Meal planning is something I never really thought I would try. I thought I was doing a fine job in cooking a meal every week and eating out for lunch at work. I didn't really think it would save me that much money and I definitely thought it would be way too time consuming. Wrong and wrong.
Today I am going to share with you my meal planning tips. I haven't even been doing this for a month, so I am no expert. I just wanted to share what I am learning because the difference between this month and last month is already amazing.
First I wanted to see what I spend on the average meal per month for Randy and myself. With our lifestyle, I am able to cook Monday through Thursday nights and pack lunches for Monday through Friday. We usually eat out or eat something easy like mac&cheese on the weekends, so I didn't include those in my plan.
I started with calculating what I spent last month in the month of March. This way, I could really see if there was a difference in how much money I was spending on food. This is the equation I used:
The average price per meal for the month of March was a whopping $14! HOLY MOLY. This doesn't even include what Randy spent on eating out for lunch at work during the month! It would have been much higher than $14, had I calculated that in.
Now, after two weeks of meal planning, Randy and I are at around $5 per meal. I'm not even sure if this is a good number or if I can do better than that, but I'll take it! I can work with spending 66% less for right now.
After just a few weeks, I have really seen the benefits of meal planning:
I'm saving money - big time.
I'm eating healthier - because I am not eating out as much and because I plan the healthy meals ahead of time and stick to my grocery list. No more random trips to the freezer section for onion rings 'just because'.
I'm saving time - i'm not spending each evening looking through cookbooks or Pinterest or seeing what I have to work with in my pantry now. I know what we're eating for dinner. We have all of the ingredients. And I know it's something tasty, because I planned on it!
Here are the biggest tips I have learned when meal planning:
plan ahead - write out any plans you may have for the week. For example, Randy has an event at work today, so he didn't need a lunch. He also works out certain days of the week, so those are the days I can plan to cook a meal that might take a little longer to prepare, since he won't be home until a bit later. Also, if you're a couponer, look at your coupons and see if there are any great deals on anything you can incorporate into your plan for the week.
plan for leftovers - don't make the mistake of buying for all of the dinners, then buying for all of the lunches. You're going to have a lot of food left in your refrigerator at the end of the week. Look at how many servings your meals are. Remember that you're going to have some leftovers from your crock-pot 6 serving meal to take for lunch the next day. Or you can just buy less of your ingredients to fit the amount of people you are serving.
use what you already have - look in your refrigerator and pantry and see what you have that you want to get rid of. For example, I had pizza sauce that had been in the pantry for some time. I also had some sour cream that was going to have to be thrown out soon. So I worked them into my meal plan so I could put them to use and not waste them.
have a method - every Sunday, I sit down at the kitchen table with the iPad opened to Pinterest, a few cookbooks and a bunch of notecards with our favorite meals written on them. (I decided to write down our favorite go-to meals on some note cards with the ingredients listed on the other side)
make it manageable - don't stress yourself out by planning 3 time-consuming meals that you've never tried before. For right now, I cook 4 nights per week. The way I plan is: 1 night of a new recipe, 1 night of a crock-pot or easy go-to meal, 2 nights of other favorite meals.
prep for the next day's lunch while prepping dinner - I can never seem to drag myself into the kitchen in the morning to chop up veggies for a salad or make a sandwich for lunch. While dinner is in the oven and I already have a cutting board and knife handy, I'll pull out the veggies and make myself a salad for the next day. Or while Randy is picking up after dinner and washing some dishes for me, I'll make our sandwiches for the next day. SO much easier than taking the time out of the morning to do it.
Here is one example of my meal planning week:
Monday
lunch: turkey sandwich and salad
dinner: turkey burgers, corn on the cob and salad (fairly easy, a favorite)
Tuesday
lunch: leftover turkey burgers and salad
dinner: crock pot stroganoff (easy, crock pot meal)
Wednesday
lunch: leftover stroganoff
dinner: bbq turkey paninis and soup (easy, a favorite)
Thursday
lunch: turkey sandwich w/ avocado and salad
dinner: baked potato, meatball sliders and rice (a little more time-consuming meal and a workout night for Randy)
Friday
lunch: leftover baked potato and rice
So there you have it. Reading this post may have been a bit time consuming, but I'm telling you, for someone who complains about having such a small amount of "me time", this has really freed up my evenings!
Do any of you meal plan? Do you have any more tips? Do you spend less than $5 per meal? Is this too many end-of-post questions?
