Whats For Dinner? – Meal Planning – with FREE PRINTABLE

Posted On April 30, 2011

Well we did it!

We have now been meal planning for 1 month!

We have saved money, time, last minute panic trips to the supermarket and even better, gone is the 5pm question

Whats for dinner?

Here’s what has worked for us

1. 7 Days of Creation.

For us it is a strictly 7 day plan. I can’t think that far ahead and grocery shopping with two children in tow means that a weeks worth of groceries already takes us two hours!

2. Don’t just think dinners.

I try and plan it so that Wednesday’s and Thursday’s dinner meals are left over worthy so that I can take them for lunch the following day. This has meant we are saving a further $10-15 a week on lunches!

3. Kids Menu.

I try to plan meals that are easy for children to eat or can easily be altered, it saves cooking two different dinners!

4. Make it Mondays.

Our grocery store pamphlets arrive Sunday’s. They are loaded with specials that inspire many ideas and they often have recipes and meal suggestions inside! Our woolworths has it’s specials starting on a Monday.

5. Shop around.

Ok so it is not as convenient BUT…we have Aldi, Woolworths and a Dollar Store at our local shopping centre. After a month of shopping I know which products are cheaper at each store! I generally start at Aldi, then Woolworths. I can’t rave about Aldi enough especially after this week they announced they will be removing all products with artificial colours from the shelves!

NOW HERE IS A BIG ONE

We have developed a Monthly Plan for household shopping.

We had developed a horrible cycle of everything running out at once!

Toilet paper, cleaning products, toiletries it would be a huge budget blowout, we would stock up again to face a month later that everything had run out at the same time…AGAIN! so…..

added to our meal plan we have

Weekly Items –

Milk, Bread, Eggs, Margarine, Juice etc

Monthly Items –

Week 1 – Toiletries – Toilet Paper, Shampoo & Conditioner, Soap, Baby Bath, Tissues etc

Week 2 – Cleaning – Dishwashing liquid and tablets, Spray and Wipe,

Week 3 – Household – Washing powder, batteries, lightbulbs, fly spray, Stationery,

Week 4 – Kitchen – Glad Wrap, Paper Towel, Serviettes, Alfoil, Snap lock bags, Sugar, Flour etc

I can not stress how well this system has worked for us! We buy fairly large quantities of each (which also saves money) and it lasts a whole month!

But wait theres more……..

Introducing the

“My Pigeon Pair”

What’s for dinner?

Meal Plan