I've just sat down to meal plan for the week and thought I'd share how I do it.

Shortly after moving in to our current home with my husband I realised the last thing I wanted to do after a full day at work and a long commute was to stand in front of my fridge and work out what we should have for dinner.

I decided needed to put aside 10 to 15 minutes a week to plan our meals. After a bit of trial and error this method now works very well for us. It is so easy, can be adapted for your families needs and has saved us money on grocery shopping over the last two years.

I want to note I tend to only plan for dinners. I would usually have toast or fruit for breakfast and take leftovers to work for lunch. My husband when working regularly only wants one meal a day. If you want to use this to plan for breakfasts and lunches it work well for that too.

METHOD

The first thing I do is take a look in my fridge and note down what I have in, particularly what needs using up and when.

I then do the same with my freezer and pantry.

I then write out the days of the week down the side of my notebook.

Usually I would then check our calendars to see what we have planned for the week and note this down next to the day. For example I am a Rainbow Leader so on Wednesdays I like to have something quick and easy for dinner, while I tend to have more time on Tuesdays to make something more complex.

Currently I’m working from home and my husband is furloughed so we have the time to make an effort every night. So instead I've been taking a look at the weather and meal planning around that instead.

From there I take a look at my three ingredient lists and try to make meals with them. If I'm struggling for ideas I go to pinterest, my favourite food blogs and cook books for inspiration.

As I go along I cross the ingredients I have used in a meal off the list until they are mostly used up. I write a separate list of any ingredients I am missing at home, this helps to make the basis of my shopping list for the week.

Once I’ve finished I always run the meal plan past my husband to double check he will eat everything.

Since making meal plans this way we tend to be less wasteful with food as we focus on using what we have first and only buying what we need. By doing this our grocery bill has reduced.

I hope you try this and let me know what you think.

#MealPlanning #julianneats #lessfoodwaste #usewhatyouhave #dinnerplanning