Making a Meal Plan

This is how I go about making a meal plan. Initially when I started, I tended to make a few mistakes.

1. Planning complex meals for mid week. Tired from work, and wanting early nights, the thought of making a meal that - whilst cheap - required lots of chopping, peeling, several pans to cook, and piles of washing up would dismay me. I have limited energy, so often I would resort to buying pizza from the supermarket instead.

2. Underestimating how much we would eat. I planned on leftovers too much.

3. Choosing recipes online that often required miscellaneous ingredients and spices that ended up adding significantly to my list.

4. Making rigid plans that did not take into account special deals when shopping, or flexibility in the week if we don't fancy something.



Now I have a routine that is pretty pat.

1. Decide on what you have in the fridge/freezer. I already know I have cans of baked beans, tuna, veggie burgers, duck, pheasant and a decent amount of sliced ham. This is because I bought these either on offer, in bulk, or got them for free (the duck and the pheasant, specifically, because of my friend with a penchant for shooting things)

2. Put the most complex meals for Saturday/Sunday. In this case, I know taco kits are on offer in Tesco (looked online for the deals) so I decide we'll have tacos (lots of washing up) on Saturday, and Roast Pheasant on Sunday. I also know I can prep the slow cooker Sunday night, ready to switch on Monday morning. So I plan beef and barley stew for monday. (We already have barley in the cupboard)

3. What leftovers do you have from the weekend meals? We won't use a whole thing of mince (I use beans for my tacos, which are a lot cheaper), and I already have veggie burgers - so we can have burgers later in the week. We won't eat the whole pheasant, so I put leftover pheasant in my Monday lunch. - I plot pheasant salad for lunch on Monday, and I put burger and waffles (waffles are also on offer) for Thursday, as it's nice and easy.

4. I know we have tuna, so I decide on a tuna bake for Tuesday, with salad.

5. Since I've grouped the pasta with salad, I know I can use leftovers for lunch the next day. By Wednesday, I don't want to cook. There's some dry soup-mix (beans and lentils) in the cupboard. As long as I remember to pre-soak it on Tuesday, I have an easy one-pot meal - just need to add some onion and some veg. Great way to use up any limp looking odds and sods of vegetables.

6. Thursday is already sorted, with burgers and waffles. I add some green beans, since P. makes a mean garlicky green bean side dish, and vegetables are good!

7. Friday. I promise P. crispy duck pancakes today, as we have free duck. It's also pretty simple to make. We need celery and spring onions anyway, as we are having salad a couple of times in the week.

What about those beans? And that ham? I give us ham sandwiches for lunch, and ham/cheese/beans on toast for lunch Sunday.


Okay; so the final list;


Sat
Lunch: Mac 'n' cheese with salad
Dinner: Tacos

Sun
Lunch: Ham n beans n cheese on toast
Dinner: Roast pheasant, potatoes, veg.

Mon
Lunch: Pheasant salad
Dinner: Slow cooked beef and barley stew

Tues
Lunch: Leftover stew
Dinner: Tuna pasta bake & salad

Wed
Lunch: Leftover pasta bake & more salad
Dinner: Soup mix soup

Thurs
Lunch: Leftover soup
Dinner: Burgers, waffles, green beans

Fri
Lunch: Ham sandwich
Dinner: Crispy duck pancakes




-----




Shopping list


□ Beef for slow cooker (£2.00)
□ Mac 'n' Cheese (Didn't buy)
□ Mince (£3.83)
□ Red Kidney Beans (19p x 2)
□ Cheese (£1.84)
□ Lettuce (0.98)
□ Bread (£1.00)
□ Carrots (£1.00)
□ Broccoli (0.78)
□ Soup (0.44)
□ Pasta (£1.12)
□ Waffles (£1.00 for 12)
□ Green Beans (0.44)
□ Pancakes (for duck) (Didn't buy - wrong store)
□ Frozen veg (Didn't buy)
□ Milk (0.86)
□ Butter (0.88 x 2)
□ Taco kit (£1.84)
□ Fruit (Didn't buy)
□ Celery (0.78)
□ Spring onions (0.74)


Breakfast I'm not worried about, because we have plenty of porridge oats and cereal (and bread for toast)
Both P. and I like sweet things... so I'm going to bake some brownies on Sunday.

So;

□ White chocolate (£0.89)
□ Walnuts (£1.49)
□ Brown sugar (0.95)
□ Eggs (0.91 for 6)


EDIT

Total amount spent; £28.59. More than the £25 budgeted, but we found out tuna was half-price so we bought a four-pack. I didn't buy any mac 'n' cheese in the end, or frozen veg, as I couldn't find any veg without cauliflower in. I did pick up a 1.2kg bag of carrots and a 1kg bag of pasta, both of which will last into next week, and I doubled up on kidney beans as they were only 19p.

We're also still missing duck pancakes and hoi-sin, so will have to spend a couple more pounds later in the week.(It's 99p for pancakes and £1.59 for hoi-sin)

Total for the week will therefore be: £31.17p, or £6.17 over budget.

(I'm allowing the brownies and the going over budget because I made £20 off an online writing site....)