How to meal plan to save time and money.

Here I share the steps to successful meal planning to help you save time and money on your food bill. It’s all about budgeting and meal prep. Meal plan in 5 easy steps.

1. Stock check your fridge, freezer and cupboards.

Firstly, you need to know what you have. When you know what’s already available in your cupboards, etc. you can then begin to plan meals using the ingredients that you already have. This is a good way to keep the food shop low, using up what you already have. Write a list under each heading for fridge, freezer and cupboard. I like to know roughly how many portions I have, for example of chicken or each veg. I then map out meals that could work using what I already have, like chicken casserole or curry.

2. Create meals using existing ingredients.

Knowing what ingredients you already have, means that you can map out meals using these. This will keep costs down as there will be lots of ingredients that you already have so you won’t need to buy these for the week. You may not have enough ingredients to make everything, but if you know you have chicken and beef, then two meals would be including this. You will then only need to add the additional ingredients needed for the recipe to the shopping list.

3. Plan in batch cooking of meals to store/freeze.

You may have worked out meals, but know think about whether any of those could be cooked in larger batches to save cooking for a future week. If you can get into the habit of doing a batch cook at least once a week, you will have some spare meals in the freezer for a lazy day when you don’t want to cook, or for when you need a cheaper week. Batch cooking will also save you money longer term, as it reduces oven time, saving money on energy bills.

4. Create a shopping list for needed items only.

Now that you have mapped out your meals, as well as your batch cooking, you should be able to create a short list of the remaining ingredients needed to make the recipes. Add in any breakfast and lunch ingredients/items and your list is ready to go. Your list should be smaller, since you have used lots of existing ingredients already.

5. Stick to the list.

This is where many people go wrong. Avoid the temptations in the middle isles, and stick purely to the list you’ve written. This will ensure costs are kept to the lowest they can be. Deviating will mean you end up with ingredients that will go to waste. Therefore, money wasted!

Follow each step and meal plan carefully to help save yourself time and money with your food and energy bills.

Rachel, declutter your life x

For more information on how minimalism changed my life…https://declutteryourlife.co.uk/no-spend-year/a-year-of-no-spending-how-it-changed-my-life/

For more ideas, check out my youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/RachelNoakes