Weekly meal planning

[Deleted]

I know this has been discussed a billion times but I need help! How the hell do I get started with weekly meal planning?? Our schedules are a little out of control and we're trying our hardest to save all the money so I mentioned to H last night that we need to start meal planning. This way, A. I don't have to have the whole what's for dinner discussion every single morning, B. I can get all I need at the market on the weekend instead of randomly running in and spending more than I need to every few days and C. I won't get disgusted on a night where we have to run here, there and everywhere and just order a pizza.

[thelongroad]

I meal plan for 2 weeks and we stay on a grocery budget. I have a binder full of recipes, stuff on Pinterest, and a list of options we like, to choose from.

On a little dry erase board on our refrigerator I write out 2 weeks with of meals, which is easy because I just look through my lists, and erase them once we have eaten them. I also use the board as a running shopping list. I go to the grocery store every two weeks and the week in between I run to Target and get some fresh milk, produce and whatever else I need.

As I am cleaning up dinner dishes each night I glance at my menu and pull out the appropriate meat from the freezer and put it in the refrigerator to thaw.

[lightbulbsun]

I do a monthly meal plan. I set up a spreadsheet, and mark off days when I know I have dinner events/plans. I also mark off one day a week as "leftover" night.

I use pinterest to find recipes and fill in the rest of the nights. I go grocery shopping on Monday on my way home from work, so I make weekly grocery lists from Mon-Sun.

It takes me about 2 hours to do a month plan, and then I only have to worry about it every 4 weeks or so.

[looseseal]

I meal plan similarly to thelongroad, but just for a week at a time. We meal plan and grocery shop every Sunday morning. I try to include one slow cooker meal, one chicken, one fish, one pasta, etc. each week. I look at our schedule to see which nights need to be a quick meal so we can just have pasta that night or when we may have extra time so we can prepare something a little more time consuming. I also build in a night of leftovers every four or five days. It works well for us, we eat healthier, cheaper, and throw out less food.

[speckledfrog]

We sit down with the circular and plan around what's on sale.  Once you have extra stuff in your freezer you can add that into the planning as well.  We don't plan for each specific day, just for the week, that way we can alter plans if we feel like it.

We aim for a variety of of recipes in terms of proteins and ease of prep.  We always have one easy meal (grilled cheese, hot dogs, steaks, etc) for the days we are super tired or busy.  MH loves to try new recipes so we usually have one new thing each week.

Keep your lists as a reference and it'll make things easier in the future.  Here's our list for this week

Beef stroganoff (slow cooker)
Southwest stuffed peppers (leftovers from freezer)
rotisserie chicken
shrimp coconut curry
grilled cheese
chicken parm


ETA:  We eat leftovers for lunch, but if you don't then you have one less day to plan.  We also plan for one night out.

[Teachermama]

I just started this week with meal planning we will see how it goes.

I found an excel spreadsheet that shows breakfast, lunch, Dinner and snacks, I added exercise on it as well.

I sat down yesterday before we went shopping and decided what dinners we wanted and wanted to try. When I saw that the recipe made 4 servings I put in that the lunch the next day would be that dinner.

We do a lot of things at school and right now it is basketball season and we are at school til 9 some nights. I figured out what nights those were and decided where we would get dinner that night, loaded the menu, and chose what I was going to have (depending on how many points it was) Tuesday we are going to be at school forever so we are going to get panera. I a going to get low fat chicken noodle soup and a classic salad with the dressing on the side (4 points altogether).

I decided (based on when we would get home each night) what I would do for exercise. For example, tomorrow will be the day off because we wont be home til 8 or 9 and then Wednesday - 3 miles on the treadmill because we will be home by 530 and then 30 minutes on the Bike on thursday because we will be home at 630. Does that make sense?

I hope this works for you and me as well

[Deleted]

Jan 21, 2013 11:11:00 GMT -5 thelongroad said:

I meal plan for 2 weeks and we stay on a grocery budget. I have a binder full of recipes, stuff on Pinterest, and a list of options we like, to choose from.

On a little dry erase board on our refrigerator I write out 2 weeks with of meals, which is easy because I just look through my lists, and erase them once we have eaten them. I also use the board as a running shopping list. I go to the grocery store every two weeks and the week in between I run to Target and get some fresh milk, produce and whatever else I need.

As I am cleaning up dinner dishes each night I glance at my menu and pull out the appropriate meat from the freezer and put it in the refrigerator to thaw.

This is how I do it. I also try to look at the sales papers and plan out things based on what meat is on sale, and also if I'm buying veggies or whatnot for certain dishes, I make sure I have another meal planned to use the leftovers. For example, I'm only using half an onion for something, I'll have another recipe planned to take up that onion. Not that onions are expensive, but then nothing gets wasted. 

[Deleted]

Thanks everyone. I'm going to play around with it tonight for the rest of the week.

[luckyval]

I go to the store every week anyway for produce, deli meats and bread, so I started getting more specific with it by planning the week's dinners as well. We're pretty laissez faire about it, but we plan for at least one night of leftovers in the middle of the week and just rotate to make sure we've got a variety of meats/dishes going on

We also try to do at least one crock pot meal a week to add to our freezer supply of quart container meals

[shostakovich]

We have a weekly plan, which we keep in a Google doc spreadsheet so it's accessible everywhere, including on the phone at the grocery store.

We usually make the plan the morning of our grocery store run, looking at what we already have/should use up, sometimes looking at the store circulars for sale stuff, and then planning our meals accordingly.

We almost always plan meals to have leftovers the next night, so we're really only making like 3-4 meals per week.

[papie]

I don't understand how people DON'T meal plan. Like,. what do you buy at the grocery store?


I make a list of dinners on Sunday. If it is a crazy busy week, I leave a night or two for takeout or fend for yourself type evening. I make the list of groceries based on that list of dinners. Shop. Walla!

I usually go back for fruits, milk and bread on fridays.

[wkatie]

I have a little notebook that I use for the purpose. On the left side of the page I write out each day of the week, on the right my grocery list. On Sunday mornings, my H and I look at our calendars for the week and determine if we are going to be gone, have meetings or whatever and plan accordingly. I can look back at previous weeks for ideas and I ususally have my computer out to browse for new recipes on pinterest, etc. If I run out of something during the week, I add it to next week's list. I shop during Sunday nap time.