Organisation: The Humble Home Guide to Meal and Food Planning on a Budget.
This is definitely one of those posts I feel like a bit of an imposter writing because I definitely should pay more attention to my food planning - I find the biggest spend when I look at my Monzo account is on the go food or top up shops throughout the week because I haven’t considered my meals. Or worse, Deliveroo. But it’s often those that need the most help with something that are best to advise, right?!
When I do follow my own advice and get it right, I save so much money, have minimal waste plastic and my nutritional intake is on point. I love to cook and find so much joy in it but if I am left making the decision at the time my ADHD brain shuts down and like a rabbit in headlights, I boil some eggs and vow to do better tomorrow.
Cooking nutritious food for yourself is the ultimate in self love yet when you are single it can be hard to find motivation. I find when I’m in a relationship, my need to nurture kicks in and I’ll happily knock up all manner of concoctions from what’s in the cupboard. But when it’s just me… well, I just can’t see the wood for the trees. So this is why I find that planning ahead is so useful.
There are many ways people will tell you to meal plan. I know I get very bored very quickly of regimes and need to be inspired by the seasons so perhaps my way is slightly different to the general advice but it’s what works for me. I tend to spend around £50 a week on food, which includes what I class luxury items like maple syrup and nut butter.
Start with Seasonal.
When I first moved to Brighton I was amazed by the array of ways to eat well available. Organic veg markets adorned the streets on a weekend and even 20 years ago there were ways to buy your food and groceries using minimal plastic. On and off over the years I’ve subscribed to a veg box scheme and been lucky there have been high quality services locally since back then. It just became my habit to empty my veg box, making a list as I go and sitting down and food planning with it later.
This way of food planning, with having your veg first, is a great way to base your weekly food plan. It means you can use it to plan out around what veg you get and then decide what meals you’re going to have from that point. I haven’t always had a veg box as it’s been an intermittent thing - sometimes I do a weekly shop at my farm shop instead. I have one near me that is close to a university, it means they keep prices competitive and while it isn’t as organic and seasonal as the veg box, it’s a solution for when I’m living on a bit of a tighter budget. I’ll wonder around the shop and really think about what I’m picking up. Will I use it and what will I use it with?
Planning out the week.
Whether I’m unloading a veg box or bags from the farm shop, I’ll make my list of what’s there and then sit down with a cuppa, a biscuit or two and my favourite recipe books, plus my phone is handy with a few recipe apps (more on that in a mo). I like to do this on a Friday evening or Saturday morning so I can pick up everything I need for the week at the weekend or book a home delivery and batch cook some stuff on Sunday afternoon. I know sometimes it’s not possible to batch cook on Sundays though so make a note throughout the week which evenings you need to put in a bit more time to top up the fridge with cooked bases and staples.
I use a digital food planner on my iPad for meal planning but you can just use a basic diary or even notebook. There are a whole host of digital meal planners on Etsy. It’s important to note down what you are upto each day of that week and if you have dinner out or guests coming over. For me, my days vary greatly - so some days I’m on shoots, other days I’m at my co working space or doing an outside office day in the van and other days I’ll be travelling so it’s really important for me to get an overview of this so I can plan what needs prepping the night before or what I need to take with me.
Using the list of veg I have I look each veg up in the index of my books or search function on the apps and see what I’m inspired by and then I start to map out what my meals are going to look like for the week making a list of other ingredients I’ll need throughout the week.
Meal Planning Staples.
I’ll try and double up ingredients where possible to last over a few meals - so for instance making a glut of quinoa can be a great base for various meals throughout the week and keeps in the fridge brilliantly - it’s also fairly low cost for the nutritional content it has in it. It’s a big bang for buck food. Same with lentils. I love to cook with rice too but try and limit it as it’s quite starchy, I’ll tend to have it for one meal like a sweet potato curry and then it will keep for a rice bowl the next day providing you handle the cooked rice in the right way.
I absolutely swear by pickling veg, it can be done so easily and makes lunch planning so easy. You can pickle grated carrot, sliced radish, sliced cabbage and thinly sliced red onion - I ten to keep all of these in jars and they made excellent things to have to hand for on the go - so you can make rice bowls or fill wraps with them pairing with hummus or a dip as well as some crunchy seeds. If you can’t be bothered to heat up some pickling juice just chuck a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice, a tablespoon of sugar and a large pinch of salt together for each jar of veg and then give it a good shake.
I love to make energy balls or small cookies that can be to hand throughout the week when you fancy a sweet something. Making these ahead allows for less impulse spending on snacks and reduces waste of plastic wrappers massively.
Breakfasts are definitely my favourite meal of the day and I love Birchers and soaked oat based breakfasts in tubs to grab and take the next morning.
Some of my favourite sweet treat recipes are Madeleine Shaw’s Bounty Bars from A Year of Beautiful Eating, Anna Jones Almond and Chocolate bites from A Modern Way to Cook, chocolate covered strawberries (simply melt chocolate, dip strawberries in and pop in the fridge on greaseproof paper) and the snacks on the Feel Better app from Deliciously Ella.
Check in with what you’re eating.
Once you’ve planned out your meals for the week, cast an eye over them and just make sure you aren’t packing too much sugar or are eating enough protein. Everyones nutritional needs are different so with your own nutrition focus in mind have a look to see what you can introduce more of. I like toppings for this - tamari roast seeds and goji berries, or nori seaweed chopped up.
I love cacao nibs for breakfasts - you can top yoghurt, pancakes, bircher or soaked oats with them or just blend into smoothies. Same goes for powders like collagen, protein powders and anything else you like to take.
Do a monthly stock check
As well as my weekly food budget I budget a little money every month for stock cupboard staples which I get from a local dry weigh store as I find it so much cheaper to shop like this than from the supermarket - I cross checked a load of items and specialist foods like cacao nibs, nuts, seeds and whatnot ring in a whole lot less. On the same day as I do my money planning and monthly spending, I will go through my food cupboard and check jars for use by dates (top tip - write on a ripped off bit of masking tape on the back of flour and dry weigh jars) and also check all my flours for weevils. I’ll also make a note of anything running low and check my spares box that mainly holds half full bags that didn’t quite fit in the jars incase anything that is running low in the jars can be filled up from there. Check the freezer too - are you almost out of your useful frozen foods like frozen berries? Add them to the list.
Apps and Book Recommendations.
As mentioned before, I find the Feel Better app really useful, as do I the Doctor’s Kitchen app - both are really well priced for a subscription but if you’re on a really tight budget I would say go for the Feel Better app. There are of course a whole host of recipe websites out there but I try not to overload myself on resources but will dip in and out the Good Food site as I love their search function for ingredients.
Then with books, I have a list of favourites here and on top of that I love Anna Jones books - she does food planning so well.
