Frugal Tip: Meal Planning

I do meal planning, and I usually do it for the whole month, BuT, why I like it, is..I get all the grocerys for month, (exclude parishables…) and then if I dont feel eating what I assigned to that certain day, I just look through the rest of the month, and pick one that sounds good, and cross it off…So that I know I have made that certain meal…So it gives me the consitency of having it all planned, but gives me the freedom to choose…

I do the same thing and it has saved me time and $. I don’t assign every day a specific meal, though. I just plan for around 5 meals for the week (one or two days of leftovers, date night, or on a day that I just don’t feel like cooking, we do grilled cheese or frozen pizza which I always have on hand)and then I cook on whatever night what I feel like for that night out of my 5 menu options. i like options!

Okay, I hate grocery shopping at Walmart, but I thought that was the cheapest so I would always go there. I would meal plan for two weeks and then just suck it up and go. I have an 8 month old and between her and the groceries, my cart would get hard to push. I hated it. And then it seemed that I had so much food in the fridge that some of it would go to waste. I always forgot about the produce I had and it ended up spoiling. So this year I decided to start going once per week. I sit down on Monday and plan lunches and dinners for the whole week for my husband and for me (we’re cold cereal breakfast people). And now that I’ve jumped on the frugal bandwagon, I’m going to start shopping less at Walmart and shopping more sales at other grocery stores. So far, we’ve been eating a lot more healthy. Planning 4 meals per week (we eat leftovers every other night) is a lot easier than planning 8 or 9 meals for two weeks. Also, I know what’s in the fridge and I make sure that we eat all of the fruits and vegetables. It’s manageable and I love it.

I learned meal planning from my mom and have continued doing it. She would plan 2 weeks in advance (I usually only do 1) and on one side of the paper would write all the meals and on the other she would make the grocery list. She would then hang the list on the fridge for the week so we never had to ask what was for dinner, we could just look ourselves. This works for husbands as well. I really like this because it leaves the guess work out of the week when unexpected things come up, and you know you have all the ingredients for the meals even if you have to change the days up a bit. I have learned that I have to be realistic and put one day for going out, usually at the end of the week, kind of like a reward to sticking with the program. Every mom deserves a day off from cooking and dishes and this really works to motivate me.
I do get really tired of eating leftovers everyday for lunch though, but if I don’t they go bad too quickly. It if just so much easier to stop and get something quick, but this really adds up. Any suggestions on fun, easy lunches for adults?

I used to plan a 2 week menu and I loved it! No more nights of wondering "What's for dinner" and ending up ordering pizza or having pancakes! However, as my hubby has been on and off diets a lot lately, it has been frustrating and I got out of that wonderful habit of meal planning. I hated cooking a "nice" dinner for 3 kids who would whine they didn't like it, whatever, and were happy as could be with pancakes, ramen, or mac & cheese. Now hubby is on a health food type diet (= expensive) that is all planned out for us, so I make extras of his meals once or twice a week that everyone can eat (or at least try) and then do something more simple for the kiddos. And me being prego, I am just kinda picky and end up munching a lot!

I meal plan and write up the list and put it on the fridge–I try to have the meals that are using up existing items earlier in the week but we are also pretty flexible to say “we would rather have this instead tonight” (which hubby does) unless its a crockpot meal that has been cooking all day!

I meal plan 1 week in advance. I go by what is in our freezer and our stock pile. This has saved us a lot of money and my sanity. If something doesn’t sound good we swap nights or we just have chicken noodle soup or frozen pizzas. I always have both on hand in case we are running late for something or getting home late from an event.

I have been menu planning one week at a time for years. If I don’t, I stand around in the kitchen for an hour, looking very lost, wondering what to make for dinner! I keep a dry erase board on the fridge with the meals beside each day. I am a planner and my husband is the wild card, so sometimes he wants to switch things up. I am not hard-core that what we plan for Monday absolutely has to be served on Monday, so it works for us. The only thing that never changes is “Taco Tuesday.” My son loves tacos, and he thinks that he MUST east tacos on Tuesday or the world will fall apart. It makes menu planning a little easier if I already know one day!

I usually plan 7 to 10 meals that I have all the stuff for. I then put the list on the fridge and the kids take turns picking what we are having for dinner the next night. What we don’t eat that week is rolled onto the next week. My problem is. . .I get burned out of their favorite meals that they think we should have every week.

I also plan for about 2 weeks and then can be flexible based on time, energy and what I want to eat. However, I think I spend MORE when I meal plan because I buy everything I need for a nice meal and if I didn’t we would probably just eat frozen burritos or something (I only have 1 baby). So how does it help you save money?

I love meal planning. It saves us so much time and money. I use http://www.savingdinner.com cause it makes it really easy. And I am quite lazy

This month I started meal planning for the whole month! It took a bit longer but it has been worth it. I kept feeling like I was making the same thing over and over and now I can see what we are eating for the month and I avoid repeats. Thank you for your blog, it is a HUGE help!

I plan 5 meals around what’s on sale but I don’t assign them for specific nights. And we always have stuff on hand for real quick such as grilled cheese or soup.