Whyyou should make meal plans
Meal planning saves money. Sittingdown once a weekto decide what the family will eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner next weekand shopping accordingly will meanmoremoneyin your pocket and less waste for the planet.
According to the Rabobank KiwiHarvest food waste research, the average household inNewZealand wastes around $1520 of food every year.
With meal planning, you buy what you actually need. Todo so you need to sitdownweekly or fortnightly to decide what the family will eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks over the next 7 to 14 days. Next, add all the ingredients to a list, then go through your fridge, freezer and pantry and cross off the ingredients you already have.
Whyyou shoulddo it Provided you stick to your meal plan and choose recipes with ingredients that fit within your budget then you’re going to save moneyby not wasting food.
Beware
Meal planning isn’t foolproof and it’s still possible to waste food andmoney if you’re not careful. This is because you buy an entire pack of one ingredient such as aherb and never use it again.
The best meal planning starts with finding recipes that useupthe ingredients you have already without buying too many. This iswhy sometimes DIY meal planning can be better than using pre-prepared recipe lists.
How you should do it
Getting started with menu planning can be difficult if you’re not organised. Meal planning apps can help. One NewZealand app, MenuAid, bills itself as yourmenuand shopping list sidekick. For $4 aweek, MenuAid sends you itsownfood-bag-style recipes from its chefs to choose from. It then populates a shopping list with all the items needed. Users can go through the list and remove items they have already and buy the rest.
Oneadvantage of a tool like this is it brings variety into your cooking. Whoisn’t sick of thesame old meals week-in week-out?
The recipes are seasonal, meaning you’re not going to be buying cauliflowers when they’ re $11 each. The app links directly toCountdown online shopping, and it has auseful swapfunction that suggests options if youdon’t want the ingredient on the list, saysMenuAidco-founder Toby Skilton. WhenI clicked on “swap” for fresh tomatoes, it suggested tinned.
The recipes are also ingredient efficient, which means they’ re designed to use upanything you’ve bought previously. That ensures your pantry and fridge aren’t cluttered with sauces, spices and other ingredients that you don’t use and ultimately throw out.
Iwas hesitant to suggest using an app that costsmoney— in this case, $4 aweek. However, compared with meal kits, which are super-expensive no matterhowyou try to fool yourself, a $4 per week subscription to simplify meal planning will ultimately save money.
This is a crowded marketplace with a lot of different apps available once youget the trainer wheels off your meal planning. Another app that costsmoney ($16.99 per year) but is very highly regarded is AnyListon Android or Apple. It’s a shopping list thatyou can add meal planning to. It allows you to import recipes from the web, create a calendar, scale the recipes up or down for the right numberof people and set price limits for items.
If spreadsheets are your thing, there are a numberof free mealplanning spreadsheets available online. Someare nutrition or diet focused, and others have moneysaving in mind.
The best meal planning starts with finding recipes that use up the ingredients you have already without buying too many. This is why sometimes DIY meal planning can be better than using pre-prepared recipe lists.
Prepping
If you have time on the weekend, a waytomakeyour meals easier during the weekis to spend an hour or so prepping the ingredients.
If the meal in your planner is ready to go with everything sliced, you’re less likely to reach for the UberEats app because you can’t be bothered cooking.
If you want toknowwhere to get started, YouTubeis bursting at the seams with videos abouthowto meal prep and meal plan.
Columnist Diana Clements is a freelance journalist who writes on personal finance and property investing