Meal Planning
By planning your family meals for the week you can aim to have nutritionally well-balanced meals that are quick and easy to cook as well as saving money on your weekly budget.
Pick an evening to write your meal plan – Sunday is a good day to start! Write down the days of the week and what you are going to cook. You can mix it up by adding a meat-free night and keep the weekends fun by adding ‘fake-away’ options.
It’s great to get the kids involved and if possible, get them into the kitchen to help, using our Kids in the Kitchen cook along video tutorials. There may be more of a chance of the kids eating it then too!
We have simple video-led tutorials for each of the recipes below in our Family Cooking Club along with a personalised meal planning calendar that you can add them to.
- Sunday: Stuffed roast loin of pork
- Monday: Roasted veggie pasta bake
- Tuesday: Salmon and soy Noodles
- Wednesday: Leftovers night pork pie
- Thursday: Kids choice carbonara
- Friday: Fake-away pizza night
- Saturday: Chicken curry
You can download each recipe card and as an added bonus, you can also select the ingredients you need to buy and add them to your own downloadable shopping list.
We also have the following bonus recipe videos in our Family Cooking Club which you can add to your meal plan for variety. And we add 2 new recipes each week!
Kids in the Kitchen:
- Garlic bread and just try it salad
- Healthy pot noodles
- Beef curry
- Sausage hotpot
- Taco mince
I have found by working out our weekly spend on the food, we know exactly where we stand each month and have less food waste. Any money left over, I can have a treat!
Here are a few extra budget-busting tips to help you save even more money:
Go to the reduced section in the fridge at the start of your food shop. These items are still perfect and in date on the day. You may find codpieces, chicken breasts and mince in this section, just pop them straight into the freezer when you get home.
Get out your budget in cash before your food shop, there is more chance you won’t go over it that way.
Bring bags! I don’t know how many times I’ve been really frugal with shop only to blow it at the end with spending a fiver on bags at the checkout.
Only buy non-perishable offers like buy ‘one get one free’ otherwise, the free one will most likely end up in the bin and is a total waste.
When doing up your meal plan, try to add in meals that do double such as roast pork where leftovers can become a pie by just adding a simple puff pastry lid another day.
And any money left over, treat yourself! Get that something you fancy for yourself. It’s about living well for less, still enjoying delicious meals as a family but just being a little mindful of the spending.
Our Family cooking club is a Membership for the whole family, you will find a choice of recipes that the whole gang will enjoy cooking and eating together.
Jolene x
