Why a little meal planning goes a really long way…

I am rubbish at meal planning. There. I said it!! We haven’t really planned what were were going to eat from day to day since we had the little chap.

Below are some reasons that this is rubbish:

• We waste stuff (particularly veg)
• We eat out more than we should
• We lack inspiration and make the same meals over and over

It was a combination of things that gave me a kick up the bum. First, I joined the My Lovely Little Lunch Box 30 day meal planning mailing list. It was AWESOME! So many good ideas (and Kayla is like the nicest human on Earth, so polite and friendly). Find their blog over here.

Also, we needed to tighten our belts. We were spending extra money we didn’t need to on crap from the pub, for want of a better word.

We find it hard to plan. I think because I’m a teacher and spend lots of my time planning and following structure I don’t always want to. And MR FMM likes to pick what he fancies as and when. But we were determined to give it a go.

We dug out the old cookbooks, I had a scroll through Instagram and we started writing down meals we like to eat. We did it at the bottom of our shopping list and wrote down the things we needed to make said meals in the list above. I’d show you a picture of this, but it was written in black sharpie, a total mess and…I’ve binned them all! It wasn’t perfectly presented and neat because it wasn’t for anyone except us.

This really worked for us, we just looked at the meals and decided the night before what we would have the following day. I couldn’t set days for each meal because that just doesn’t suit us. I don’t know if I’m going to fancy salmon four days in advance, so that isn’t how we do it.

So far, it is working. Reasons it is less rubbish than before:

• We have eaten out less so when we do we don’t feel guilty.
• We are eating better.
• We are eating interesting dinners.
• We are spending less.
• We are wasting less.

TBH we always felt meal planning was a bit ‘boring’. It seemed to lack creativity and spontaneity. But actually, because the right stuff is there, we are being far more creative with our meals.

I don’t think I’ll ever be a huge planner – I will never plan what I’m having for brekkie unless we have guests. But I would suggest, if you don’t already, to give it a go. I’m going to work on a more consistent format for us in the future so we can still be flexible, we are wasting less and eating more! Watch this space.

Do you meal plan? I’d love to know what works for you?

Faye xxx