To eat the same meals every week?

[BeeEyeEnGeeOh]

I'm so bored of meal planning and the time it takes to do online shopping.

Has anyone had a weekly schedule of meals, eg every Tuesday you have spag bol, every Wednesday pizza etc and stuck to it?

How long before you get bored?

Is it a bad lesson for my DCs (all under five) to be so restrictive and unvaried?

Or is it a brilliant idea that will save me a huge mental load?

We have a two week rota for the weekdays but don’t plan the weekends could be anything.

I think you'd get bored. I know I certainly would.

Have you tried a meal planning app? I use Lollipop, but I'm sure there's others out there. Takes me less than half an hour to do a meal plan and online shop.

Has the poster who thinks OP needs to do better for her children actually met children? Small children generally thrive on routine and dgaf if they have jacket potatoes and beans for tea every Monday in my experience!

Better a healthy weekly plan you can cope with than getting overwhelmed and buying takeaways and junk.

Life changing is what I'm hoping for!

I usually use Waitrose so I'll see if I can save things as lists, that sounds very helpful.

I've not tried an app. Does this automatically generate a shopping list? I think half the faff is thinking of things to eat but the other half is adding it to my online shop.

I think it's a good idea but having the same food week after week is too repetitive. I had 25 meals that the kids liked and then I added 5-6 new ones each month so they got to try new stuff. If they liked it I replaced some of the original 25 ones and moved those to a plan B list. They would then get reintroduced a few months later and something else would go on the B list. Sounds complicated maybe but at least that ensured that they go a varied diet and tried different foods from all around the world. We did however always have fish on Tuesdays, soup on Wednedays and food we could eat in front of the TV on Saturdays.

We used to have basically the same things every day of the week but got fed up of it and started using the various recipe box services like Gusto and Hello fresh. Of course, you eventually exhaust all of their options as well. I like the suggestion of some previous posters of having a large repertoire that you can pick and choose from

My husband does the cooking. He essentially does a “Ready, steady, cook” every day with whatever is to hand. No plan, and I never know what I’m going to get.

I just buy the same things every week from Tesco and have them in date order;

Steak mince
Chicken breasts
Salmon
Veg
Potatoes
Chillis
Onions
Peppers
Coconut milk
Steaks
Garlic
Tinned tomatoes
Pasta
Burger buns
Fish

I have a big store of rice and spices.

I then make what ever I fancy, burgers, Thai curries, veg curries, salmon and veg etc

@BeeEyeEnGeeOh The one I use, which is Lollipop, automatically fills your basket at Sainsburys as you select your meals. Just need to add meals to your planner and then check out on Sainsburys! (You can adjust brands/make swaps etc before putting in your basket if you like, which I do as they quite often use more expensive ways of buying things, but at the simplest level can be done very, very quickly.)

I couldn’t live like this. It’s so predictable & boring. I want to eat what I fancy, not what’s scheduled in for Tuesday.

Oh that sounds great. I went off Sainsbury's shopping because I didn't like that they give you a voucher rather than a refund for substitutions, but sounds like it's worth it for the ease!

My mum had this growing up. Same meal each day of the week. Said it ended up she was bored to tears of meals she'd originally been okay with. We had a massively varied selection of evening meals as kids which was great but I do vividly remember her one week writing out the shopping list and crying (which now I'm a mum I totally relate to!).

Maybe a middle ground would be good? Like the same meals as a two week meal plan (so ten teas) and stick to that for three months then reasses and add some, change some, loose some etc and set up a new two week meal plan.

I totally empathise OP. Meal planning and doing teas as a mum is an absolute ball ache of a chore!

We have a four week rotation (used to be three). We do online supermarket shopping, and our supermarket allows you to have multiple shopping lists, so we have four different lists, and just have to adjust them for store cupboard top ups and any changes toroutine.

I do a 2 week rota. I batch cook so I can do a month's worth of chilli and curry, so no cooking on those days, as they're in the freezer.

Curry Mon & Tues
Stir fry pork Weds
Chilli Thurs & Fri
Homemade pizza Sat
Roast Sun

Fish & veg Mon
Pesto chicken Tues & Weds
Stir fry beef Thurs
Spicy Soup Fri
Sat takeaway or meal out
Sunday chicken salad & cous cous

So we eat out or get takeaway every other Sat.

We work on theme nights, makes planning so much easier. Eg.

Monday - pasta
Tuesday - wrap
Wednesday - cookbook day so something new
Thursday - pastry or chips
Friday - spicy
Saturday - pizza
Sunday - Potatoes (often but not limited to roast)

The meals themselves vary with the obvious rotation of chilli/curry on Friday. Often out on Saturday and have our own pizza oven so don't get bored of it.

One tip I read was write all your possible meals on a lolly stick and put them in a jar. Draw out how many meals you need for the next week. Maybe have one night a week when you try a new recipe.

We meal plan per shop so sit down pre shop and work out when next shop is and how many meals in between and for how many people
Then try and do per cycle
fish
tray bake
pasta based dish
rice based dish
chicken or chops with salad/veg
stir fry
roast dinner
mixed grill or breakfast
egg based eg omelette or frittata or quiche
curry
noodle based dish
I always leave one unplanned meal in case we eat out or have takeaway or just not feel like cooking

yeah we do this - but it's even more boring than something different each day - usually we batch cook at the weekend - like currys/bolanaise/pasta sauce/chili's etc - then we end up sometimes eating same thing for dinner 2 or 3 nights in a row and same thing for work lunches few days in a row

I'm too exhausted after work some days to sort anything else

my 2 year old eats at nursery though so on the days she's there we don't need to feed her much for dinner

Lollipop say they will be adding other supermarkets, so keep an eye out!

Following for ideas! We have a lot of dietary requirements in our house so are quite limited to what we can eat. We tend to eat the same sort of meals on rotation. I need to get more into planning them out tbh.

Love your ideas @RecklessBlackberries I also shop on ocado and your way sounds so simple can you give me more info!

Typical meals here are...

Friday is always pizza night and film night with the teens

Saturday tends to be either a takeaway or ready meal.

Sunday usually a roast or lasagne.

Weekdays weekly staples are things like...
Fajitas
Tacos / chilli/ quesedillas
Spaghetti meatballs
Pesto pasta
Spaghetti carbonara
Chicken korma.

Other not very regular meals are things like pulled pork, burgers, fishcakes and wedges etc

@Clefable Intrigued by the sound of your app, if you don’t mind sharing?

I do a weekly shop but it’s difficult to always know what nights we’ll be eating at home - sometimes will unexpectedly have to work late etc (at least every week or two), we’ll get a last minute invitation out or can’t be bothered to cook and pick something up en route to home.

I tend to base it around the meat, so I’ll know we have chicken thighs, mince, pork tenderloin, steak stir fry pieces etc then just get a mix of veg/sides that will go with one or two of them. I’ve tried planning more rigidly but this kind of flexibility within the plan thing seems to work best!

I'm not strict with it but ours is usually.

Mon Spag bol
Tues roast dinner
Wed something and chips
Thurs cottage pie
Fri lasagne

We do a weekly rotation with Saturday as a day to try something new so we can expand our options. I do a new plan every 10 weeks or so to stop everyone getting bored and to suit the season. I don't always stick to it religiously, if plans change I'll move things around but it stops me ending up eating crap because I haven't thought about dinner in time.

We do themes/countries on a 14 day ‘rota’
So, this week.
Monday - Italian, can be spag bol, lasagne, meatballs, Italian meatloaf or any other kind of pasta etc. We had Carbonara on Monday.
Tuesday - Asian (so anything from Thai green curry to 5 spice duck legs). We had 5 spice belly pork with noodles last night.
Wed - British - anything ranging from Cottage pie to Toad in the hole (tonights)
Thursday - Mexican (tomorrow is Fajitas for example)
Friday - fish (salmon this week, fish and chips last week)
Saturday - Fakeaway night (burgers this week)
Sunday - always a roast of some sort.
Next week will be some different countries, Greek night is always popular here and for Scotland I do mince and tatties.