5 Budget Savvy Meal Planning Essentials for Anyone
We eat as healthy as possible but I don’t have the energy to come up with 7 days worth of new meals each week. I have spent the last 14 years finding a manageable meal planning system for my family. As a wife and mama, I try to fuel my family well. We have health concerns in our house, allergies, do not live in the heart of farmland (food is pricier), and are always living on a budget.
We’ve paid for menu planning services, and tried mail ordered meals. These are great, but aren’t necessarily budget friendly. Ultimately, I lean on my tried and true ideas taught to me by my mom of four and farm raised mother-in-law. These meal planning essentials aren’t flashy and necessarily in style. They work though, and when you add in some of my organizational tricks they get pretty streamlined. My tips will work for anyone, new to meal planning, a newly wed couple, working/single parents, singles, and everyone trying to live on a budget.
Meal Plan–
Save yourself some serious cash and meal plan for your week. Do not go grocery shopping without a plan, it’s my number 1 rule. I have even gone so far as to meal plan for 3 months at a time (think road trip or long plane ride). Want the honest truth? I HATE this part. Do it though, because it will save you money. Try to plan meals that share ingredients. So for instance, heavy whipping cream used in three recipes this week. When I’m on point, my rule is at least 5 of my meals share some ingredients from other meals. If you take this one step further and use the weekly food ads to plan your meals you are really saving some moolah. I mean, the stuff is on sale anyway right?
Save your Meal Plan–
Save every single one. Have a meal planning binder, and section it by seasons. If I’m stuck I go to the binder and pull out a week. We keep a handy list of family favorites ready at all times too. It spans the gambit from casseroles to Indian Curry. During less intense seasons of the year we add one or even two new meals to the weekly rotation, thus the list gets longer with time. Here’s the thing, you’re doing the work anyway so just save them in the same place to reference when you hit the menu planning doldrums.
Find Meal Planning Shortcuts that Work For You–
Do them…forever. I do grocery pick up in town. I order everything online and then swing through and pick up my order the next day. Pretty much every store offers it now so find the one you like best and go for it. We do this almost every week, especially during the school year when we are crazy busy. The only catch with these types of services is you need be a little ahead of the game (at least a day) to make the order. When I started I saved $20+ a week, which easily makes up for the fee (if there is one), because of my tendency to impulse buy. What?!? Talk about a game changer.
I have friends who have themed nights in their house, Tuesday is taco (or some variation) night…Thursday is homemade pizza night…Sunday lunch is leftovers… Meal planning is significantly easier if you’ve got a structure to follow. Set a routine in your house and embrace it, plus you are helping create fun family memories with themed nights. Win. Win.
Make Ahead Meals–
Be super intentional about keeping a side of your freezer dedicated to ready to go freezer meals. I try to keep 3-5 things in my freezer at all times that are quick meal solutions. But you don’t have to freeze anything each week actually. You can do meal prep on Sundays by way of cutting your meats, and veggies for a few upcoming meals in the week. Wash and prep all your fruit so your kids have easy grab and go snacks. To prep a crockpot meal, load a gallon ziplock with your recipe for easy prep on Wednesday morning. Typically after I get home from the store I just look through my menu and figure out if anything is prep-able a few days in advance, most of the time it takes less than an hour. I have a friend who just did 30-Whole 30 crockpot freezer meals. She knocked that mess out in like 5 hours on a Sunday. Find your meal planning moxy and let it rock your world.
Decide What Kind of Food You are Going to Eat–
Are you going to eat traditional, gluten free, paleo, or clean? Knowing this gives you and your budget permission to spend where you want to spend. We are a combination of traditional and clean in our house, also Mr. PDH and I date night in ALOT (so think wine budget). Almost 10 years ago, we decided that we were going to stop eating as cheap as possible. We didn’t feel good, we were lethargic, our kids weren’t learning anything about healthy living, and frankly our metabolisms couldn’t take it. So we upped the food budget and it has been one of the best decisions we’ve made. Over the course of time we started buying organic items and have slowly gotten to the point where that’s mostly all we buy. It all started with me simply deciding to buy organic milk and eggs. This certainly increased our food budget, but we did it very slowly (I’m talking years) and it’s something we are committed to. Plus it helps us in our journey to more farm to table living. So decide on your way of eating and be okay spending money to match it.
Hopefully some of these ideas can give your meal planning process some fresh air. For us living intentionally sometimes starts with what we eat, so I put the time and energy into planning our meals. It’s my way of loving and caring for my family. When we look for small ways to make intentional healthy changes the ripple affect can be seen in other places throughout our life. Meal planning is one small area of your life, but let me tell ya, if you can figure out how to streamline it for your household, what a difference it can make!
