An effective meal plan can help relieve stress and save time while creating a more balanced diet by cutting back on unhealthy snacks and fast food consumption.
Step one is taking an inventory of what’s already in your fridge, cabinets and pantry before creating your grocery list.
1. Think About Your Schedule
Establishing your schedule as the foundation of a weekly meal plan. Think through which days and times would work for you in terms of preparation of meals, snacks and beverages throughout the week.
Be sure to also inspect your refrigerator, freezer and cabinets regularly in order to take stock of what food items may expire soon and reduce food waste. This will also allow you to move through older products quicker before they go bad and increase efficiency by eliminating excess stockpiling.
Decide the number of meals you plan to prepare each week from scratch and which ones can use convenience foods, and plan out how much prep time and how long meals need to be prepared ahead. Setting an easy-to-follow weekly meal plan makes healthy eating more manageable while saving both time and money at the grocery store.
2. Plan for Leftovers
Plan meals during the week that make enough for leftovers; this will reduce meal prep on weekends while saving time in the kitchen during the week.
Leftovers make an ideal lunch option, as they can quickly be heated up and assembled into sandwiches or wraps. Be sure to store leftovers in appropriate-sized containers in the fridge or freezer, labeling each one.
As part of your meal planning strategy, try to include meals made using ingredients you already have on hand in order to reduce grocery costs and waste food. This could include making use of leftovers from another night, pulling from the freezer and recipes which can be doubled for freezer storage (such as casseroles or soups). It will save time on shopping trips as well as prevent unnecessary grocery waste.
3. Check the Grocery Store’s Flyer
Utilizing the weekly flyers of local stores is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to save on groceries. By taking advantage of sales, buy-one-get-one offers, coupons and loyalty cards you can create meals that are both healthy and inexpensive. The key is knowing how and when to check local flyers regularly so that your meals can take advantage of what’s being sold.
Flipp is a fantastic app designed to make managing grocery flyers simpler, enabling you to add store offers and flyer items directly to your shopping list. Additionally, you can favorite stores so they appear all at once – try it for free today!
4. Make a Grocery List
An organized grocery list is one of the best ways to save both time and money in your shopping expeditions, while helping prevent any impulse or unhealthy purchases from being made.
Before heading out to the store, take stock of what items are already in your fridge, freezer and pantry and note them down on a list. Your list can either be digital or written out – whatever works for you best!
Divide your grocery list into categories, such as fresh foods, proteins, grains and vegetables to make it simpler and reduce impulse buying. Knowing the layout of your store will also help streamline shopping efficiency while helping avoid impulse buys.
5. Plan for Meal Prep
Meal planning may take a little trial-and-error at first, but once you find the recipes that work best for you it should become much simpler! Meal planning doesn’t need to be hard!
When planning meals, choose foods that can be used in multiple meals. For example, roasted vegetables, brown rice or quinoa, canned or dried beans (and lean protein sources like lentils) can all be easily integrated into multiple meals.
Check store sales and utilize apps that aggregate grocery store flyers and coupons to save money on ingredients while minimizing food waste. This can help save both money and resources.
