Comments on: How Planning Your Meals Will Save You Money

By: Corporate Barbarian

Corporate Barbarian — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:47:06 +0000

Don’t stop with dinner. I plan out my lunches, and have saved a substantial amount by brown-bagging. You could prepare enough food for dinner that will allow for leftovers to be taken for lunch. My favorite is my wife’s leftover eggplant parmigiana.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:55:16 +0000

Yes… make a list, check it twice. Find out what food prices are naughty or nice.

Planning your meals is one of the best and easiest ways to save money. I realized this, because whenever I didn’t plan them, I would always end up having to go and eat fast food or make an EXTRA trip (which costs more money) to get something.

Just to add also, you should plan your snacks to.

By: Bgirl

Bgirl — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:43:53 +0000

Like Stacey, I plan my meals around what is going to be on sale. Another tip is, if possible, go to the grocery store early on a weekday morning, at least to purchase your meat. You’ll find a good selection of items that are marked either “reduced for quick sale” or as one of our stores likes to call them “manager’s specials.” There is nothing wrong with the meat, other than the store needs to sell it by the sell by date, which is fast approaching. You just need to make sure to use it or freeze it by the sell by date.

We pretty much only ever eat filet mignon in our house when we have steak these days, because I get them on these types of sales. And as a result, we rarely go out to eat, because I can make nicer dinners at home for much, much less money.

By: Matt Jabs

Matt Jabs — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:04:17 +0000

Good stuff Kyle. My wife tried to get me to do this when we were first married, but I told her there was no way I could “know” what I wanted to eat tomorrow let along 6 days from now. Once I finally gave in to her system, we started really saving money on the groceries.

One thing that we do every week is to look in our refrigerator first to see what needs to be used up – such as produce or thawed meat – then we plan our meals by incorporating all those ingredients and (as you point out) just go get the other ingredients we don’t have.

It works folks. This was one of the methods we employed to help us cut our grocery spending by several hundred dollars each month.

By: alex burda

alex burda — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:30:12 +0000

We grow our own vegies and cook most of our own meals. It is a well planeed operation.
The only problem is that our stomachs have no volume control. We regularly over eat and eat too quickly.
I wish self discipline was as easy as simple planning!

By: H Lee D

H Lee D — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:30:05 +0000

@Honey – agreed on the veggie products (we are vegetarian as well) and very much agreed on Wal-Mart. I haven’t shopped there in six years.

By: Honey

Honey — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:01:12 +0000

I plan my meals in advance and try to concentrate on seasonal produce – I also do a lot of cooking from scratch. We are vegetarian, so a lot of specialty products are more expensive and not available at a “regular” grocery store, so we need all the help we can get!

That said, Wal-Mart is a terrible, unethical company. I would rather pay 50% more than ever patronize them. Most grocery stores will do a price match these days, though.

By: H Lee D

H Lee D — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:47:15 +0000

We plan meals over the weekend for the coming week, but we found that we have less waste and our grocery bill is lower if we make two big meals and eat them over four or five nights. Added bonus if we can make one of them on Sunday. We’ll sometimes have a meal that we just cook and eat that night because it doesn’t reheat well, like veggie stir fry.

So for example, right now in the fridge there’s a huge container of homemade soup. We’ll have that for dinner two nights this week, maybe three (depending on how much we eat). It’ll be perfect for whatever night we get home and want to eat right now or don’t feel like cooking.

I make one batch of something and take it for lunch all week, then make something else for the following week, etc. Hubby eats PB&J every day (by choice), so that’s easy.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:08:03 +0000

I do this, but we switch around the “steps” you’ve outlined. The first thing I do on Sunday morning is grab the local store’s flyer and weekly coupons. After reading through them, we plan our meals around good sales and what’s in the freezer. When we shop we stock up on sale favorites for future weeks. It’s saved us a lot of money! We spend $40-50 per week for two adults, but rarely eat out.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:28:11 +0000

Planning save more than just money, it saves me the headache of wondering what to cook! I always keep a couple of frozen meal, (making in bulk- make two is as easy as making one!) and it’s there for me in a pinch.

By: LesInk

LesInk — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:42:57 +0000

More tips:
* Make substitutions to your meal plan when you find a bargain at the story (like a true buy one, get one free sales).
* Buy generic/store brand when it doesn’t matter.
* Consider an extra freezer and buying your meat in bulk to save money from a discount source (such as a Costco or Sam’s Club).

Using the above tips (Kyle and ours), we were able to cut our food budget in half.

By: lostAnnfound

lostAnnfound — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:39:27 +0000

‘An added benefit is you get to prevent the inevitable question “What are we going to have for dinner tonight, dear?” ‘

This is a huge added benefit. It makes getting dinner ready so much less stressful. If I am busy finishing up work or taking one of the teens to wherever, hubby or other teen can start getting dinner ready because we have a menu planned for the whole week posted on the fridge with any needed recipes (the simpler the recipe, the better) also up there. A little bit of time put into doing this at the beginning of the week (making menu, shopping list, coupons, etc), but a big time saver every night the rest of the week.

By: John DeFlumeri Jr

John DeFlumeri Jr — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:11:18 +0000

You sure are right about that. It cost us six hundred dollars a month for just the food we eat!