We’ve all been there, it’s dinner time and you and your partner/wife/significant other spend so long discussing/arguing about what you’re going to have to eat that you end up grumpily eating beans on toast at midnight. Over last few weeks, we have tried to avoid this issue and save money by planning our meals in advance.
It is a really simple idea, but highly effective. We sit down at the weekend and come up with some ideas of meals that we fancy for the week ahead. This includes breakfast, lunch and dinner and for the boys as well as ourselves. You can choose Baked Potatoes and Beans or take some time looking for exciting new recipes that you’d like to try. I have been using an excel spreadsheet, but you can use google sheets, a scrap of paper whatever you wish to plan out the meals for the week ahead. When planning be realistic, if you know you’re going out for a meal on Saturday or you always have a chippy tea on a Friday then put this in the plan. You can even plan that if you know you will have leftovers then you can have this for your lunch the next day.
Now you’ve planned your meals the next stage is to look in your cupboards and fridge. Check if you’ve already got the ingredients you need or whether you need to buy some more. Make a list of the items you need for your weekly shop and be strict with yourself when you go shopping; don’t be tempted by that Buy One Get One Free deal if you’re not going to use it.
If you get to Tuesday and you don’t fancy what you have planned, then you can always move the meals around to whichever you may fancy on a particular night. The purpose of this idea is to plan your meals to save money not to plan a rigid timetable for your meals ahead. By following this method, we have manged to reduce our average weekly shop from £60 to £45 and on some weeks it has only been £25. Also we have significantly reduced our food waste. An added benefit is that we have found some exciting new recipes to try and put our culinary skills to the test. Have a go at planning your meals and let us know how much you saved!
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6 Comments
Ryan Bickham
1/10/2016 12:25:13 pm
We sometimes swap meals round but don't have the 'what do you fancy?' conversations anymore.
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Ryan Bickham
2/10/2016 06:45:44 pm
Thanks, we also use an App called Big Oven, you can enter your leftover ingredients and it'll match a recipe for you.
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Nige
2/10/2016 08:01:30 pm
Love this post we plan everything to save money Thanks for linking to the #THAT FRIDAY LINKY come back next week please
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