Tips to make meal planning easier
Meal planning is the key to saving on your food budget and will help you avoid the headaches of deciding what to eat for dinner when getting home from work after 5 PM.
Also, planning your meals for the week is essential to make sure you don’t order 27 times a week on UberEats or grab junk food quickly on the way home. It doesn’t have to take you hours to do, but it’s worth sitting down and just doing it. Moreover, we have to admit that preparing meals at home is much healthier than ordering food from a restaurant.
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Start your meal planning
What do you feel like eating this week? Meal planning is dependent on so many factors, such as your mood, your cravings, the weather, etc. Are you in the middle of a heatwave or on a chill and cozy fall day? I bet you don’t feel like eating a creamy mac & cheese when it’s 35°C (95°F) outside. Or maybe you are craving for some homemade burgers. Listen to yourself and decide what you want to eat.
Grab your favorite stores’ flyers
I always find inspiration depending on the specials of grocery stores. I’m not saying you should plan only from special offers, but if salmon is on special, now’s the time to buy some!
Look for new recipes
I hate cooking. I am lazy, and I’m okay with that. I prefer by far being served food! Unfortunately, when you’re an adult, you don’t have a choice! If you don’t have that Gordon Ramsay fiber in you, and can’t make up recipes from scratch, there are so many great recipes out there, just do some research.
Cookbooks
If you are like me and are obsessed with cooking books, you should check these out: The Family Cookbook, The Best Homemade Kids’ Lunches on the Planet, One-Pan Wonders, or The Family Slow Cooker (and you definitely should invest in a good slow cooker, you can thank me later!).
French cookbooks
If you are fluent enough in French, get the cookbooks of the series Famille futée. These are amazing recipes for the family that are generally less than $5 per portion, and don’t require hours of preparation! I love these books so much that when the 4th book came out, I ran to the bookstore to get my copy!
Pinterest can also be a great resource (to be honest, this is where 95% of my recipes come from). There are millions of recipes online and books to help you prepare food for your family on a budget. For instance, I have a Google document filled with recipes taken from other bloggers, such as Damn Delicious, Family Freezer, Budget Bytes, and Pinch of Yum. Where did I find these bloggers? Pinterest. Search with keywords like “recipes on a budget”, “family recipes”, “quick dinners”, or “kids favorite recipes”; I am sure that you will find something interesting!
Gather your favorite recipes found online in a document
When you find a recipe online, try it. If you like it, make sure to save it somewhere in case you want to make it again. I use Google Drive, where I created a shared document (with my boyfriend), and paste links of recipes I liked.
Ask your kids’ opinion
Meal planning won’t help you if you have picky eaters. Ask your family what they would like to eat. Yes, mac & cheese and hot dogs might come out often, but having your kids and your spouse participating can make it easier for you to get some ideas for the week. And it’s always a good idea to include your little ones in these “chores”; this will help them when they will be adults and have their own family.
Homemade frozen meals
I told you, I am super lazy and I hate cooking. Prepare recipes in larger quantities and freeze the extra. I always have taco meat and homemade spaghetti sauce in my freezer. Why? Making tacos is super easy, and you can also use the meat for quick dinners (like rice, salsa, cheese, other veggies, all in one plate). As for spaghetti sauce, I don’t think it’s even possible to not make a large batch! You can split your food into individual portions so you can thaw only what you need later. There are SO MANY IDEAS out there for frozen meals. It’ll take you an afternoon, but it will allow you to be lazy later.
Check your fridge and your pantry
I often buy extra quantities of non-perishable goods when they are on special. The same goes for meat, poultry, and fish; I always buy large packs of them and freeze half of what I bought.
When you are planning your meals for the week, take a look at what you already have. I always have the necessary ingredients to make spaghetti sauce. Do you feel like eating pasta a few times this week? Or maybe you could prepare shredded BBQ pork. You can add that to your list of meals!
Yes, you can allow yourself some take-out once in a while
You’re a grown-up. You work hard for your family and for you. You absolutely have the right to order pizza occasionally, especially on a Friday night! As long as you don’t make a habit of ordering food every day, your budget will remain happy!
I hope that these tips will help you plan meals for the week more easily, as well as helping you stay within budget when it comes to food. I created a FREE printable meal planner, a grocery list, and more, just for you! They are accessible through my Resource library, as well as other useful tools. You simply need to subscribe below!
How do you proceed with your meal planning? Let me know below! You can also share your tips with me via email, Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest!
21 Comments
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Marie
This was a very helpful post! Thank you so much for sharing!
Audrey
These are great tips! I actually love French cookbooks too (ones in English lol) I have a few classic ones that I found at a thrift store.
Tabea
Those are great and helpful tips, thanks for sharing! I especially love to have a look at what I already have and then be creative with that. It also helps with food waste.
Pea Green
I meal plan religiously. I have about 15 meals that I can make with my eyes closed plus 5 by my husband and take away once a week (totally indulgent). When I first started I realised I saved loads of money by not having cupboards full of ingredients that I wasn’t going to use in the next week. Not cooking macaroni? Then why buy macaroni just because it’s one of your usuals?
Valerie
Right now, the worse part for me is wasting veggies… I have all the good intentions in the world, and I still forget about the fresh veggies in the bottom drawer of the fridge. I started buying frozen veggies for recipes, but it doesn’t fix the problem of buying carrots and cucumbers and forgetting them in the drawer!!!
Pamela
Love this! Meal planning is huge for my sanity!
Kathryn
Thank you for the tips! During the lockdown it was difficult to get groceries and I got in the bad habit of ordering delivery. I need to get back into meal planning because I feel so much better when I eat healthy foods. I will check out the cookbooks too!
Valerie
Same here! I had to uninstall Uber Eats from my phone because I ordered sooooo many times, it was beyond ridiculous!!!
Britt K
This is great advice. We keep talking about planning out a number of homemade frozen meals so that we have them when the world starts opening back up more and my schedule becomes busy again. It’s a great way to leverage the extra time that lockdown has currently provided us.
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Louise O'Boyle
I am all about meal planning! Spending a little time at the weekend saves me so much time during the week. AND it saves me from reaching for not so healthy foods because I’m hungry and lazy! Thanks so much for sharing!
Carolyn Garrett
I love this post. I am a work from home mom of two so anything that will save me time is very important to me. Great tips, thanks!
Lyssa
Great tips! I can attest to the fact that these steps make meal prepping so much easier.
George McMillan, Jr.
Thanks for these great tips! I need to start planning and cooking in bulk like this. We fall into the category of waiting til 5pm to decided what to have each day. And since we’ve all had a long day, no one wants to make a decision…
Joe @ Mini Riches
Though we don’t order out very often at all, we are still looking to improve with our meal planning for time management purposes! 🙂
Christa
This post is very timely for me as I want to start planning my meals!
Hannah
This post is really timely for me and those cookbooks look amazing! Thanks for the sharing and I think I should really try meal preping!
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