First, I should say that we were frustrated by throwing away food and money, and not knowing what to make for dinner after a long day of work. The problem was a lack of planning. Yet, when I looked at other meal plans, it seemed like it meant cooking every night of the week. That’s just not how we roll. Caught in indecision, we would rely on pre-made frozen dinners or boring routine dinners.

Now, it takes me about 10 minutes to plan for meals and less than 30 minutes to do the actual shopping. And when I drive home from work, I decide to make one of three recipes I had planned for the week. If it’s a busy night, we’ll stick to leftovers. It’s so nice not to have the dinnertime panic! Plus, that panic would often lead to the decision to eat out, so now we save more money by eating in.

Maybe it’s not glamorous, but eating at home can be quite tasty!

Here’s how we do it…

Collect recipes online. Not surprisingly, I use Pinterest to save recipes. I shop after work, so before I head out that day, I choose my three recipes, print coupons and make a shopping list in about 10 minutes. Plus, I can check on recipes from my phone just in case. You can also have your spouse save recipes to the site too!

Plan your snack food and lunches. So many meal plans forget snacks and lunch! Matt and I do our best to not eat out for lunch. We have started to portion our leftovers in lunch sizes so we can grab it, our snack (usually yogurt or fruit) and head out the door. If we’re tired of leftovers, there are also frozen lunch meals — can’t beat the $2 Fresh and Easy price! — as a Plan B. We used to always buy sandwich stuff for lunches, but would realize that we didn’t take the time to make them in the mornings. Don’t plan unrealistic meals!

Stretch out your trips to the grocery store. Don’t feel the need to stuff your fridge and freezer for when you’re snowed in … when you live in sunny California. (If you live where it snows, well, stock up for that snow storm that might actually keep you snowed in!) In between shopping trips, eat as much of the food you already have. Be creative with your bare bones pantry so you can start from scratch. You guys, I have never seen my freezer this empty and now we actually have room for the stuff we want. (It got to the point that it was so full that it couldn’t freeze it all well and my ice cream melted — in the freezer! Eating melted and then refrozen ice cream is no good.)

Also not glamorous, this is a rare sight: a nearly empty freezer! You never know
what you’ll find in the depths of your freezer unless you eat your way through it.

Stick to your list at the store. There’s no saving money if you’re not disciplined enough to not spend. I will say that I allow myself one “non list” item each trip; either it’s something I meant to put anyway or a special treat for the week.

Loosely schedule your meals. I don’t know why, but I felt pressure to keep to a strict schedule when I started meal planning. Yet, life doesn’t always go to plan, so make your meals on the nights that you can. If you have to work late or something — give yourself a pass with leftovers or a box of mac ‘n cheese that always manages to be in your pantry.

Portion out your snacks in advance. If you’re like me, you will totally forget that you had a moment of feeling healthy and bought baby carrots for your lunches. Instead of shoving in the back of the produce drawer, put those baby carrots (or whatever) in baggies on the refrigerator shelf so you can have an unobstructed view of what you should be eating.

I’m not a pro — yet! — but I can already see the benefits of meal planning — saving money and my sanity. Does anyone have meal planning tips to share?