Saving Money on Groceries with Meal Planning
5 Easy Steps to Creating a Weekly Household Menu
Oct 16, 2008
When it comes to living within your grocery budget, the smartest thing you can do is plan meals and use your menu to create a shopping list. This week, try writing a weekly dinner menu before going shopping.
Planning meals for an entire week at once might sound like a lot of work, but not if you know how to do it. Here’s the process, broken down into five simple steps.
1. Collect Recipes for Meal Planning
Know what ingredients are in each meal your family enjoys. If you don’t have a file of favorite recipes, start one. Dust off your cookbooks or go online. Make sure that you have a written ingredient list for the meals you like. You’ll be glad you have them when it comes time to make a household menu.
2. Browse Sale Ads for Cheap Grocery Shopping
Make a mental note of any great prices you spot on ingredients that you regularly use in your cooking. It might help to set aside sale ads until it’s time to create your menu.
3. Plan your Meals
With your recipes close at hand, grab and pen and paper. List each day of the week and jot down what you’ll have for dinner that night (make sure to include side dishes, too!)
If possible, base your menu around some of the cheaper ingredients from the sale ads. Try to pair expensive, multi-ingredient recipes with some inexpensive, simple recipes to lower your weekly grocery spending.
Above all, focus on meals that use many of the same ingredients. Remember that getting a good deal in the store doesn’t save any money if half of it goes unused. Most ingredients are incredibly versatile - green peppers, for example, go great in Italian dishes like pizza, Mexican dishes like fajitas, and Chinese dishes like stir fry. Avoid buying anything you can’t use completely before it goes bad.
4. Make a Shopping List to Cut Grocery Spending
Now that you’ve got a menu, use your recipes to write down all the ingredients you’ll need. Buying everything you need for a whole week saves you time and money. A shopping list eliminates extra trips to the store or going out to eat because you don’t have the ingredients to make a meal. It also saves you the stress of planning meals at the last minute every night.
5. Stick to the List to Save Money
This might sound obvious, but impulse buys are what break the average grocery budget. Steer clear of aisles you don’t need to enter. Do not browse products that aren’t on your list. After all, that’s why you made the list in the first place!
Saving money with meal planning each week doesn’t take more than 15 minutes, and it really pays off. By following the five steps outlined above, you’ll find that your checkbook balance looks a whole lot better in a matter of weeks.
For more tips on saving money at the grocery store, see Calculating Price per Ounce.
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