Are you one of those busy mums that have no time to put together a meal plan for the family?

Are you one of those mums that every evening before dinner time wonder around the kitchen thinking what to feed the family? And then you end up coming up with some great idea only to realise you are missing some ingredients…

Sounds familiar?

I must admit- I used to be one of those mums when I just had one child…

But now I have a large family of 5 and without meal planning, I would not be able to survive.

As you might already know, I have 3 kids, I work full-time, I run a  blog and a YouTube channel, I work out most the evenings and keep my house cleaned (I still can’t afford the cleaner). I also home cook every single meal that we eat (with a very occasional takeaway). My husband helps me sometimes and takes over cooking and cleaning, but I do it the majority of the time.

This leaves me no time to go to the shop every other day to pick up bits and pieces for the meal. This is what would happen if I was not planning the meals. I would always be missing something in my fridge or a cupboard and would have to top up the shopping much more often. One of the benefits of meal planning is that it actually costs much less as you are more likely to end up buying things on the deal rather than at its full price. And you know that convenience shop has a much higher markup.

So in a nutshell, meal planning has 5 benefits:

–Saves you money, as by planning meals you know exactly what you need and are more focused while shopping and pick only what you need. Also to you less tempted to get a takeaway which cost way more than a homecooked meal, especially if you have a large family.

–Saves you time– no need to run to the shop many times a week to pick bits and pieces, also you know what you cooking which saves you time on looking up online or recipe books for the meal ideas

–Helps you be more prepared– as you know what you going to cook, you are already prepared with your ingredients and recipe, all you got to do is cook!

–Lets you use the resources you already have in the pantry/ fridge/ freezer- below you will find out how you can do this while planning you meals

–Lets you stay more organised and on top of things- instead of wondering what to cook and running around the kitchen looking inside the fridge for things to cook, you have a control over it as it’s all planned out

So let’s jump into it and break down how to meal plan for the family of 5. Needless to say, this will work for any size family.

 

What you need to start with:

1. A notebook, a calendar or planner– free to download here in pdf or xls version
2. Internet access (or some good recipe books)

 

Where to begin?

First things first, make a list of the family favourite meals. If you cook with your partner, you should do this together as it will be easier to find the ideas. You can also get your kids involved as they too might have some favourites.

This is our list:

You would probably have noticed that the vast majority of our meals are vegetarian, and very little red meat hosts on our menu. This is because we eat mainly plant-based food, with occasional meat dishes. We stick to at least 4-5 vegetarian meals a week. This was our personal choice and we are still managing to provide nutrients missing from the red meat and substitute it with pulses etc.

Once you have a list, explore your pantry, fridge or freezer and make a note of what you already have.

This will help you to reduce the number of things you buy as the chances are you already have a lot of things you could assemble a few dishes from.

Now it is time to schedule it in.

Look at the list of what you already have and the list of favourite meals and fill in the blanks on the schedule whit the meal ideas. And don’t forget the snacks too!

Keep it simple and healthy most of all!

If you only managed to come up with a very few, that is when the internet might come handy and as you can look for ideas there.

Here are some great websites for quick recipes for busy parents that I love using:

BBC FOOD

Laura in the kitchen

Knorr

When putting the meal plan for the family together, one thing to consider is how much time you can allow for cooking. Some dishes are super quick to assemble and you can get them done in a half-hour. These you should schedule in for the “working days”. On the weekends you can allow a bit more time for cooking and that’s when you can schedule these more time-consuming dishes.

Read too:

Intermittent Fasting (IF) does it really work?

How to keep fit having kids?- 5 tips

So once you know what your family want’s to eat, it’s time to put a shopping list together.

In your notebook, or on the reverse of the planned week, write down the ingredients o each dish that you want to cook.

Remember about the spices, souses, gravies or stock cubes you might need as it is easy to just focus on main ingredients like meat or veggies.

Once you have a list, you have a choice of online shopping or a regular stroll through a supermarket. I like shopping myself as at least I know what I’m choosing.

I love shopping at the cheaper supermarkets like Aldi or Lidl as I literally save up 30%-50% on my grocery shopping each time I go there. And if you are into frugal living, (link) this is the way of saving a few pounds. At the same time, I do use Tesco too, as although it is a bit more pricey, I do love the benefit of Clubcard points as I later exchange them for money vouchers for the attractions or days out with the kids.

 

 

Have a list of products that anyone can add to once they know you are running out off.

We have a calendar where we write down things once we know we run out off, or have run out off. I then look into it when I’m combining the list of my shopping before going to the grocery shop.

This list includes not only food but also detergents, cosmetics, wipes, toilet rolls etc.

 

What if I’m a newbie and have no idea how to meal plan?

If you are a complete newbie to this- start off slowly. What I mean here is, don’t plan for the whole week, but 3 -4 days ahead. Best is to do it before going shopping.

Also, you can focus then only on the dinners as breakfast and lunch tend to be easier to prepare than dinners.

This is what I do.

I plan for a week but only the dinner parts, as it’s easier to just think of the main meal of a day. Kids usually have cereal for a brekkie and lunch they either have at school or when they are home we make fish fingers, sandwiches or eggs. Dinner is where we spend the focus on our cooking skills.

My husband and I are pretty good cooks. Not quite trained chef quality, but we both have good task buds and can come up with good twists to the dish, just because we know how to mix things up to get it to work well, kind of thing… So I think our kids are very lucky to be exposed to a variety of different cuisines. Our top ones are obviously Indian and Italian followed by Polish, Chinese and Thai. We also have occasionally Turkish, Afghan, Lebanese or Greek too so we really do like to explore with our food.

Conclusion

 

The meal plan is really the key to staying organised and on top of the things. Especially if you too are a working parent and have 101 other things on your mind. Being organised will spare you a lot of time, money and will keep you sane.

Do you mean plan? What system do you have in place? Please share it with me.

Thank you so much for reading