life

Meal planning to save money in Lockdown!

It’s the start of the week and we had our food shop delivered, and I sit in desperation every day at 4pm when I realise that it’s just been too full on in lockdown that I haven’t taken anything out the freezer for dinner. Normally I would just have Edith who happily potters around the house with me whilst I get on with things. In Lockdown I am teaching Erin, keeping on top of the house, washing, ironing and having Edith hold on to the bottom of my leg because she’s basically being ignored in comparison to what she was. The only way I can explain the upkeep of the house of top of schooling and the girls is like brushing your teeth eating Oreos!

Things had to change I needed to get my life back into some form of order, we’re a family that thrives on routine and this is certainly a time where we needed the routine back. I am not kidding you I have gone from spending £50 a week on shopping for four of us to spending £100 plus! I used to shop at Aldi which helped and I used to meal plan everything so we emptied the freezer every two weeks. When all of this started it appeared I was ramming the freezers full but not actually using any of it to eat?! Who knows why!!!

So it was time for a change, I went and took pictures of every freezer draw opened and came inside and did a full list of everything that was in there. I realised we had two and half weeks worth of meals sat in a freezer! So I decided it was time I actually planned what we were going to have for dinner.

As I said previously I write a list of everything in the freezer and I open our food cupboards. This allows you to see everything available. Next I write a list of days where we all need to be fed. For us some of those days exclude Erin as she goes to her dads and sometimes it excludes Edith as I don’t think she would chew a pork chop!!

All I do then is go down my list figuring what to have for dinner with the meats and then pair them with the sides, I also try to get a different meal every day/week. Yes… I am such a loser I write them on a blackboard so I don’t forget!!

It’s so simple to do and I managed to get nearly 3 weeks worth of meals done. Thankfully this made my shopping cheaper as it’s Erin’s birthday Friday so our food shop was full of helium, wrapping paper, sellotape and matts nan and grandads food!

It’s such a simple way to save money especially when at the moment all I seem to do is spend a fortune on food because the girls are eating us out of house and home! Do you meal plan? Do you do something different or the same?