Grocery Budget Experiment: Save Money With a Meal Plan
Filed under: Adventures in Frugality, Frugal Living
“What do you want for dinner?”
“I don’t know. What do you want?”
“I picked last time; you have to pick.”
That is such a common exchange in our household… We have found that if we leave figuring out the day’s dinner until I get home from work, we’re not likely to decide on anything. The consequence, assuming we don’t have any leftovers to rescue us, is the unexpected expense of fast food.
But one simple lifestyle change has all but eliminated our indecision: We implemented a meal plan. Sunday afternoon, my wife sits down with the grocery ads and sheets of coupons and gets to work on mapping out the best deals. Then, taking new-found recipes and old favorites into consideration, she writes out a plan for the entire week.
Surprisingly, since she implemented her meal plans, our grocery expense has shrunk even lower than our already-frugal budget. It required very little adjustment from our current system and has possibly even saved us time as well. It’s pretty easy to start and you’ll start seeing the benefits right away.
Write Out Your Meal Plan
The obvious first step is to decide what you intend to eat over the next week. The goal is to be creative and list things you not only want to eat, but will want to prepare. When we make out our meal plan, we take into account if we have anything scheduled that day, the weather forecast for the given day, and what we’ve already had in the week and try to adjust accordingly. If we know we’re going to be busy on a certain day, we schedule that day as a “leftover day” or something simple, such as sandwiches. If the weather’s supposed to be hot, we plan something light, such as a grilled chicken salad. And to keep from getting bored with a certain meal, we try to make sure we don’t include it in back-to-back weeks.
Once your meal plan is complete, write out the ingredients you’ll need to prepare the week’s meals. This is the “rough draft” for your shopping list. In the following steps, we’ll adjust and shorten this list depending on a couple of factors.
Search Your Pantry and Freezer
Now that you know what you intend to make, it’s time to take an inventory of the ingredients you already have. You’d be surprised how many times we’ve bought something common, like another bag of flour when we already had 4 - we just couldn’t remember in the store.
This is also a great time to adjust your meal plan. If you notice some ingredients that are starting to get old and items that are nearing their expiration date, take a moment to go back over your plan to see if there is a way you can incorporate them into an existing recipe or another flavorful recipe you can swap in for a day. The goal here is to not waste money or food - if your plans exclude aging ingredients you’ve already purchased, you’re throwing money away.
Based on your pantry and freezer search, mark out all the items from your shopping list that you already possess. This is your final draft unless, of course, you find a deal that’s too good to be true in the sales ads or coupons.
Plan Your Trips
Using the sales ads from your local grocery stores and your revised ingredients list, search out the best deals and the best way to chain together some purchases for your shopping trip. It makes no sense to use up $3 worth of gas to go out of your way to save $0.50, so be smart about what can be purchased where. Remember that cold and frozen items will require you to either carry a cooler in your vehicle, buying you a few extra hours of shopping time, or to head home to store away the perishables, so take that into consideration and save all your cold and frozen purchases until the end, if you can.
Collect Your Coupons
Since you’ve already chosen your meals and searched through the ads, find the coupons that will give you the best savings for your ingredients. Of course, use your common sense when making your selections. If you’ve been carrying around a price notebook and if you scoured the ads well enough, you should know if a coupon is actually a deal.
Shop For Just What You Need
Once you’ve found all the coupons that could save you money on the trip and you’ve mapped out your store run, take your ingredients list and get to shopping! This time, when you’re walking into the store, you will know exactly what you need so there’s no reason to spend on anything else. Make a bee-line for the first entry on your list and don’t stop until your cart is filled with everything you need for the week - and nothing more.
Enjoy Your Meals
Dinnertime is much more pleasant now that I’m not coming home to the standard inquisition, “What would you like for dinner?” Everything is laid out in our meal plans and we’ve purchased everything we need, so there’s no rummaging or last-minute changes due to lack of supplies. Shortly after I arrive, we head to the kitchen and complete the meal’s preparation and sit down as a family to eat.
By implementing the meal plan, we’re saving a lot of money and headaches and we’re actually enjoying the opportunity to cook and eat together as a family. It’s a great return on a relatively small investment of time!
June 18th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
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June 19th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Thanks for this post. I used to do the same thing and it did make mealtime easier and kept my budget under control. I’ve gotten away from this, but thanks to your reminder and encouragement I will start meal planning again.