Weekly Meal Planning Rituals

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jrose1982
jrose1982 Posts: 366 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've been doing pretty good with my diet, but not so good with my budget. I keep going over my budgeted food amount. I take the difference out of what I save for vacations and other adventures. Now I'm planning a trip to England next May. I just looked at my budget for the trip and concluded that I have to stay on budget for the next year if I'm going to have enough money to take that trip. There's still plenty of room for me to reduce the cost of the trip, but I need to work this from both sides.

So, it's time I gave weekly meal/grocery planning another shot. I've tried it in the past, and I just can't seem to do it in a way that I can stick with. In the last couple months I've gotten pretty decent at planning my meals for a whole day, but that's based on what food I have on hand. So it doesn't help me with saving on my grocery bill.

I've tried making a plan, buying all the groceries, and even preparing most of the food for the week (so it's faster during the week). But I always got burned out after buying the groceries (and sometimes after making the plan). I do have more energy than I used to. But this is still a chore that I can't figure out how to build into a routine.

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  • jrose1982
    jrose1982 Posts: 366 Member
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    One wild idea I just had:
    I'm wondering if I can somehow figure out the relative cost of the different types of food. I mean, if meat costs X times more per serving than vegetables, and dairy costs X times more. If I could figure that out, than maybe I can do a weekly food budget that would use ratios similar to how my calorie budget works. I mean, I could say I have $XXX for food. X% to spend on meat, X% to spend on vegetables, X% to spend on dairy, X% on miscellaneous stuff. That might enable me to stay in the ballpark with my spending and still be somewhat spontaneous day-to-day.
  • TheresaKnits
    TheresaKnits Posts: 37 Member
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    There are some good planning services out there that make your menus and give you a grocery list, but at a price, which kind of defeats the idea of saving money on groceries. At the moment, I'm beginning to use COZI to get my life more organized. It does a lot of things, but one of them is a menu planner. You can use their recipes, or you can input your own, then it makes you a grocery list. I'm inputting my favorite recipes as I make them to help build up my database of choices, since I'm trying to limit sugar and process foods. Pretty labor intensive right now, but hopefully it will pay off in a month or so since I'm not really an adventurous eater anyway. I can eat the same things pretty often and not get bored, especially for breakfast.

    The other thing I do, is going to the local farmer's market once a week for veggies. I try to plan my menus around seasonal items. Way cheaper than the grocery store unless they just happen to have a really big sale on something. I buy staples from the bulk bins. Most of the time it's MUCH cheaper, and you can get the exact amount you need. If you only need a quarter cup, you don't need a big box unles it's something you use often.

    Good luck!

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