How to Plan Meals that Save Money, Time and Your Sanity #mealplanning #howtomealplan #savemoney #savetime #planmeals #food

As busy mums, sometimes it can feel like it’s impossible to get everything done that you need to get done in a day.

Get up, get the kids up, get everyone to school, work all day, then come home and do the cooking too?!

It’s all just too much sometimes.

Here's how to plan meals that save money, time, and your sanity.



Meal Planning: How to Plan Meals that Save Money, Time, and Your Sanity

As you go through your day trying to get it all done, going frantically from this thing to that thing, and the other thing, and the next thing, it can get really confusing and disorganized when you have no plan. 

When you have no plan, you also end up spending more time and money, and it doesn’t even turn out right. 

But if you take the time to plan something amazing happens.

You get control over the time you have and end up feeling as if you have time to breathe and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

It's the same with meal planning.

Read on to find out why meal planning is so beneficial and how, if you follow our directions, you will soon be rocking your own meal planning.

Saving money, time and your sanity into the bargain!

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The Benefits of Meal Planning 

Once you start meal planning, you’ll end up healthier, less stressed out, and you may even find that you can save a lot of money. Let’s get started. 

Taking the time to plan your meals for the week (or even a month at a time) provides numerous benefits. 

You’ll be a lot healthier, save money, and seem to have more time.

It’s a win-win situation if you know what you’re doing. Let’s look at all the benefits of meal planning before we learn how to do it.



Here are the 7 main benefits of meal planning:

1. Eat Healthier 

When you plan meals, you can ensure that everyone consumes the right amount of nutrition according to their needs.

You can control portions and ingredients better than if you buy prepared food or eat out.

By physically planning what you’ll eat each day, you can set yourself up for success, reaching any of your health and nutrition goals because you are the one who has control over the choices you make.




2. Save Time

The best part of meal planning is the time you’ll save.

It might seem strange that you will spend time doing something to save time doing something else.

But it works.

You can design your menu to fit your schedule.

For example, if you don’t really have time in them mornings you can pre-plan fast to make healthy breakfasts in advance, i.e. things that are simple but nutritious and fast, like a breakfast bar or smoothie.



3. Cut Chaos 

When everyone is running around in the morning skipping a healthy breakfast then running out the door without lunch, it can be very chaotic and confusing.

And it spells a very bad start to anyone’s day, especially kids.

If you plan for busy mornings properly, you can ensure everyone gets something healthy into them, giving them a much better start for their day. 




4. Save Money

When you set out to plan meals, you will have an easier time sticking to your budget simply because you’re not going to be buying last minute items just because you’re hungry.

You can shop in season so that you spend less money and even take the time to source your food differently, for example, from a delivery service or a weekend farmer's market.




5. Reduce Waste 

When you plan meals, minding serving sizes, and leftovers, you will end up reducing your food waste substantially.

If you currently notice that you are tossing a lot of leftovers and wasting food, you can stop doing this through better planning.

For example, you may want to plan ways to use leftovers, or you may simply want to put a 'leftover' day into each week. 



6. Eat Tastier Food

There is no mistaking that food cooked at home with fresh ingredients is going to taste better than what you get at almost any 'affordable' family restaurant.

You may not have the skills yet, but as you create more menus and learn new cooking techniques, your cooking will become better and more flavourful.




7. Educate Your Children

By creating menus, and participating in meal planning, you are teaching your children valuable home economics that will carry over into other aspects of their life.

When you see how well planning does to ensure you have enough money, time, and food to feed your family healthy meals, you’ll want to start incorporating more planning into all aspects of your life.



The benefits of meal planning go far beyond having a good meal every day.

You gain more time with your family and for yourself.

Meal planning helps open a whole world of delight for any family due to expanding your food knowledge while also bringing the family back together.

But even if you’re just one person or a family of two or three, meal planning is a crucial element in ensuring you are eating healthy and keeping the budget under control too. 



Meal Planning Mistakes to Avoid 

At the same time, there are a few meal planning mistakes that you should try to avoid that can make your plans go sideways.

If you avoid these meal planning mistakes, you’re more likely to stick to meal planning over a long period of time, which will ensure that you do save money and time plus keep your family healthier.

These are:

1. Not Trying New Things

Most people tend to eat the same meals week after week, year after year.

Instead of doing that, use the meal planning opportunity to try a few new meals.

When you eat new things, you can end up improving your nutrition as well as increase mealtime excitement for everyone.



2. Using Too Many Packaged Foods

We’re kind of used to using prepared packaged food these days.

Barbeque sauce is a good example. You can make your own sauce homemade which will taste much better, and you can make just what you need.

The same can be said for prepared salad dressings too.

You can make your own salad dressing less expensively in the quantities you need.



3. Setting Unrealistic Expectations

If you’re not a practiced chef, don’t try to cook a five-course meal every single evening.

It’s okay to push yourself when you know you have time to make a mistake, but doing that on a busy night isn’t going to work.

Stick to what you know is true that you have 30 minutes to get food on the table and another 30 to clean it up.

Then fix something healthy within that criteria.



4. Not Keeping it Simple

Don’t use recipes that include too many ingredients.

You always want to stay away from strange ingredients too because it’s just not realistic that you’re going to have truffle oil ready or that you’ll even like it.

Just keep making simple family favorites that incorporate easy to find ingredients that you can get locally.



5. Not Giving Yourself Enough Time 

When you search for recipes, you need to notice the prep time and cooking time involved before you choose that recipe.

Look at what it takes to make it.

If you know you don’t have time to chop veggies for an hour you may want to buy already chopped veggies if you can afford it, or pre-prep the ingredients on a day off work.



6. Not Using Grocery Delivery When You Can

Some people who are new to meal planning have stated that they spend less money when they shop using online local delivery.

This may mean you need to use only one store, but since you can see how much everything cost before you order them, it’s easier to stick to the budget, and it also saves time.



The truth is, if you don’t have a plan in mind when you start shopping or cooking you will find that you get frustrated, everything takes longer than it needs to, and often you wind up cooking too much food and wasting too many ingredients.

But if you do take the time to meal plan, you will find that you end up doing less with more.

Now let’s look at the steps involved in meal planning and preparing your food for maximum results.



7 Steps to Meal Plan Like an Expert

Meal planning isn’t really that hard to do and will only take about an hour once you are accustomed to doing it.

Let’s go through the steps of meal planning and give you the details for each step involved. 


Step 1: Review What You Have 

The best way to meal plan is to start with what you have.

Even the bulk items you buy need to be used up in a timely manner to avoid waste.

Therefore, check what you have before you start your planning session so that you can use up any items that you already have, especially if they are closer to their expiration dates.



Step 2: Know Your Budget 

Always know the budget you must work with before you start doing anything.

Even if you only have $50 for the week, you can end up finding the right food to make it work.

For example, maybe this week you will have more meatless meals due to your lower food budget.

Just know that it doesn’t have to be unhealthy to be inexpensive.



Step 3: Give Yourself Enough Time 

When you plan the meals that you are going to fix this week, look at your calendar to ensure that you have enough time to make that meal.

If you have a busy week of soccer practice or a lot of performances to see it may not be the week you make your grandmother's homemade lasagna, opt for something easier instead.



Step 4: Be Realistic 

You know you. You know your family.

If you don’t like creamed spinach, you’re never going to like it, stop making it.

If you only have 30 minutes to get dinner on each evening, that’s all you’re ever going to have.

Accept what is, and work within those boundaries.



Step 5: Plan Every Meal 

Check for what’s on sale, know what meals have leftovers that you’ll need to incorporate into another meal.

It can help if you set a theme for the night and add this to your weekly meal planner.

For example, you may want every Monday night to be salad night to make up for the weekend indulgence, or you might want every Friday night to be pizza night. Setting that up helps.

Finally, don’t forget to delegate some tasks to other family members, and plan snacks and baking too.



Step 6: Create a Meal Template 

For example, depending on the type of diet you like your family to eat, you’ll need to create a template of what constitutes a healthy meal.

For example, if you are eating a keto diet, your template will look very different than if you’re a vegan. 

Remember that the best way to save both time and money is repetition.

Cook very similar or the same meals, adding new items occasionally but mostly keeping it the same.



Step 7: Make a Shopping List from the Meal Plan 

Once you have created the meal plan based on your leftovers and on-hand ingredients, create a shopping list from that meal plan.

Remember it’s cheaper if you can stock up on bulk items, but it’s best to shop for fresh ingredients more often such as weekly.

If you don’t have much space or you’re not good at using leftovers, get stricter about buying only what you need.

When you get the servings right, and learn how to build a meal from leftovers from one meal you’ll find that you have much fewer leftovers and waste so that helps you save money and time because you will do less work for more reward.

Read more:



Cook Less Eat Better

Let’s talk a bit about the idea of cooking less and eating better.

The way this works is that you plan meals that minimize cooking or batches cooking together.

For example, if you cook a tomato sauce you can then use that sauce as the basis of a pasta dish, a chilli, pizza sauce and more.

Cooking a large amount of sauce and freezing or bottling for later use will save you time in the future.

Or you can simply cook two or three times the amount each time you cook, use one quantity and freeze the others.



To make this idea work you will need to get organized:

1. Get the Right Containers 

You’ll want to invest in the right type of containers.

Today people are super careful about plastics, so choose the kind of container that can go from fridge to freezer to microwave and/or oven without a problem.

Typically, this means glass or silicone containers.

You can also use ziplock baggies and/or glass canning jars of all sizes to store smaller quantities of ingredients to use in other recipes.



2. Buy the Right Tools 

You don’t have to have multiples of everything in your kitchen, but it does help to have the right tools. 

For example, a garlic press can save you a lot of time, but you may choose to buy already crushed garlic instead.

It depends on your needs, your time availability, and your budget. 



3. Set Up Your Kitchen 

You also should set up your kitchen for cooking.

Set up each area as a station, for example, you may have a baking station, a mixing station, and so forth depending on the area you must work with.

Set it up to work best for your needs, not what other people think works.



4. Delegate 

You’ll also need to talk to your family about what they need to do to help you get the food ready.

For example, you should set up a system that everyone knows what they are to do and when and they just do it by the calendar and the clock regardless of how they feel (or you feel) at that moment.

If the kids know they need to set the table by 5:30 PM each night and just do it, you’re going to be more likely to stick to your plan too.



The entire family can take part in meal planning too.

Sometimes it’s fun to give the planning over to older teenagers, especially if they can also drive.

By giving them a budget and a goal for nutrition and calories, they can learn quite a bit about budgeting, meal planning, and running a household.



Cook with Confidence 

Once you have planned the meals, shopped for the ingredients, and get everything home, you can cook with confidence by sticking to the plan you created.


If you know how to cook with confidence, it will go a lot smoother. Here's how:

1. Set Up Your Kitchen Properly 

It’s important to store things properly in your kitchen and set up your work areas to be easy to access and efficient.

If you think about everything in your kitchen as zones, it’s easier.

Where you choose to prep your ingredients and store everything matters a great deal in terms of being organized.

If you’re not sure how to get organized, think of each area as a zone.



2. Check Your Menu & Recipes

Before you put away your ingredients, it’s important to read over your menu and familiarize yourself with what you plan to cook so that you can store or process it properly at the right time.

It can help to look at your recipes again as you are putting away the ingredients to ensure that you have everything right where you can easily locate it and find it.

As you get a few recipes down pat for your family, you won’t have to look as often but until you’re used to it keep looking at them so that you don’t skip any steps.

It also helps to organize the ingredients.

Instead of just throwing it in the fridge or cabinet use smaller containers to organize ingredients that you’re going to use each day of the week based on the recipes you’re cooking on that day.



3. Prep What You Can in Advance

For some ingredients, it can help to prep what you need in advance when you have time.

For example, you may have some time to precut tomorrow’s veggie soup veggies or stir fry dinner.

The trick in precutting is to store properly in ice water or by using lemon juice to avoid browning.

Some things cannot be prepped in advance, and that’s okay.



4. Delegate & Outsource

This is brought up a lot but delegating and outsourcing when you can, different things in your life you can make everything better.

Your kids and spouse need to know how to cook dinner, plan dinner, and so forth too.

You can get them to help if you set it up for them to do it.

Eventually, it’ll just be second nature for them - even if that means take out occasionally!



With your kitchen set up right so that cooking is easy and comfortable, and all the ingredients easy to get to in an organized manner, you’ll find that cooking dinner fast each evening is a reality for you.

You won’t feel overworked and under-appreciated if you give everyone in the family a job to do when it comes to meal planning for the entire family.



Conclusion

Meal planning is an important family activity that will save time, money, and stress for anyone who incorporates it.

It doesn’t matter if you only have 30 minutes to prepare a meal each evening, you can do it with the help of everyone in the family.

Not only that, it will bring you all closer together and give you more money through the savings to do more fun things as a family at the weekend.


More ways to get organised and save money on food:


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