Planning is one of the “whales” of saving. Planning your menu a week in advance will help you avoid unnecessary waste, occasional snacks, and groceries that end up in the trash can. You can take a big step towards healthy eating for the whole family and free up more time for yourself by streamlining both procurement and preparation.
Planning me for a week for the whole family:
- Armed with a grocery list, you will avoid impulse shopping, buy what you already have, buy foods you don’t know how to cook, and which will eventually end up in the trash can. In addition, you can always plan how to use the leftovers from dishes and products and half a can of sauce or pieces of smoked meats will go into business, and will not dry quietly in the corner of the refrigerator;
- Having compiled a menu in advance, you will not spend long minutes in agonizing thoughts at the refrigerator, wondering what you can cook from the existing set of ingredients, do not "hang" on the net for long hours looking for inspiration. You don't have to rush to the store because you don't have basic products;
- You can always agree in advance with your household members what they will eat, find out from them about their plans and adjust the menu for them and save yourself from most of the whims and surprises. You do not have to rush to the store after work, so that you can immediately run home, thinking about what to cook;
- Few plan to feed their family frozen pizza three times a week, but even if you always cook only yourself, is your menu balanced or based on what is in the fridge?
Planning a meal for the whole family for the week begins with a selection of recipes. You probably have several proven everyday dishes that you succeed from time to time and are liked by all household members. They will form the basis of your menu. If you do not want to go beyond the usual framework, your right, but if you strive to experiment, then allow yourself to spend a certain amount of time on food-surfing. Find a few blogs, Instagram accounts, magazines that inspire you and devote 10-15 minutes a day to them. Find one or two interesting recipes and plan them for the next week.
If you don't have one yet, create a recipe directory. Evernote notebooks, scheduling apps and, if you like handwriting, cardstock cards in a handy box will do just fine. Each recipe should contain not only a list of the foods you need, but also the number of servings. If this is important for you, the calorie content of the dishes and their energy composition may also be indicated there. As you cook according to these recipes, do not forget to make notes in them, because you may need more or less products, you will want to replace some products, cooking times may differ from those indicated.
Before you start living according to plan, take an inventory. Take the time to figure out exactly what is in your bins. At the same time, get rid of expired products and, if you decide to start planning not only an economical, but also a healthy menu for the whole family, from “forbidden” products.
Planning a menu for the whole family for a week in advance should not start on the weekend, because you still have to buy groceries, disassemble them and process those that cannot just be put on the shelf. You are unlikely to be ready to devote all your free time to this.
Dedicate a little time to planning a day or two before your "purchasing" day, at the same time you will be able to take into account the current discount offers when drawing up the menu and choose dishes that can be prepared from "promotional" products. After all, it's a shame when in the store you unexpectedly found fresh fish loved by your household at a "good" price, and your entire menu for a week is based on the fact that you buy chicken and shrimp.
The menu for the week for each family depends not only on the food preferences of children and households, but also on their schedule. Someone can have lunch or dinner outside the home, someone needs an additional snack that you can take with you. All this is also worth considering. After the whole family shares their plans with you, it will become clear to you how many breakfasts, lunches and dinners await you during the week.
In order for your menu to be economical, it is important to choose the "main" dishes around which you will build your entire plan. If you are not a vegetarian family, then during the week you need several meat dishes and preferably at least one fish.
When choosing one main ingredient, immediately look for what other dishes you can cook on its basis or / and from its leftovers. So, for example, a whole chicken can be the basis for broth, baked legs for dinner for the husband and tender beef stroganoff for lunch for children. Have you decided to cook roast beef? Save some for breakfast sandwiches or an Asian-style salad for dinner. Would you like to make pasta with bolognese sauce? Prepare a stock of sauce and schedule lasagna next week. Also, with a margin, you can cook homemade minced meat, which is cheaper than the store one, and turn some of it into dishes for the future - stuffed peppers, hedgehogs, meatballs, not to mention cutlets, perfectly stand freezing. Look for these features on your menu, saving you time and money.
Having come up with "additional" dishes to the main ones, mark them in your recipes. In the future, it will be even easier for you to plan the menu.
If you want your menu to be balanced, use a little "color" trick. For example, mark meat dishes in red, fish in pink, fresh salads in green, and vegetables in yellow. So, looking around the entire table with the menu for a week, you will see which dishes you are missing without reading their names.
When making a menu for the whole family for a week, remember that you can plan more than just what and what to cook. You can plan one evening when you order food "to go", see which day you can prepare meals in reserve, and which day you can almost free from cooking.
If you have little helpers in your family, you can choose to plan things out so that you have a dish on your menu that you cook together, spending a little more time on it. In the future, you can gradually shift part of the cooking to the children, including their "signature" dishes in the menu.
Do not forget that men can cook too. What's stopping you from planning a "man's" day when your partner will take care of breakfast or dinner, or all meals at once?
After you've put together your menu, go to your shopping list. See what ingredients you already have, what you need to buy. Since you will already have a list of "stocks" ready, you do not have to waste time figuring out whether you have sugar and buckwheat or not.
Divide the main list into a wholesale one, writing down those products that can and should be bought in advance, and one or two small ones, which will contain bread, milk, herbs and similar products that are bought in shops within walking distance of every two or three days.
Update your shopping list during the week, immediately adding to it those products that are needed in the house on an ongoing basis.
