How To Meal Plan

Most home organisation and frugality blogs will recommend meal planning. 

It saves time, it saves money, it saves stress.  It's just one way of making life a whole lot easier.

How I Meal Plan

I have a spreadsheet with each week of the year as a new tab.

It has a tab at the front that is my freezer inventory (saves time routing through)

I have a formula for filling each week, which is

I have 3 children, one doesn't have much choice in what they eat yet but the other two both choose a meal each for Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday is always a roast

Thursday is always a meal made from Roast Leftovers (there always are some as I cook too much on the Wednesday to ensure an easy meal for Thursday)

Friday is always freezer food

Saturday is always a takeaway

Sunday is always a slow cooker meal, prepped in the morning and left to do It's own Thing while I do mine.

Filling The Freezer

I batch cook as much as I can as I'm all for less time cooking.

When I do batch cook, I add the meal into the next available freezer Friday slot.  if I do this, it doesn't go on the Freezer Inventory as it will be accounted for twice

So What is the Freezer Inventory for?

For when things don't go to plan or for lunches.

The Shopping List

I also do my shopping list when I meal plan, then I can print one column off and check it against what is in the storecupboards, freezer and fridge.

I cross off anything I already have in then go to mysupermarket.com and see where I can shop the cheapest and where I can grab coupons to reduce my weekly spend.

And there you have it.

It works for me, I swear by it and there are loads more meal plans available on line.  Two of my favourites are At Home With Mrs M and I'm an Organizing Junkie  both have massive link ups where you can get inspiration.