I have gone back and forth for the last six years or so between meal planning and not really making much of a plan, but I’m finally trying to commit. While I was in university, I would do these massive grocery shops with no plan in mind, buy way too much, and then end up needing to go back to the grocery store multiple times throughout the week to pick up a few things that I needed for whatever I decided to make. I was also big on the deals and rarely passed up on a “buy one get one” or “buy two get the third free” deal. Not the best system overall.

I still love shopping around for deals and using different rewards programs to get cash back, but I try to be a bit more organized and stick to a budget. First off, the deals are great, but if you’re in a place where you have a strict monthly budget or don’t have tons of storage space (or are travel nursing so whatever you buy you have to eat within the next 3 months) you can’t have that mindset of taking advantage of every deal. You can however, leave some flexibility to your meal plan to account for weekly deals. For example, being flexible on what kind of protein you use for different meals throughout the week so you can go with whatever is on sale. In our meal plan for the next couple of weeks below, I will probably stick to the proteins listed because they’re already in our freezer from our last grocery shop.

Not going for every deal has been a major shift for me and helped to keep the bill down a bit. The other major thing I’ve been working on is planning out our meals two weeks at a time. It’s very fluid though; our last two week meal plan we probably stuck to it about half to two thirds of the time. Most of that variability was because we ended up having enough leftovers to last us two dinners which was great! Neither of us are too bothered by eating leftovers, though I know some people are. If that’s you, you just need to get really good at knowing how much you/your family eats and making the right portions. I’ve honestly never worried about that too much. Before Dan and I got married, I would often make a giant batch of something and eat it for lunch and dinner for half a week…Dan’s not about that life and I get it, but man was it a time saver!

As I said, our meal plan is super flexible. Some nights we switch things around based on what we’re feeling like eating, or we do a couple extra nights of leftovers, or we end up eating out or just popping in a frozen pizza. That said, making the plan helps us to grocery shop faster and also in a more budget-friendly way. It also helps us to avoid going to the store five times a week because we have everything we need for two weeks at a time. Of course we forget things here and there or we need more eggs (we go through a TON of eggs), but we’re getting down to one or two trips to the grocery store a week which I’m satisfied with. It’s progress at least!

Sunday 12/18 – Trader Joe’s mandarin chicken

Monday 12/19 – potato leek soup with fried rice

Tuesday 12/20 – hot dogs, corn, kale chips

Wednesday 12/21 – pasta with sauce & garlic bread

Thursday 12/22 – leftovers

Friday 12/23 – tacos & queso

Saturday 12/24 – Half Baked Harvest ginger fried rice

Sunday 12/25 – charcuterie night

Monday 12/26 – sausage, rice, & veggies*

Tuesday 12/27 – vegetarian taco bake

Wednesday 12/28 – pork chops, mashed potatoes, veg.

Thursday 12/29 – leftovers

Friday 12/30 – chicken pot pie

Saturday 12/31 – TBD (we may go out!)