruit, toast, eggs) or lunches (homemade soup, sandwich, something on toast), but I do make sure we have all those ingredients in. If our plans change, or we feel like something different, then we swap stuff around as we like - there's no rule that says the plan cannot be varied or changed.

I shop online and it takes me about 20 minutes to plan and shop for a week. I spend no more than about £80 for a family of 2 adults/2 teens including all household stuff and toiletries. We eat proper, from scratch, nutritionally balanced dinners. I think meal planning is worth it, as it saves us time, money and stress.

I can't work out, if people just shop for a week with no plan, how they co-incidentally manage to buy exactly the right amount and type of stuff for the meals they make, without wastage or missing ingredients in recipes? Obviously it takes very little skill to rustle up something basic and edible from basic store cupboard ingredients, but surely the best tasting meals need the right ingredients, not just whatever needs using up. So it needs planning to a degree, regardless of whether that is on paper or simply in someone's head?

I used to do what you do when the kids were younger. I can’t see anything strange about it or why your visitor would comment on it (other than to say ‘what a great idea’).

See I don't consider myself at all strict but dealing with a chicken is something I could do in my sleep. My six year old is a dab hand at stripping meat from chicken (whole eating some) whilst I tidy the kitchen on Sunday. Then meat goes in the fridge for later and carcass is shoved straight in the slow cooker. Soup is in the fridge by that night - the only pain in the ass bit is picking the bones out.

Planning goes on here.

Not to the day: just a list of meals that have been bought for and can be selected for that day's dinner. It lives on the fridge for the week.