Any meal planners here?

ginamcp · October 2012

We need to start reigning in the budget and I have been thinking about doing meal planning but don't have any idea how to start (and yes I realize that makes me sound like a moron). Any tips for good websites or recipes, etc? Thanks.

DoctorWorm222 · October 2012

See the "Meal Planning Monday" thread. Its about half way down the page right now.

ginamcp · October 2012

DoctorWorm222:
See the "Meal Planning Monday" thread. Its about half way down the page right now.

Embarrassed I PROMISE that I did a quick scan for that thread before posting this. Going to look now.

KrisM86 · October 2012

I like allrecipes.com for finding recipes. You can do a search using ingredients you want and don't want as well as keywords. I find almost any recipe with 4 or 5 stars and at least 50 reviews is very good.

I like crockpot dishes for go to easy, inexpensive meals. I often substitute boneless, skinless chicken thighs for breasts in recipes. They are cheaper and more flavorful.

preggersin2011 · October 2012

For me the best meal planning is finding creative ways to reuse left overs and put extra into the freezer. If I cook a chicken all the left overs go into soup & a pot pie. 3 meals from one chicken. Same goes for a ham or roast

CMonkey515 · October 2012

I also use allrecipes.com. I love that you can search by ingredient. I also check my grocery store circular each week while I make my shopping list. I try to plan as many of my meals for the week based on what is on sale. I also try to stock up on meats when there is a good sale and freeze to use for future meals.

blu-eyedwife · October 2012

My budget/meal planning tips:

1) Eat seasonal and local - you can get great deals when things are in season - like $.99/pints of strawberries in the summer, or today I got heirloom tomatoes for $2/lb.

2) Anticipate sales - After grilling holidays like 4th of July and Labor day you can get some really good deals on steaks and pork. After Christmas/New Years you can get really good deals on fancy steaks like prime rib or filet mignon. I even once got an entire goose for $8. Stock up when things are on sale (shrimp in summer, turkey after Thanksgiving, chicken whenever it gets cheap). And then freeze them.

3) It's always cheaper to do your own work. Buy a whole chicken and cut it up yourself instead of buying chicken breasts/thighs/whatever. Get ground beef instead of pre-made patties. That will save you a bit of money.

4) Take inventory/Make use of leftovers. The first thing I do when I make a meal plan is check and see what I have and what needs to be used up. This week I had some ground turkey, some bell peppers that are on their last legs, some leftover roast chicken, some chipotle peppers, and some anchovies. So I used that as a basis to make my meal plan for this week. In order to use up some chipotles, I'll be making some carnitas, and I know I'll have leftovers, so the day after we have carnitas, I'm planning on using those leftovers to make pork tacos.

5) Keep resources handy. I get Bon Apetit and Food Network magazine and as I'm reading, I'll dogear pages that I know use ingredients I have on hand and might need to use up. Like last week I saw an beautiful heirloom tomato salad with capers and anchovies, so I marked it and will use that as a side this week. I also have a ton of cooking blogs in my google reader. So when I want to use up some chicken, I can type "chicken" into my google reader search bar and it will pull up all chicken recipes from my favorite blogs, then I can just scroll through and see what sounds good (which is how chicken pesto pasta bake ended up on this week's menu.)

DoctorWorm222 · October 2012

ginamcp:
DoctorWorm222:
See the "Meal Planning Monday" thread. Its about half way down the page right now.

I PROMISE that I did a quick scan for that thread before posting this. Going to look now.

Its totally fine. I didn't mean to sound snarky. Hope it didn't come across that way

pennysuedog · October 2012

Meal planning is key to saving money! I bought 3 weeks worth of groceries today (minus perishables like milk, eggs, bread, fruit) for five people and I spent 150.00. That is like three dinners out for us.

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