![Fix.com Fix.com logo](https://fixcom-g4bhetdmcgd9b7er.z01.azurefd.net/images/logo.png)
Get your fix of expert articles delivered straight to your inbox!
No Thanks - I don't like cool stuff
Wandering the grocery store aimlessly can cost you. Consumers spend 40 percent more on impulse purchases when they shop without a list, according to Kansas State Extension Service.http://bit.ly/1lQKO7z And far too much of that food is probably wasted. The average American family throws out 25 percent of the food they purchase. For a family of four, that means tossing somewhere between $1,365 and $2,275 every year.Bloom, Jonathan; American Wasteland; Da Capo Press; 2011; pg. 185
There’s a solution: meal planning! By planning meals, a family can cut their grocery bill by hundreds of dollars a month and nearly eliminate food waste. Planning meals has other benefits too, including:
If you’re new to menu planning, start by planning one week of meals on a day when everyone’s home and you have time to go shopping. Later, you may want to transition to monthly planning to better take advantage of buying in bulk.http://blog.togethercounts.com/5-simple-ways-to-involve-kids-in-meal-planning/ For the first few meal plans, it’s usually easiest to use pen and paper. Later, you can explore fancier ways to plan if desired.
Gather a few things before you get started:
When staring at a blank piece of paper and a pile of cookbooks, the options seem endless, and that’s not a good thing. Research suggests people have trouble taking action when there are too many choices.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/your-money/27shortcuts.html?_r=0 To make picking meals easier and to narrow down options, try one or more of these tactics:
This method is popular, because it reduces options while leaving room for variety. Here’s an example:
This format provides a helpful guideline for planning without stifling creativity. You can swap categories or ditch the whole thing when desired.
As a family, brainstorm 20 meals you eat often and everyone enjoys. These will be the core meals that usually populate your meal plan. Choose one or two nights a week, perhaps weekends, to experiment with new recipes. Add any favorite new recipes to your list of core meals.
Brainstorm ways to use one ingredient for several meals. This method saves cooking time and helps cut food waste. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Save money and time by planning dinners that double as lunches for school, the office, or at home the next day. This practice works especially well with beans, burritos, soup, and other foods that freeze well.
Study the supermarket ads to see what’s on sale, or find out what’s fresh at the farmers’ market, then incorporate those foods into the menu. Google is an ally for discovering recipes combining a handful of ingredients. Just type in the ingredients followed by “recipe,” and see what comes up. Using sales flyers or seasonal offerings helps limit the paralysis of too many options, saves money, and encourages sourcing food locally.
Once you’ve decided on a method to make meal planning easier, it’s time to plan the specific meals for the coming week. Here’s the simplest way to do it with pen and paper:
Once you get the hang of meal planning, you may want to investigate more efficient ways to do it. Here are a few methods that may work well for tech-savvy people:
Mealtime is powerful. Family therapist Anne Fishel writes that she often wants to tell families to go home and eat dinner together rather than spend an hour with her.https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/12/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do-with-your-kids-eat-dinner-with-them/ Cooking at home and gathering around the table with family or friends provides countless benefits, and it doesn’t have to be stressful. With a good meal-planning system, it may even become everyone’s favorite part of the day.
Written by:
Get your fix of expert articles delivered straight to your inbox!
No Thanks - I don't like cool stuff