Like most families across America, you’re probably feeling the squeeze of high grocery prices in the grocery store, but the right meal planning strategy can help create breathing room in your budget.
Eat more meals at home.
Last-minute take-out can eat away your budget, but who can blame you? You’re tired from a long day’s work with no plan for dinner, and it’s already half past six. So, you spend 30 bucks on pizza and hope to do better for dinner the next night.
Let’s do the math. For a family of four, let’s round up for delivery fees or gas round-trip to the restaurant and tips and say you’ll spend about $45 every night you have to get take-out because you don’t have a plan for dinner or are too tired to cook. If this happens twice a week, you’re wasting over $4500 in take-out!
Meal planning can eliminate the anxiety and ensure your family has a home-cooked meal option on the nights you would have otherwise ended up in a drive-thru. Get a meal planning journal with a monthly schedule, so you always know the answer to “What’s for dinner?” and keep track of what you need so you’ll always have the ingredients you need on hand.
Plan your grocery list around the week's best deals
Meal planning makes creating meals a family affair because when you plan your meals a month in advance, everyone can make space for their favorite foods. Get inspiration from the season, or plan your menu around weekly sales and seasonal produce. You’ll find that when you have the space and time to think about your meals, you can make better decisions about your food and add more variety to your family’s diet.
Keep detailed shopping lists or buy a meal planning journal with pages to keep track of what you need from the store. Each week compare your lists and monthly menu to the sales available at your local store and save money! Maximize your budget by buying items you can use in several meals in bulk.
Cook a little more than you need and save it for later.
Meal planning saves time, but if you really want to simplify your life, you can use your meal plan to graduate to meal prep. Once you’ve recorded all your monthly meals in your meal planning journal, you can create a plan to prep and freeze ahead as much as possible to make cooking a breeze every night. Something as simple as chopping and freezing vegetables or portioning and seasoning meat can shave hours off your weekly cooking time with a good meal planning strategy.
You never have to feel guilty about being too tired to cook ever again when you have a one-pan chicken meal already prepped in the freezer. Go from frozen to a home-cooked meal in less than an hour, and all you have to do is open a bag and turn on the oven!
After a long day, driving around for unhealthy last-minute food is the last thing you need. Save yourself time and gas money with a bit of meal planning.
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