Weekly Meal Planning: Save Time And Money

What’s your take on weekly meal planning? Do you set aside a little time once a week to figure out what you’re going to serve over the next few days? Or, when mealtimes get close, are you more likely to think about what you feel like eating and say, “I wonder what’s in the ’fridge?”  I’m going to show you how weekly meal planning will save you time and money (and some sanity).  So you can stop wasting money on food. You’ll be able to save money and eat out less.

I’ll go with having a plan. There are some real benefits to having one: You’ll save time and money. You’ll save time since you won’t need to make emergency runs to the store to buy what you “want to eat” or need to supplement what you have on hand. (It’s frugal to be economical with time. Just like money, time is a resource.) Speaking of money—money is the thing most people think about when they think of being frugal—you will save money on groceries when you plan your meals You’ll be able to price shop and use coupons along with other possible discounts.  Eating at home is cheaper than eating out.

Weekly meal planning 

I ran into a misconception when I mentioned to some coworkers that I wanted to do an article on a weekly meal planning, so I want to allay a possible objection right now. When I say “weekly meal plan” I’m not saying develop one menu and eat the same meals week after week. What I’m saying is that every week I (or, more likely, my wife) will take some time to plan what we’ll eat in the next week. Putting together the plan includes making sure we have the necessary ingredients and making a list of  anything we’ll need to pick up when we do our weekly grocery shopping. We really make three plans—breakfast, lunch and dinner. (Snacks are also included.) A good meal  plann will allow you to eat frugally and healthy at the  same time.

Considerations: schedules, budget, likes, and dislikes

Weekly meal planning involves more than opening a magazine that specializes in yummy recipes, looking at the pictures, and saying, “I’m making that!” In fact, there’s more to it than just looking through your file of old standbys. You’ll want to take into account who will be around to eat and the cost of ingredients.

Schedules

Who’ll be eating which meals at home? For example, if you have college students living at home, it’s likely there will

be days they’re in class—not around for lunch or even dinner. Maybe your spouse (or you) has an early meeting one morning a week at work. Is food is ordered in? Does one of you frequently have to work late? Do you need food that most of the family can eat now and still be good when someone wants it later? Maybe your kids are in high school and you better have a “snack” (think small meal) ready when they get home. Do you have some preschoolers who refuse to eat what the rest of you want (and may even go to bed before the adults get to eat)? And, regardless your family makeup, in our society, nobody’s schedule ever stays the same for long.

There can be several factors to take into consideration; you know the ones you’ll encounter. The goal is to plan meals that every one appreciates and that don’t result in a lot of wasted time, money, or effort.

Budgets

Saying that you need to take your budget into account when you do your weekly meal planning might seem overly

obvious, but we really do have a limit on how much we can spend on anything. Food is no exception. When you live by a budget (and I advise everyone to have one), you know it’s important to take into account the cost of all the facets of your life. You don’t want to overspend on groceries or any other area, so you have allotments. This is where planning comes in. I’m a foodie, so you can believe me when I say I need a budget (and a meal plan), or I’d likely break the bank when it comes to grocery shopping.

Other Issues 

Medical

Does anyone have food allergies or other medical conditions that need to be considered when you’re thinking about what to serve? Some that come to mind are diabetes, nut allergies, and gluten intolerance. (Of course, there are many more.)

Diets

If you’re on a diet, to a great extent, the type of diet will dictate the food you can eat. For example, some diets may have you eating mostly vegetables. Another may be protein or even fat based. Also, some diets allow only for smaller than normal servings and others can require large amounts of certain foods.

Preferences

We all have our likes and dislikes.  It doesn’t make sense to purchase food items that will not be eaten. If you hear, “Yuk! I don’t like this!” you’ll end up throwing food away because it wasn’t being eaten (and—probably—won’t be). If you’re throwing food away, you’re throwing money away, and you’ve also waste time and effort in preparing it.

Dealing with these issues

Medical

Depending on the medical issue, you may be able to make meals that everyone can eat and enjoy with ingredients

that are safe for the person who needs them. If that isn’t possible, then you’ll need to make separate meals: one for the person with the medical issue and another for everyone else. (This is just my opinion, but I prefer the first alternative. It promotes inclusiveness and unity around the table.)

For the “I don’t like it” club

You can handle this the same way you would a medical issue. Make two meals: one for the one person that doesn’t

like this or that and another for everyone else. Or, you could make meals that everyone will eat at least part of. (Note: Children are often members of this group. Serving meals that they’ll eat at least part of—again—leads to a sense of inclusiveness and can help them ease into an acceptance of a wider variety of food.) When someone adamantly refuses to eat most of a meal because they don’t like it, you may need to get creative with snacks to make sure nutritional needs are met.

It all comes together here weekly meal plan

 Now you have the basic variables you’ll need to do weekly meal planning. You know how many people will be eating each meal and who will eat what. You know what existing medical conditions require special dietary considerations. You also know how many meals you need to save for anybody who has extra activities or needs.

Note: I recommend making meals that are easy to save; otherwise, you may end up making multiple meals. Taking this easy way out can save time, effort, and money. (Sometimes the easy way can be the most frugal way to do things.)

Weekly meal planning

Put your plan together in steps. Once you get used to weekly meal planning, you can get through it fairly quickly. (My wife usually does it in 20/30 minutes.)

Step 1

To be most frugal pick recipes everyone can and will eat. You probably already have ideas in mind—recipes memorized or stored in a special file. If you feel blocked, you can check your cookbooks and foodie magazines, or go to the local library. You’ll find enough plenty of recipes that can make this process easy. Also, on the internet there are a ton of recipes for any taste, medical condition, or diet.

As you plan your daily meals, make sure you include snacks. My wife plans two a day. As far as when we eat them, we’re flexible; we know other people who have them on a regular schedule—planned for midmorning and mid-afternoon, or near bed-time. (Dietitians might advise avoiding that last one.)

Sarah, a blogging buddy and friend from Iheartfrugal.com, has a great collection of inexpensive recipes (think frugal). Take a look at her post How to Create a $40 Meal Plan Your Family Will Love

By the way she posted this collection as a two week plan. (Think really frugal.)

As you decide on dishes, you’ll want to incorporate them into a chart arranged by day and meal.

Note: As I’ve said before, meals should be easy to save and reheat for anyone who will miss mealtime but want to eat later.

Step 2

 Make list of all ingredients needed.  This list will be a master list for everything you’ll need for your weekly menu. I realize you’ll already have some of these items like salt, pepper, flour . . . other things. Put them on the list anyway,

then you’ll be aware of any of these staples you may be short on when you get to Step 4.

 Step 3

Using the list from Step 2, take an inventory. Cross off all the ingredients you have on hand. There’s no point in buying what’s already in your pantry, ’fridge, or freezer (unless it’s on sale and you use it frequently).  Note: I’ve written an article that explains how you can buy from yourself and save money.

As you do the inventory you may discover you have something on hand that you won’t use now but could be an excellent candidate to work into your next meal plan. By the way, I’ve found that inventorying all my food stuff every time I do it makes it easy to create a shopping list. This means I mostly go through all the things in one category, like canned goods or spices, before I look at my stock in another category, say dairy.

Here’s an idea I find really useful: I group my shopping list by category, as well as by how I move through the store. I start at the back of the store and work my way toward the checkout lines at the front. My grocery has its dairy section at the back, so items like milk and butter are at the top of my grocery list. Frozen foods are next, then snacks, baking items . . . Eventually, I ended up in produce and the bakery before I hit checkout. This method of shopping makes frugal use of my time. With my list in this order I don’t waste time running back and forth across the store multiple times and it’s unlikely I’ll miss something, or worse, having missed something, say, “I don’t feel like walking all the way back there right now; I’ll come back later.” That attitude leads to wasting time and, ultimately, money. (It uses extra fuel, and if I come back another day for one item, you know I’m likely to find several more that “feel” like I need to take them home with me.

After you’ve done weekly meal planning for awhile, you might find keeping the plans on file is a good idea. For the sake of variety you want to have more than one plan, but it’s ok to save plans to reuse sometime in the future. (My wife has about six that she uses regularly, BUT she tweaks them for special occasions. Also, when she finds a recipe she wants to try, something on her “regular” schedule may get replaced for a few cycles if we really like the dish.)

Step 4

Make your shopping list and keep it handy for your trip to the grocery store.

Conclusion

Weekly meal planning is a frugal activity. It allows for prudent use of your resources—time, money, and effort. It gives you an overview of who will be eating and when. It also takes into account any special dietary needs as well as helping you stay within budget and shop efficiently. The result is a menu that should help make meals, and the prep time involved) more enjoyable.