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. I buy whatever looks fresh and cheap and is in season, then I cook whatever I can come up based on what I have in (I am a good cook and don't follow recipes). Absolutely nothing goes to waste and every single meal is different.

We used to go to the shop most nights, but the shop we can walk to is just a Sainsbury's local and doesn't have a huge amount of choice so we found that we were eating the same things all the time and I couldn't make recipes with more interesting ingredients. During the pandemic we started getting a weekly delivery which forced me to plan more so I knew what to buy, because I was trying to avoid needing to do top up shops.

My routine is basically Saturday/Sunday we have variations on a theme pretty much every week unless we're eating out. One night we eat from the freezer, one night I batch cook something to go into the freezer and three nights I make something we'll eat all of on the night. The first night will be using up any leftovers I've spotted lurking in the fridge if possible. Now I've got the routine sorted it works well, and we usually stick to the plan.

We fling half a dozen types of vegetable and a few types of meat in, plus tinned stuff and dairy products.

Cook whatever seems easiest on the day.
Last I checked we haven't starved.

As to budgeting, I read a really good point that you can reduce your spending a finite amount, but your earnings can increase infinitely.

I'm currently studying for an exam, and applying for jobs, as is my husband. Far more lucrative than carefully choosing meat portions etc.

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 never plan. I have a large fruit and veg box delivered every two weeks, so I never know what's coming, and that's half the fun for me: I get a wide range of plants in my diet and try new recipes. I also have a decent stock of store-cupboard and freezer ingredients: pulses, lentils, various wholegrains, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, etc. I never throw anything away and never have stuff that 'just needs using up'.

I do this, but only for 3 days at a time in case we have an unexpected takeaway or illness or something.

We get two online supermarket deliveries a week and I meal plan for each one.

I also make a massive vat of minestrone soup every Monday morning with all the leftover veg in the fridge, then we have that for lunches during the week.

I hate food waste! Throwing away food is the thing I find hardest with young kids to be honest. Having to chuck bits of toast, cheese, half a yoghurt etc. I feel as if I'm flinging a handful of coins in the bin each time.

I'm afraid I don't, and I'm a retired chef of 44 years standing!! I spent all my working life with a rigid menu board and time plan, planned to the last detail. You would think it would be second nature, but now I've retired I really shy away from it. I just wing it now, but fortunately can do it without thinking. We cooked 800 meals a day, feeding our University students 😁

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?

Last time I got aubergine (because they looked lovely for once), mega courgette, spinach on yellow sticker and so on.
Just these 3 with addition of tomatoes, I always have, rice, fish from freezer made really nice quick dinner. I fancied fish so made sumac and zaatar - fish with rice and pan fried chopped veg. If you burn the aubergine skin it adds really great flavour.

Delicious and had it because I fancied fish and had this veg. If i had different veg, I would have different fish dish.

Everyone cooks/plans differently, that's fine. The fact that it wasn't in my head longer than hour before starting to cook doesn't mean it will not be lovely tasting dish though.... Same way like I wouldn't expect everyone who plans to never cook basic foods.

I don't think you are out of the ordinary. I do meal planning for just me as it makes my life so much easier to know that I have food to make lunch etc. during the week when I am working.
My mother used to do it, too. In the days when we had proper shops she had a weekly order with the green grocer, the butcher and the fishmonger. I assume she learned this growing up as her family had a cook, so presumably meals were planned with my granny so that food could be bought.
Saves stress, cuts down on waste and you can freeze leftovers for another day.

we meal plan but with flexibility, so we will plan for 6 dinners a week usually, and one maybe two things will be for specific nights because we need something quick because one of us is going out and everything else is dictated by use by dates and what we fancy on a given day. We plan for six days so that we can have a takeaway/go out/have freezer food if we can’t be bothered. Sometimes we might plan for a meal where we just see what we fancy when we get to the supermarket If we run out of ideas but I couldn’t do that for a whole week!!! I’ve never really thought about it tbh, I don’t know what my friends do!

I don’t use a board as only me and DH but I store it in notes on my phone. I plan what we are having but not necessarily on what day. I always try and have 1/2 dishes which can be skipped to the following week if we decide to go out at the last minute. I hate food waste and find we rarely throw away food this way.

I meal plan but I don't write it up on a board.

How do people shop or budget without some kind of plan?

Me and OH take turns cooking. We discuss meals on a Saturday morning so we aren't planning the same dish. We are boring for breakfast and usually alternate weeks between some kind of cereal we agree on or some kind of pastry/toast and spread which we agree on for that week. Weekends is a bacon sandwich morning without exception. We don't write a meal plan for the week or have a white board but having a general idea of what we are having in the week to come, especially for dinner, is a must so that we can do a proper shopping list, food shop and budget. Saturday afternoon is the big shop but we will also have planned out certain side trips. For example on my way home from work tomorrow I will stop at the butcher which does a deal on a beef and chicken fillet pieces pack, while OH will stop off at the asian supermarket near where she works one evening to get some veggies etc. which are cheaper and have larger variety there. I know this week I am making home made pizza, a roast chicken, peppered beef and finally stuffed tomatoes and mushrooms with quinoa. OH is making a chicken thai noodle dish, cauliflour and cheese pasta, and moroccan lamb. With the chicken carcass from when I do a roast OH wants to make soup too. Which days these will be cooked is in the air and depends on our moods. Occasionally the meal might change in that we use the bought ingredients to make something else.

We used the sorted food app for a while to help us experiment and get out of a rut.

I meal plan dinners for the next three/four days. Lunch is just me and it's pretty much the same thing so doesn't need planning. I don't write it anywhere other than a quick note in my diary (like 'mon chilli tues pasta'). I can't think beyond that and I shop a couple times a week anyway.

YANBU

I meal plan for all the reasons you list. A huge part of the reason I also do it is because I only want to have to go to the supermarket/click and collect once a week. I cannot abide having to go in and out of food shops more than once a week.

If it helps I more or less do it like this;

I start with a basic skeleton;

Mondays- soup
Tuesday- Tacos
Wednesday-rice
Thursday - pasta
Friday - potatos.
Weekends we might stick a takeaway in there or go out but less so nowadays with cost of living.

Then I work around that each week; (although tbh I am way more flexible now and used the skeleton in the beginning to make it easier)

Monday- chicken noodle soup
Tuesday - beef and pepper fajitas (meets the taco idea loosely)
Wednesday- prawn fried rice
Thursday- sausage meatball pasta
Friday- chicken dijon with mashed potatos and greens

It helps me to focus my mind and is completely adaptable so no-one gets bored.

I keep a list of things in the larder or the freezer that i want to use up as well. (The prawns and the sausages for example).

I will swap things around within the week if it suits me so i am not too rigid.

Oh- and I always meal plan on Sunday evenings with a glass of wine. I absolutely love it!

How do people shop or budget without some kind of plan?

When I’m in the supermarket I run through what I know we already have at home and then buy the things which will turn them into meals. If I know we have potatoes and parsnips I’ll buy a chicken and some broccoli for a roast. If I know we have random odds and ends of vegetables to use up, I’ll buy extra eggs for Spanish omelettes. If I know we have onions, lentils and tinned tomatoes I’ll buy paneer or tofu and some green beans for curry. We always have store cupboard basics like rice, spices, stock, tinned fish and tinned chickpeas lurking about.

When people say they don’t really meal plan, I don’t think they actually mean they just wander around the aisles of Sainsbury’s filling their trolley with Dolce de Leche, ripe mangos and steak and then get home with no idea what to do with it all!

I don't meal plan. I'm a stickler for fresh food. Very fresh fish, vegetables or meat.

I go into the shop & see what looks good/good price and plan accordingly. But I'm
A very good cook. So it's easy. I couldn't bear the rigidity & how on earth would you know on a Sunday what you'll Feel like on a Friday. Seems bizarre to me, but each to their own.

I never buy convenience food or crap.

When people say they don’t really meal plan, I don’t think they actually mean they just wander around the aisles of Sainsbury’s filling their trolley with Dolce de Leche, ripe mangos and steak and then get home with no idea what to do with it all!

If it's on yellow sticker or looks nice and fresh, it's in my basket😂 i will just figure it out later😂

I never used to do this and I ended up wasting food cause I'd grab something else, spend way more money too. When my son came along, and life got busier, a friend recommended a weekly planner on the fridge to write up everything for the week; appts, meeting friends, to-dos and meal planning. I decided to do it and I've been doing it for over a year now, it makes food shopping easier, I don't have to think about what to cook every night, it saves money and time, and also stops us ordering random midweek takeaways.

I've just started this to an extent. Only dinners though.

I do it in reverse though. Order shopping depending on what I fancy when I'm looking through it, ensuring I have enough meals for the week, then when the shopping comes in, allocate meals to each day based on expiry date, etc.

It's already saved me a lot of money in terms of not wasting out of date food, plus DH knows what we're having and makes a start on it if he gets home before me.

I enjoy cooking when I get home from work to decompress the day, but I have to say it's nice just knowing what I'm going to make, rather than thinking of it while I'm standing in front of the fridge.

My SIL batch cooks on a Sunday for the week ahead, so I'd be surprised if anyone was "shocked" to see my fridge planner.

We get a veg box delivered, so tend to start from that and buy extra things to make up all the ingredients for a meal (e.g. if we get aubergines and peppers I'll buy a courgette and onions and make ratatouille).
We also get a big shop delivered that includes things like pasta and grains, tinned tomatoes/beans/coconut milk etc. And I keep a range of herbs and spices.
So most of our food is budgeted for.

Sometimes I would actually like to meal-plan; we all work long hours in our household and don't always have the headspace to think much about cooking. But we sort of did it once, in one of the lockdowns, and I was the only one who liked it; everyone else thought it was too rigid or studenty, which I get even though I don't find it so.

Having a decent store cupboard is a good compromise though; we can usually make dinner from whatever's in the house, and whoever is on their way home via shops can pick up something to add, like fresh herbs or some feta or whatever.

YANBU. I meal plan and we have virtually no food waste, basically the odd slice of bread, a bit of milk and odd bit of salad/veg. I shop weekly, and we have meals that need fresh fruit/veg/meat etc for the first five days after shopping (which I plan for) and then switch over to frozen/packet food for the last couple of days before I go shopping again (which come out of the freezer/cupboard) so more flexible.

Whilst I "meal plan", that is quite loose as I don't necessarily go shopping with fixed plan for every meal. More flexible than that in that if I plan for a meat & 2 veg meal on, say, Monday, the meat joint will be what looks good or on offer so could be chicken, lamb, pork or beef - but I know I also need potatoes and a few veg! Likewise for other meals, I start with the "sides" first to use up the veg & salad and then decide, whilst shopping, what the "main" will be, again mostly according to what's on offer, say, either pizza or chicken strips, or ham slices or a quiche. Although "loose", it gets fixed during the shopping - we don't swap Tuesday's plan with Thursday for example, it's pretty much fixed when I bring the shopping home.

As for back ups, or extras, etc., we don't find that we need anything like that. We're pretty much fixed, so none of us "miss" a meal unexpectedly - if one of us isn't in for a meal, then they'll eat elsewhere, either somewhere else or eat on the move etc. We certainly don't have any situation where someone comes in, at say 9pm, and makes a meal from the fridge/freezer - that's just not us at all.

I try to meal plan but my 6 year old is guaranteed to muck it up. He’s in year 2 so still on school meals and guaranteed whatever I have planned for dinner he’s had for lunch 🙄

How do people shop or budget without some kind of plan?
We discuss meals on a Saturday morning ... We don't write a meal plan for the week or have a white board but having a general idea of what we are having in the week to come, especially for dinner, is a must so that we can do a proper shopping list, food shop and budget. Saturday afternoon is the big shop but we will also have planned out certain side trips. For example on my way home from work tomorrow I will stop at the butcher which does a deal on a beef and chicken fillet pieces pack, while OH will stop off at the asian supermarket near where she works one evening ...

Well the thing is, if I'm understanding this correctly, it sounds like you spend a large part of Saturday meal planning and then supermarket shopping, as well as a couple of evenings a week on top. A PP said they enjoy planning with a glass of wine, which is great if you like it, but I personally don't like meal planning and I don't like shopping so this wouldn't work for me.

Instead, I keep a well-stocked store cupboard and freezer, and I have a fruit/veg box and dairy stuff delivered, and then I just see what I fancy eating on any given day. I always use everything in my veg box, and my store and freezer ingredients keep for a long time and is all stuff I enjoy eating, and is all stuff I can make any number of recipes from, so overall I don't spend any more money on food than the equivalent household who meal plans - with the added bonus being that I don't have to spend time doing something I don't like doing (planning and shopping).

Funny thing is that when we're on holiday (i.e. self catering abroad or holiday cottage in UK), meal planning goes out of the window as we don't know which days we'll eat out and which eat in. We usually do a "big shop" on the first day of randomly getting things we think we may need, and we always end up throwing stuff out or having to go shopping again to get things we'd forgotten. It's the exact opposite of how we work when at home when everything is planned, and shows us what goes wrong when we don't have a plan.