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Meal planning and budgeting
I used to plan meals out to careful budget how much everything cost but recently I have been buying cheap 'ugly' vegetables and doing a random meal. So tonight was carrots, brussles, courgettes (reduced price) with fried onions and mince. After frying the onions I shoved them altogetehr in the oven. Wish I had planned ahead and popped it in the slow cooker but forgot to get the mince out of the freezer until this morning. There is left overs which I will then portion up for lunches for me at work.
So do you meal plan or have what you fancy or a random mix?
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Which I could be organised and meal plan. I tend to hunt the reduced price stuff and bung it in the freezer, so lamb, beef, chicken etc and then buy veggies from aldi. Tonight I thawed out batch cooked chicken korma not enough for all three of us, made some Bombay potatoes (got a spice mix for 29p, bit of oil 4 medium potatoes, a medium tomatoe and some corriander, cooked some rice. Have left over Bombay potatoes which I will make into fried potatoe cakes and serve with eggs for breakfast. I know that sounds random. Tomorrow going to shepherds pie with lamb mince (reduced price lamb mince)
I plan quite obsessively. I freeze loads too, to have on the evenings we've both been at work. I keep a list of what meals are in the freezer. On my non-working days I'll cook something where I can freeze the leftovers. I tend to experiment a bit on those days too.
Online shopping helps me keep track of budget. And I use recipe sites to find uses for ingredients that weren't finished from a previous meal. I'm a bit of a food shopping saddo! But we eat well and affordably, so we're all happy.
We're terribly wasteful with food! I try to plan but it goes totally out of the window!
I write a list of what were eating for the week which normally gets switched around throughout the week when I forget to get meat out of the freezer!
I am bad for wasting vegetables and fruit i always buy more than we need, I'm planning to do more batch cooking and freezing.
Those that freeze alot what do you freeze in? I spend a fortune buying those little foil tray but I have limited cupboard space for keeping loads of klipfrsh tubs
not great a budgeting or meal planning but do try to work round what veggies i can pick at the allotment, my latest cheap meat is minced turkey thigh - to make Mexican inspired dishes
I need to get back into meal planning as it does save a fortune. I've got some apps that will help you meal plan and will then put a shopping list together for you, Change 4 Life is the main app that will do this.
We generally meal plan but often find that we don't fancy what's on the menu and have something different! It also goes out the window if H has to work late so basically we try to meal plan best we can.
Sleepy we freeze a lot and use leftover margarine tubs for a lot of stuff. they stack so don't take up much space and I find them a good size for a portion of chilli/stew/curry.
I meal plan for myself and L, and H meal plans to a point for himself (although he basically eats chicken, rice and potatoes, so its not really much of a plan!) I make double portion of some things to freeze, but we only have a tiny freezer so don't do as much as I would like. That's one of the things on the list of things I want in our next house, somewhere for a chest freezer! Meal planning does save us a fair bit of money, but we probably aren't as careful with budgeting as we could be.
I did slimming world for a couple of years, when I was doing that I was really good at planning meals and only buying stuff to make those meals, since stopping SW I've become a bit slack. I make a loose list on a Saturday when i do the shopping but find usually by Wednesday or Thursday we don't have anything in for dinner, so it either becomes a mismatch meal - last week was fish finger sandwiches - or I end up going midweek shopping, which I absolutely hate doing as I spend a fortune! Must try harder
I meal plan and only buy what we need for that weeks meals. I take into account who's doing what each evening so I know if it needs to be quick, if its just me or just H eating or if its best to do a slow cooker meal. The only negative is there isnt room for much flexibility if you dont fancy whats on the list!
I try to, but at the moment I never fancy what ive planned! However, when baby is here and im on mat leave I will defo be planning meals and budgeting more.
I try to meal plan but often change my mind!
I usually write a list of what meals we will be eating for the week, balancing it alongside H's shifts and other plans for the week to make sure it's practical. H never ever ever cooks and I would lose my *** if he came home and said he didn't fancy what was on the menu that night . H gets what he's given! I make a lot of bolognese, chilli, stews etc which I cook in bulk and freeze. We use leftover plastic tubs from take aways, got bloody hundreds of them. Other times I will save ice cream tubs to freeze stuff in. Veggie chillies and curries are a good way to use up veggies that might otherwise go to waste. On the whole, we are pretty good with not wasting stuff I think. My biggest fail is that I forget what we've got in the freezer, like chicken breasts and buy more but it all gets used eventually.
I'm getting back into it, I need to be careful with what we are spending just now while I'm on SMP. Plus H and I would both like to lose weight so we are choosing six healthy meals per week and on a Saturday we decide on the day, sometimes we eat out, get a takeaway or will just buy a ready meal or pizza in the supermarket so we don't need to cook.
There's an online slow cooking blog that I keep meaning to check out, she basically meal plans for the month all slow cooker meals, bags all the ingredients together and sticks in the freezer then each night takes a bag out to defrost and chucks it in the slow cooker in the morning. I could do with that kind of organisation in my life!
I meal plan on a thurs before shopping on a Friday and I only buy what we need. I've found it saved us lots of money! Would love some meal inspiration though please