What's Cooking?
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Meal planning? Budget friendly?
I'm sure it happens to everyone - you get home from a long day at work, ready to have dinner, but wait! What should you have? My husband and I are notorious for spending an obscene amount of time talking about what to have, and by the time we've decided, we both feel terribly hungry and irritable...and then we tend to over-eat.
Here are my questions...
Do you meal-plan? How far in advance do you plan? How do you stick to it?
What are some budget-friendly meals that really stretch a dollar (and can be taken to work for lunch the next day)?
Today I am going to make some chicken chili because we have so many cans of beans in our pantry (it also helps that I have a few days off so I have time to cook).
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Re: Meal planning? Budget friendly?
I make a meal plan for each week and then grocery shop once a week for the ingredients - so, one week at a time for us. I have a calendar on the fridge that I write in the dinners for each night so I know what to take out of the freezer the night before.
Meat's always the most expensive thing on the shopping list for me, so I try to do 1-2 meatless dinners a week, and 1-2 others that are light on the meat (pasta with some meat in the sauce, stir fry with lots of veggies and some chicken).
Kate's Recipe Box || Relatively Bookish
This is exactly what I do too. I love menu planning. We used to share weekly menus on this board over the weekend. Maybe we can get back to posting those to give each other suggestions!
To keep things affordable, I stock up/plan around what is on sale. I also split my weekly shopping between the grocery store and our local butcher. I visit Trader Joe's about once a month to stock our freezer with meals for the nights we're both at work late. I also prefer they're frozen veggies, jarred pasta sauces, and some snacks. I do a major wholesale club shopping sweep about 3-4 times a year. In bulk I buy beans, cereal, pasta, taco shells, and other foods that we use in a lot of dinners.
We often use our dinner leftovers as lunches. So I usually make dinners that yield at least 4 servings. I'm all about quick weeknight options!
I start looking through my recipes on Friday from magazines and Pintrest. They on Saturday I sit down and plan for a week and make my grocery list. Sunday morning I wake up and compare what I'm buying with the sale ads then go shopping.
I generally cook chicken 1 day, beef 1 day, tofu 1 day, pasta 1 day, and pork 1 day. We do 1 vegetarian day. With the meat we usually do one Mexican and one Asian day.
Pastas are very cheap and we always have a ton leftover. Soup is also a great leftover.
I've found that the cheapest recipes are the ones you make from scratch. We have a farmer's market that is here year round (it's like a grocery store with just produce), that has amazing prices. So I get all my fruit and veggies from there, and just buy things like eggs, milk, cheese, meat, from the regular grocery store. I only buy what's on sale, and I use coupons. Buying processed food is really more expensive than buying fresh.
I love stews, soups, and saucy meals, but don't like pasta, so I will crockpot and serve over rice or quinoa. One of my favorite things to do is shred some chicken in the crockpot with my favorite seasonings, then use it for taco or enchilada fillins, serving over rice or quinoa, or make spring rolls with it. Very versatile. I plan meals a week in advance. Even though it's just the two of us, I cook for 4-6 and we eat the leftovers, and I usually have leftovers to put in the freezer, for those times when we don't want to cook or when our budget is tight for that month.
A few very inexpensive meals: take a jar of pasta, add a bag of frozen veggies, and serve over pasta. Cook potatoes, add meat, such as sausage or a ham steak, stir in eggs and cheese, and you have plenty for leftovers (it's called a skillet).
I plan meals out by the week. Every Sunday morning I look at the grocery store sales/coupons and plan my meals around that. I found a super cute idea on pinterest thats a menu from a chalkboard. I made chalkboard for my wedding and now it's my menu board for the week..super cute and helpful:)
I've been really getting into crock pot meals lately (have one in right now for philly cheesesteak sandwiches from Pinterest only has 4 ingredients). I even prep some of my stuff at night becuase I work at 615am and am not really a morning person. Then all i have to do is add a few things and turn it on.
I use
' target=_blank mce_href='
'>E-Meals and I love it! We have no wasted food ever!
We buy what we want for breakfasts and lunches aside from the dinner meals. There are a variety of options to choose from - low carb, clean eating, portion control as well as grocery stores.
We tried it for 3 months and ended up loving it so we're back on for another year!
At the price of about $1/week and balancing a life and DH and I both working 2 ft jobs - this is a life saver! No more thinking!
Use a code of DAVE and save 10%!