We all know how difficult it can be to eat healthy dinners, stick to a budget and stay away from all those fast food temptations.
I get it – being in your twenties you always have a weird schedule, sometimes having to coordinate with your partner or roommate and so called healthy food doesn’t come cheap (& sometimes doesn’t even taste good!)
After moving out on my own I definitely got the reality slap that food costs a lot and making meals isn’t always as easy as mom made it out to be.
But! After four years of it, I’ve put together a solid system of meal planning, prepping and grocery shopping that works great for us.
It isn’t always easy to stick to a plan (or continually create them) and it definitely takes some willpower not to grab some fast food on your lunch break, so if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, I promise you’ll be eating way better items for your health and save a little in the wallet as well!
Lots of trial and error and a ton of willpower & dedication have been put into sticking to a meal plan and grocery shopping style. (I’m definitely making this sound more intense than it is, it’s just damn food LOL).
I know meal planning can be daunting and seem just like a dumb amount of work, but I promise you it can be easy and can really affect how affordable and healthy your food is.
Meal Planning Tips
Creating a meal plan can seem so daunting, but once you get into the groove of it it’s really not that difficult. I’ve gone with a more relaxed approach because that’s what works with our lifestyle better.
What’s Meal Planning?
For me, meal planning is sitting down at the beginning of a week and planning out my dinner meals for the next two weeks (then creating the grocery list from there).
For us that looks like 5-7 meals, as I don’t plan specifically for weekends as we’re normally out of the house, and I always buffer for leftovers.
My biggest tip is to look at your schedule and see how many meals you will realistically be eating in the next two weeks – if you often eat dinners at home on the weekends, add those in. If you always have dinner at the parents Mondays, nix that day. You get my drift.
I’ll normally plan on Sundays or Mondays and do the grocery shopping on Mondays or Tuesdays. I try to limit my bigger grocery trips to once every two weeks, with smaller trips if necessary for essential items that run out.
Obviously stuff comes up and things change, so just go with the flow and what works for you!
Starting The Meal Plan
First, I’ll take a look at the meats and produce I already have (that needs to be used up before it goes bad) and create some meals to use those up.
For example, I’ve got some chicken breast in the freezer as well as some peppers that may go bad soon – perfect for some sheet pan fajitas! I’ll check the recipe to see what other ingredients are needed from the store and – bam! One meal down.
I also will ask my fiance for one or two meal ideas so he gets to have some input (as we do have different tastes in food lol). I do all the grocery shopping as that’s just what’s easiest for us.
Normally my meals are from Pinterest and we definitely have a solid list of favorites I always go back to. I definitely recommend creating a Dinner Ideas Pinterest board (here’s mine!) to refer back to often.
Once we’ve had some meals multiple times and they become favorites, I recently started a recipe binder where I’ll store a printed off copy of the recipe. I’ve unfortunately went back to pins of favorite meals and the website no longer existed, thus the recipe was gone forever (sadness).
We try to stick to healthy-ish – that’s my motto LOL. I know I’m not going to like all fancy, low calorie, organic shit I cant even pronounce (and neither will my wallet). I want my food to taste good but also give me the nutrients I need. Plus, I really gotta be honest – I do not like quinoa.
Types of Meals
Healthy-ish, simple and filled with go-to ingredients I know I like. There is no use making meals you are repulsed to eat, but make sure to try new things every now and then. Your tastes will never grow if you don’t expand them! Add new items in small portions, instead of buying a huge amount of something and finding out it’s not your jam.
Quick and easy is my friend. If I open up a recipe and it takes three hours and has 403457 ingredients, I’m reading no further. Ain’t nobody got time for that. These recipes are perfect.
If your aboard the same boat, check my Pinterest dinner board, and always add “easy” to the Pinterest search bar. If you like pasta, search “easy pasta dinner recipes”, if you like chicken – you get it, you’re smart.
Once you start to meal plan you’ll begin to compile a list of tried and true favorites. And it’s totally okay to make the same damn things all the time.
We have a good chunk of favorites we go back to on the regular and I’ll try maybe one or two new recipes each time I am meal planning.
Planning Tips
Please remember to always match your planning to your own schedule and likes. This is what works for us, so maybe it will help you!
When I’m meal planning, I just plan the meals, not the days we are having them. That seems too much to me. I’d rather feel it out once I’m home and see what I’m feeling from there.
Once I figure out what meal I’m having that night, I’ll write out (on our cute little whiteboard on the fridge) what were having for the rest of just that week (so 4 meals). I’ll also throw a “leftovers” in there somewhere. And sometimes I push things to the next day or make nothing at all and that’s cool too!
I’m all about going with the flow and not keeping it so insanely structured – that’s when it feels overwhelming and too much work.
Overall, my biggest meal planning tips are:
- Work with what you already have (aka check your pantry and fridge for recipe inspo)
- Pick meals you like and can actually find ingredients for
- Plan enough ahead so you’re not always at the grocery store, but not too far as to keep things fresh
- Eat your damn leftovers – it saves you a ton of money
I know meal planning can seem like the world’s biggest task, but I promise it just becomes habit and can truly help you to save money and eat better.
How do you meal plan? Do you go with the flow or take a more structured approach? I’d love to hear your habits and tips in a comment down below or over on my Instagram (@jamienoonan)!