Thursday 5 March 2015

Meal planning on a budget

I am feeling much more human today, thankfully, just tired, my recovery stage from migraines takes about 3 days now, it used to be a good week before I felt normal again after an attack, but these new medications seem to help me recover quicker, now if only I could find one to stop them all together...

Meal Planning

My daughters watched a programme, months ago, where the family planned out their meals for the week, I think they did snacks and breakfasts too, and they wanted to try one out here.  I said it would help with dinners as I was forever trying to find meals that everybody would eat and thought that if they had picked the meals, they would be more likely to eat them, and so they collaborated and came up with three weeks worth of dinners, it was brilliant.  No more peering into the cupboard to see what we had, the shopping bill came down, as I only bought what we needed, rather than what looked good, or was on offer as I went around the shop, the original planner got tweaked for winter as it had a lot of salads on it and they were replaces with things like stew and sausage and mash.

I used to go to the shop for my groceries, but do the odd one online, then I saw that you could pay for your deliveries from Tesco up front with their delivery saver which entitled me to as many deliveries as I needed for a year, any time of the day, any day of the week and they would be free, as long as I spent over £25.  I have found that this saves me a fortune.  I am no longer tempted by 'specials' as I wonder around, I don't buy extra food because I'm hungry, or because the children are nagging me.  I can add or delete items up to 11.44pm the night before my delivery is booked and I can see before I checkout how much I've spent, so if it needs to be a frugal shop, I can delete some items and get them the following week, this is especially handy for that week before payday!  I would say that I used to spend around £100 per week when I went into the shop, now if I've spent £50 I think it's an expensive shop, I buy my fruit and vegetables on these shops too, as well as washing detergents, shampoos etc, and I'm shopping for 6 people, 2 of which need the free from section which is more expensive than the ordinary food!  I would definitely recommend giving it a try.

We've just put the final touches to our tweaked meal planner, I now do a 4 weekly planner and here it is:

Week 1:

Monday-         Homemade soup with crunchy bread
Tuesday-         Pizza and chips
Wednesday-    Pasta in a homemade sauce
Thursday-       Homemade Shepherds pie
Friday-            Stuffed peppers
Saturday-        Make your own Subway
Sunday-          Roast chicken

Week 2:

Monday-         Homemade chicken kiev and potatoes
Tuesday-         Tacos/enchiladas/wraps
Wednesday-    Sticky apple, sausage and bacon with mash
Thursday-       Spaghetti bolognaise/pasta with homemade sauce
Friday-            Homemade sweet and sour chicken balls and egg fried rice/noodles
Saturday-        Nuggets and chips
Sunday-          Roast Gammon

Week 3:

Monday-        Burger and chips
Tuesday-        Sausage and mash
Wednesday-   Homemade turkey skewers and rice
Thursday-       Stew and homemade dumplings / salad (weather depending)
Friday-            White fish in a homemade herby butter with new potatoes
Saturday-         Hot dogs
Sunday-           Roast Pork

Week 4:

Monday-        Pulled pork rolls
Tuesday-        Jacket potatoes with various fillings
Wednesday-   Chilli with either rice or nachos
Thursday-       Stir fry and rice
Friday-            Fish and chips
Saturday-        Curry and rice
Sunday-          Raclette

If anyone has any other ideas then please let me know in the comments below as I love trying out new meals. 

I hope you have a great day,

Lupin Girl x

1 comment:

  1. +AmbeeJacoby I will check out the website, thank you
    Lupin Girl x

    ReplyDelete