Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping Secrets
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Let’s cut straight to the point, shall we?
By taking 20 minutes once a week to organize meals, you will -
make healthier choices
save money on groceries
save time grocery shopping
cut down on food waste
never have to answer the nagging question, “what’s for dinner?” for the millionth time
free up space in your brain to focus on other things
“Meal planning stomps out so many fires. No more guesswork and no more bad decisions. ”
If you’re new to meal prepping or want to learn how to optimize your planning skills for success, keep reading. My meal planning process has been a huge lifesaver and cuts a lot of unnecessary stress from my life. Chaos reigns these days, and it’s easy to surrender to ordering takeout every night.
Deciding what to eat isn’t always a simple task. If you’re already spread transparently thin and have to come up with several impromptu meal ideas, you make poor decisions. I’m guilty of letting my toddler eat graham crackers all day, forgetting to feed myself until 3:00 PM, and dropping $75 on takeout at the last minute because I’m so hangry. Don’t be me. Do better than that me.
We need to get real.
We waste a lot of food in America. The data is astounding. America is the global leader in food waste at a whopping 40% of the US food supply each year. Put in perspective, that’s 219 pounds per person per year and 80 BILLION pounds per year across the country. That’s equal to almost 1000 times the Empire State Building ending up in landfills every year. There’s motivation to meal plan right there.
How to plan, organize, and shop with efficiency and frugality
Step 1. Look through your refrigerator and see what you need to use first.
Make a list of everything you need to eat. Go to the fridge first because that stuff is perishable and the most time-sensitive.
Step 2. Check your freezer and pantry inventory.
Food stored in these areas is less time-sensitive and can help round out a decent meal with what’s in the fridge. Jot down each item as you do your inventory. I recommend keeping an electronic list for this task. This will save time re-writing items you didn’t get to the previous week. The goal here is to make this task easier.
Step 3: Create your menu.
I use Pinterest to plug in the key ingredients from my inventory for unique meal suggestions. Pinterest is a great visual search engine for recipe ideas. I have boards set up on my profile where I’ll pin tasty looking meals throughout the week. That way, if I can’t figure out what to add to my grocery list I can use one of my recipe pins as inspiration.
Be sure to spend a little time clicking through the links you save to make sure the recipe is available. You don’t want to choose a spammy pin or one attached to a recipe post that’s been removed.
Step 4. Go digital with your grocery list.
Next, I pull up the grocery list I created in Google docs. Again, this is a crucial timesaving part of my meal planning process. You’ll get fed up handwriting the same items from week to week and order a burrito instead.
As you can see, there’s a section for meals at the top under some reminders for whoever is doing the shopping. I plug in my meal ideas and add all the extra ingredients I need to each category. I arrange categories in the order that I hit each section of my preferred grocery store. You can arrange your list differently, but this method allows me to be faster as I make my way through the store.
Stick to your grocery list to avoid -
Impulse buying
Duplicate purchases
Forgetting a crucial ingredient that undoes all your hard work
Oh no, I forgot my grocery list!
Just kidding, no you didn’t. A Google doc is accessible on your phone to share with whoever is going to the store. No one leaves home without their phone these days, so you’re covered. If you’re somehow without a list, turn around and grab it. Otherwise, you may as well walk around the store blindfolded, handing out all the money in your wallet to strangers.
Bonus efficiency tip: Try grocery pickup
If you want to prioritize efficiency at this stage, try grocery pickup. This cuts out the time-intensive step of shopping altogether and can save you money. You’ll know the grocery bill ahead of time when you do a pickup, so it’s much easier to adjust your list and stay on budget.
Remember, this option has its drawbacks. Since you’re not the one selecting the food, you sometimes end up with spoiled produce and missing items. If you’re the shopper and something is out of stock, you can pivot and get a suitable replacement. Shoppers don’t have your meal plan in mind, they only have your list. Decide on the best option based on how you prioritize convenience vs. control.
More food for thought.
The average American family wastes $1600 just on produce alone. Overall, Americans are wasting $160 billion worth of food annually. Overestimating what you need to buy and tossing spoiled food means your wallet is also hemorrhaging.
Whether you shop or choose curbside pickup, meal planning will save you money. By deciding exactly what you will eat, creating a concise list, and sticking to it (more or less cuz, let’s be real…) you’ll land somewhere very near your target budget.
I’m confident that if you weren’t already trying a meal plan, you will now. Your meal planner-less ways are soon to be a thing of the past. If you’re looking for more ideas, check out these videos on my YouTube channel all about recipe ideas and meal planning tips. I create new content every week and I love providing a space for others to learn how to become more organized and productive. Become part of the Speaker Fam today!
Yours in Meal Planning,
Melanie
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For more information on the statistics about food waste in America, visit www.rts.com.
