Hello Dear Reader,
There are many ways to menu plan for your family. The starting point is making the plan together. It’s easy for Dearly Beloved and myself as we know our cooking capabilities and what we like. Any family can decide what they like and what they don’t like and you can work on compromises as a family. Once you have decided on that, then you need to know your budget. Our catering budget varies week to week but averages over the month at £50 a week (I know! Prices have shot up!) and that’s for all our food, fresh fruit and veg which we buy weekly, a big meat shop once a month, a big shop once every few months for tea and coffee, a big shop every few months for cleaning products and dishwasher tablets (we buy in bulk from Trago) and a big shop once every few months for tinned, dry goods, UHT milk, pet food and toiletries. In all, our ‘grocery’ budget is £200 a month. It’s high in comparison to some and low to others. We also add to our stores by using Approved Food a couple of times a year and I usually buy a year’s worth of pasta, dried pulses, cous cous or rice from them for a tiny price.(e.g 10 500g bags of pasta shapes for £1)
When I menu plan, the first thing I always do is stock take everything we have to eat in the house. I write everything down and start to formulate a plan of what we are going to eat. I create a spreadsheet so I can refer back to the previous week and check we are not eating the same things over and over. I try to make my plan as varied as possible, even when I have bags and bags of minced beef, or masses of packs of pasta to use up. We tend to eat the same things for breakfast of either cereal or toast and we eat one main meal in the evening and one light meal as well. Lunch is often leftovers from the night before, or a boiled egg in a sandwich or salad. I always have fruit in the freezer and family sized pots of natural yoghurt so there’s always ‘pudding’ if we want it. We rarely snack between meals and we rarely snack after our evening meal so there’s no cheese and crackers lurking and definitely no bought in snacks such as nuts or crisps. Not snacking means we can keep our grocery bill as low as we can. We don’t snack because we fill up of lots of veggies with all our meals so we don’t get hungry until our next meal. Occasionally, I relent and make biscuits or cakes but portion them to last as long as possible.
I have a stock of cookery books, I also use BBC Food, Yummly, allrecipes.co.uk and other recipe websites. I’ll often try recipes from other frugal food bloggers too. I like to try new ideas and will look at my ingredients and then use Google to search for recipes to make from those ingredients. I like to plan from pay day to pay day, so I know we’ve got enough food for the month and other than fresh fruit and veg, that I don’t need to buy anything else. You could find your own way of planning and it might be weekly to start with, moving onto fortnightly and eventually monthly. I have a friend who pins her planning to her fridge to remind her what to prepare, or to take out of the freezer or to defrost if she had made one earlier. Anyone can find their own way. Another friend of mine has a write on - wipe off board on her kitchen wall and writes her planning on that, with a shopping list next to it. You can find your own way.
Of course, I’m not suggesting anyone should plan, it’s just personally something that we do. Our plan isn’t set in stone either. I could cook anything from the plan on any of the days as I’ve got most of the ingredients in the house as we always have veggies and salad here. I cross off the ‘meal’ once we’ve had it, as that helps with my stock taking at the end of the month.
Here’s my plan for the coming month.
You will notice that we eat the same main meal on Sunday and Monday and that’s because we give ourselves the night off cooking on a Monday and have ‘Ding Cuisine’. We’ll often eat soup for lunch two days running as I will have made a large pot one day and we eat it over the next few days for lunch with bread. I like to keep a good store of frozen foods and dry goods so there is always food in the house and I like to keep a good table. We might be frugal but I always do my best to make sure we eat well.
I hope I’ve given you a few ideas about menu planning and now it’s your turn to chip in. Who menu plans? Who has a set budget for food and sticks to it. Who thinks they have a set budget but actually pops down the local Co-op for a bit of this and that? Who else bulk buys and keeps a store? Who batch cooks so you can have days off cooking?
As ever, I look forward to hearing from you.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs
p.s A second house viewing on Friday by a couple who have now sold their house, so cross your fingers for me.
very useful esp as I am usually the cook but my husband having to do it at the mo. Good luck with house viewing!
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Yes to all of the above - except for the popping down the Co-op bit - not least because we don't have one within popping distance ;o) Fingers crossed for your viewing on Friday!
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I do menu plan up to a month in advance but try to be flexible as well. With 6 adults all with their own lives to lead, sometimes not everyone will be here for a dinner so there will be leftovers which will make another meal instead of the one I have planned for the next day. Or I might be lucky enough to be given something (such as the huge marrow I got from a friend's allotment this week) and then I adapt and use that up first. But menu planning does focus the mind on what I have in stock and things that need using up. Fingers crossed for your viewing. Wouldn't it be great for you to get an offer so soon after the house going on the market?
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I do menu plan up to a month in advance but try to be flexible as well. With 6 adults all with their own lives to lead, sometimes not everyone will be here for a dinner so there will be leftovers which will make another meal instead of the one I have planned for the next day. Or I might be lucky enough to be given something (such as the huge marrow I got from a friend's allotment this week) and then I adapt and use that up first. But menu planning does focus the mind on what I have in stock and things that need using up. Fingers crossed for your viewing. Wouldn't it be great for you to get an offer so soon after the house going on the market?
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I always like to plan a menu out for the week ahead and I do my main weekly shop on a Monday. I live with my daughter (she stays 4 nights a week) I really do love to cook from scratch but I also find that doing it this way can sometimes be expensive too. My spending is far too high and I need to get it under control for the sake of my bank balance. I must spend around £60 but that also includes dog food too. I never ever buy ready meals and I make sure I use up all fresh ingredients. I hate the thought of any food waste going in the bin.
P.S. love your blog.
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I do weekly meal plans….Don't think I could handle doing a monthly one I'm not organised enough…lol I have found meal planning saves us so much money!! Only buying what we need and resisting the feeling of not knowing what to have for tea and getting a take away!!
Good luck for your viewing on Friday!
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I tend to menu plan but only for the following week. We do not have enough storage space to stockpile much - cupboards not too bad but I only have icebox in the fridge for frozen. When I buy meat I rebag into specific portion sizes and it takes up far less space in the icebox that way too. I have had a budget of £200 a month for about 3/4 years but it is increasingly difficult to keep to that nowaday, although now we are back from rural Norfolk (and have supermarkets closer) it is cheaper to shop so for September I am back with that budget.
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I menu plan, pay day to pay day and find the best way for me to stay on track is to ensure we have enough milk in the fridge so to avoid any 'popping to the shop' . Menu planning has also resulted in more interesting and creative meals as you have given them some thought. I used to 'buy in' at m&s (can you imagine!) in my previous life but now love Approved Foods and appreciate living within walking distance of Aldi. Everything crossed for you here Froogs x
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Good luck for Friday.
I menu plan on a weekly basis, but budget on a monthly basis. I bought in a lot of flour, sugar and vinegar today for my new bread maker, and for preserving, so that will take up a lot of storage until my preserves are made.
Tomorrow I will be making your rhubarb chutney. Mmmmm can't wait! 🙂
Rw
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I batch cook and buy all my meat in one go at the beginning of the month, along with the necessary ingredients to make into our 'regular' favourites. On my last freezer count I had 72 meals, all cooked from scratch & frozen. I have a budget of £200 and usually manage to stick to it. I live in rural Norfolk and our nearest mini supermarket is 3.5 miles away and as I dislike grocery shopping I try to avoid even entering a supermarket ! Good luck with the house viewing !
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When I was very broke I had a list of what was in the freezer and like your friend it was crossed off as it was used. Menu planning is more difficult now as sometimes I have three or up to seven for dinner. Due to mum's health we need a lot of red meat for her and stews are the best way to approach this need. So I make a batch and we might get two or three meals out of that. Then I make something new. Since I buy the cheapest I can find it is always a mental exercise to work the meals into my set dollar amount. When I worked a meal plan was essential.
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I do a weekly plan for £30-40, leaving a bit spare for milk etc during the week and do an occasional shop at approved food if they have what I need (£5 for a massive case of stock cubes? 5 packs of flavoured cous cous for 99p? Uh, yeah!).
I'm not saying I always stick to the plan, but I do my best.
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have always had a menu plan from when I started menu planning for my newly married self in 1971. Money has always been tight but nobody has ever gone hungry. It has always been a great comfort to know that whilst there might not be a penny in my purse there has always been food to eat. Might not be what they wanted to eat but I have always been of the opinion that hunger is not finicky. Had to laugh the other day when my 4yr old grandson didn't want what was on offer and just told him that, that was what was on offer 'take it or leave it'. My daughter giggled and said that was what she had grown up hearing. Seems I am consistent if nothing else.
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I used to menu plan for a whole month, back when I was a SAHM. These days I plan a week ahead and write my grocery list at the same time. I always make sure I plan one quick meal for staff meeting night at school. I also plan our version of take away each week - really it's stuff I keep in the freezer which needs no prep (frozen vegies, frozen potato gems/wedges, frozen crumbed chicken). The rest of the week comprises a variety of meats interspersed with vegetarian meals here and there. I shop on the weekend and then we're set for the rest of the week.
My budget for food has become a bit weird. I spend a few hundred dollars at Costco on the school holidays (once a quarter) and then the rest of the term my grocery budget is usually under $150AUD. We don't buy lots of snackety packety stuff for school lunches. I make the kids bake if they want something other than crackers for recess time.
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Good luck for the viewing on Friday Froogs xxx
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Love your post, love, love your blog.. Just moved to Cornwall, still living out of boxes whilst, busy house hunting, A viewing today.. Nr. Falmouth. Totally inspired by your blog, seems I've been frugal all of my married life…. Which is a hundred years or so..
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good luck for your viewing
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I seem to have slipped out of the menu planning at the moment due to all our comings and goings, but it's something I definitely need to get back to and fast.
We need to empty our big freezer ready for the move and so I will be menu planning out of that from next week to try and get the contents down enough to be able to slip them into the smaller freezer.
Although saying that last night while we were at the bank paying our deposit on the house we spied lots of 'yellow stickers' goods on the supermarket shelf (yes our branch of Santander is inside our local Sainsbury's) so we stocked up with some meat at half price, too good an offer to miss. Lovely Hubby will be manfully eating it all up over the next month or so.
Good luck with the house viewing on Friday, you've done everything in your power to make your house look good, now it depends on what the buyers are looking for, lets hope your house fits their bill 🙂
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good luck with your house, it looks really great with a lovely view.
I am a crap menu/meal planner but I get inspired by your thrift.
And I enjoy reading what all the commentors say. x
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Once upon a time I planned for a month at the time because funds only allowed for once a month shopping, then life got crazy and it was three months at a time. Now I kep supplies on hand and shop sales. I have been doing it enough years that I can mentally prep it out without having to write it down. However, two weeks ago I wrote out a list of meals based on what we had on hand and I am pleased to say we finish up the last meal tonight. On my to do list for today is to make a menu for next week.
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Good luck with the viewing on the house! An exciting phase of your life coming up. 🙂
I thought I was on a winner with something different : roast whole pumpkin soup. It was delicious, only it didn't make up as much as I would have liked. I then find out that significant other doesn't like pumpkin. We've only been together for 32 years!
I must confess that my shopping list is pretty predicable. I hate it when it is one of those shops when you need all your cleaning products at once.
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I honestly don't plan menus, because I am cooking for one and play it by ear based on what's in season or on sale. My cupboard is so small that it is pretty easy to keep track of what's there, and I try to make a note immediately when I run out of a staple. I do keep a running inventory list of everything that goes into (or comes out of) my chest-type freezer, to avoid great frozen chunks of who-knows-what ending up lost and wasted on the bottom.
Good luck on the house sale!!
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I batch cook when I buy two packs of minced beef from aldi , what I have started to shopping wise now is spend about £40.00 between aldi Tesco's and sometimes Sainsbury's if they have reduced items and make that £40.00 worth of food last us as long as possible with store cupboard my food bill comes out at about £35.00 per week at the moment but then there are only the two of us , I find it hard to stick to a menu plan as my husband changes his mind often if I do, so I buy the £40.00 worth of food then vaguely mentally plan my meals so if he doesn't know he cant change his mind so much , just a crafty idea for living with a fussy eater.
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I've always planned weekly menu but this is the first time I've made a monthly menu. I love it! I posted it on the fridge and mark off what I made that night, then prep anything I need for the next night. It's only supper menus. And three's no set day, I choose for the next day based on time I'll have available as well as what needs used up.
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Thank you for this Froogs! We are going to sort out meal planning for this month (pay day to pay day) and review how successful it is to adjust for future months! Fmx
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Lovely post. I'm trying to stick to a £15 a week grocery budget at the moment, with my shopping list inspired by WW2 rations. I was terrible for popping into the corner shop looking for “bargains” so this method of buying everything at the start of the week really works for me. Wonderful news about the house, fingers crossed!
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I always batch cook - it's a time saver, extra veggies in a sauce makes your meat go further and I am mobility impaired and have chronic pain so standing over a hob is troublesome - it's so lovely to get a frugal, homemade meal out of the freezer I may have cooked the week before - a guilt free tea for the family!! I'd recommend it to anyone! J9 x
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I'm meal planning for the first time this month. I have £100 for 28 breakfasts for 2 people, 28 lunches for 2 people, 16 dinners for 2 and 12 dinners for 3 plus dog food and household bits and bobs. I'm not feeling overly confident about it but I have to make it work. Thank you for all the wonderful recipes and ideas on this blog, I am going to use all of your tips to make it through this month
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I menu plan for a week at a time, dh works different times everyday so trying to cook around his shifts and get it to coincide with the kids and after school activities is tricky at times. I tend to do a big shop once a week and a top up shop of fresh stuff once a week. I use to batch cook doouble and freeze but i'm now down to one freezer so havent got room to be able to do that anymore sadly.
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