Budget friendly meal plan

[gracien]

I am really struggling to put together a budget friendly consistent meal plan. We end up ordering takeaways or doing last minute Tesco whoosh orders and this is neither waistband or wallet friendly. I was wondering if anyone would be happy to share their meal rotations or meal plans? +/- the shopping list that goes with it if at possible. Thank you in advance!

Taming twins does some meal plans with shopping lists, think she tends to use Aldi but they are great here

How many are you cooking for? Dietary or time constraints?

Dh tends to do the meal planning here (but it's more ideas than a strict schedule).

Not sure about other shopping apps but Asda has a recipe section with a feature where you can click 'add ingredients to basket' which I find helpful.

This isn’t a meal plan, but we almost never have a takeaway and never do same day orders (live in the ass end of nowhere where such things don’t exist). But I’ll explain what I do.

Once a week food shopping delivery, so plan all dinners for a week, plus breakfast options (basically make sure we have bread, pastries, cereal, we have our own eggs so always to hand, etc). Lunch is usually leftovers or I make a soup from veg lying around, so I don’t plan those, per se.

I’ll do 2-4 nice dinners a week that are like their own stand alone thing. So like sausages, mash and veg, or stir fry.

I do 2-4 nights that are a meal one night followed by leftovers the next. So a curry that we have 2 nights in a row, and maybe spaghetti bolognaise and I make enough bolognaise for 2 nights.

I do 1 night that is an easy meal. This is usually Wednesday because it’s when the kids usually have the most activities and I need to feed them quickly. So jackets with salad, cheese quesadillas with salad, scrambled eggs in a croissant with fruit. Sometimes it might even be chicken nuggets and chips with peas. Just something simple that doesn’t take much prep.

This fills a whole week of dinners and usually extra for lunches. I make anything with fresher ingredients usually at the start of the week and things that are more store cupboard or can be frozen towards the end. We have a veg garden so I use more veg we grow ourselves towards the end of the week so it isn’t something that goes off.

I do much as @mindutopia does. I also check the weather for the week when making my grocery list. I know the family will want more salad or BBQ based meals if the weather is hot and more casserole type stuff when it's cooler.

Only two at the moment and no dietary constraints!

This is really helpful thank you!

When I'm fully organised, I use 'Notes' on my iPhone and log all the different meals we have, (cheap, nice and special), then choose 7 of them which makes my weekly meal planner. Then I create a separate 'Note' for the actual shopping list so I only shop once a week. I live in a village so it's difficult to just pop to the shops.
My meal plans normally consists of a few nicer meals, then a few cheap and cheerful - Spag Bol type of thing.

only two of you? easy . Large chicken. in the airfryer or oven. Day 1 fresh chicken with some veg and mash, day 2 a chicken curry or a chicken pasta. Then what I do (just two of us here also) Is throw the carcass with what is left in a big freezer bag and freeze. Day three.. cook a lb or a lb and half of mince. Use half to make a chili for that night. The other half either freeze for another day.. or turn into a sauce for pasta. that gets you to day five. One large boneless chicken breast, a sliced pepper (green or red) grated carrot and a large sliced red onion (bean sprouts or mushrooms if you have them) Big dash like maybe 1/3 cup of low sodium soy sauce, Grated ginger, minced garlic (you can use the powders for both if you are not wanting to spend the money on these) amazing if you have a little sesame oil but not needed. Serve over rice. Keep enough rice left over for next day. Take that carcass out of freezer..throw in crockpot with any left over veg and a couple of bouillon cubes let it cook for about 4 hours high..strain.. into the broth pull any chicken of carcass and put back in the broth..back in crockpot with a diced onion.. diced carrot and that left over rice. serve with some bread and butter. And the last day..that left over chili (because you prob have some..) over a jacket with shred cheese YUM.

I think that meal planning is something you sort of develop over time rather than one day just swapping to proper meal planning. But a few tips to get you started:

Think about chicken and how you can make it into at least 2 meals - chicken thighs are economical and can be cooked on night one as part of a tray bake, served with some new potatoes (and veggies cooked with them or on side), then leftovers can be turned into something the following day - we tend to use chicken leftover to make chicken ala king, risotto or some kind of "posh" sandwich with pickles and salads. Curries of course are often popular.

PIck at least one meal a week that's your super cheap option - jacket potatoes with beans and cheese and maybe a few greens on the side. Pesto pasta with peas. Vegetarian fajitas etc.

If there are foods you really like but are very expensive, consider how you can reduce this. Eg we like steak. steak for all four of us would get very expensive if we just served it as a large steak each. So I often use steak in stir fries or I make massive steak sandwiches with fried onions/mushrooms and some sort of slaw as it means I can buy much less meat.

Mince tends to be relatively inexpensive and can be stretched out with added vegetables. Spaghetti bolognaise, cottage pie etc. We often do pork mince with a massive pile of veggies, all stir fried together with garlic, ginger, soy, lime etc and served on noodles. 400g of mince easily feeds me, DH and DS and the boys have MASSIVE appetites.

I use lentils to bulk out things like curries and chilli - not for financial reasons but they're very good for you. One pack of mince went a long way when I added a couple of handfuls of dry lentils along with whatever random veg I'd got in the fridge, chopped up.

Monday: Spicy chicken and spinach risotto (only 250gm chicken thigh).
Tuesday: Fish Kaarage with Pak Choi.
Wednesday: Chilli made with turkey mince and rice.
Thursday: Butter chicken with spinach and lentil dhal.
Friday: Left over curry and dhal with some onion bhaji
Saturday: Steak, salad and new potatoes
Sunday: Roast chicken, salads and slaw. (Left over chicken for Monday’s meal).

There are two of us. We eat very little red meat these days. I usually buy a chicken most weeks. I roast it and serve it with mashed or roast potatoes and veg ( we normally just eat the legs). In Summer I sometimes serve it with salad and garlic bread instead. I then take all the remaining meat off the carcass and bag it and freeze to use for curry, risotto, a chicken and mushroom pie, soup and/or sandwiches later in the week. I throw the carcass and any leftover veg in the slow cooker for a few hours and then seive off the solids. The liquid, chicken stock, I freeze to form a basis for a soup later in the week (tomato, mushroom, curried butternut squash or sweet potato, chicken, or just leftover veg).
I buy frozen cod fillets to make into a fish pie. I poach them in milk, break them up, thicken the milk with cornflour and add parsley and pour over the fish in a dish. I then cook and mash potato and spread over the top. I grate cheese, sprinkle over and put in the oven until heated through and crispy on top. I sometimes make two or three of these and freeze for other weeks.
I make risotto most weeks, either chicken, fresh salmon or prawn (a bag of frozen raw prawns) I put frozen sweetcorn and peas in it.
I often make quiche one day with whatever veg I've got in the fridge and cheese. (Shortcrust pastry takes about 3 minutes in a food processor).
Another favourite for lunch or supper is chicken liver pâté. Chicken livers, fresh or frozen cost very little. I use Delia's recipe. I make plenty and freeze some for another day. It is wonderful with salad and toast or crusty bread.
When we used to eat more meat I used to make lasagne or pasta bake,(same but with different shaped pasta) every few weeks and freeze both single and double portions.
It is always nice to know that there are homemade "ready meals" in the freezer.
Mostly the only expensive meal we eat is salmon fillets.

I'm just about to change all mine but the current is worked on working 6 days rotating shifts. There are two menus

pasta carbonara
coriander and lime chicken with avocado salsa and red rice
bolognese
curry (homemade korma, jalfrezi or bhuna made from scratch with homemade sides of naan, poppadoms, mango chutney, small kofta kebab)
homemade tomato soup with cheese toastie
fishfinger sandwiches with wedges

ham, egg and jersey royals
jerk chicken with sweet potato wedges, mango & pineapple salsa
bolognese
homemade Chinese fakeaway
club sandwich
tomato pasta

much of the stuff is prepped and advance and frozen at the beginning of the month so it's easy on the day. Eg I marinade the chicken breasts and put them in boxes in the storage freezer to be taken out the night before so they have a long marinade. I make a massive batch of bolognese every couple of months. I prep the cooked chickenand curry sauce base, naan dough balls and package up to be frozen. For Chinese I make my own fried rice but I freeze bags for each meal with all the toppings just to be added.

on my days off I plan the meals generally on the day according to what I've got on, what I've got in th fridge and what I fancy eating or whether I feel like doing much cooking. When I'm working I work a 24/7 shift pattern with long shifts so having the food thought out makes so much difference

We follow a similar approach to @groggygirl

I have a spreadsheet of our favourite meals and rotate those. Usually plan to have one or two nights vegetarian, one night super easy, and one night a bit more fun. I try to double up and either freeze the remaining portions or have leftovers for lunch/dinner another day. We add in new recipes as we find them and over time have a great list. Anything with a whole chicken, sausages or lentils is super budget friendly.

unless we really fancy something for a takeaway, we don’t have it. It’s a waste and makes it less of a treat when you do have it.
I always have fresh pasta in the fridge, tinned tomatoes and either a stir thru sauce or jar of sauce in the cupboard. Within 5 minutes you’ve got dinner. You can also make lemon and caper pasta, carbonara. All really quickly and tasty, for less than a takeaway and quicker than.

the other thing I always keep in is chicken strips, chips and beans. It’s a shit meal but when you fancy a dirty dinner it’s there and can sit happily in the freezer / cupboard.