Introduction to my Weekly Meal Plans

The idea for this blog came from some friends of mine who were impressed by how little I usually spend on food and asked me to share one of my weekly meal plans and go shopping with them.  

There are several things I do to save money on my weekly shop:

1. Shop mainly at Aldi
2. Make a meal plan for the week
3. Cook mostly from scratch
4. Not make meat the main part of my dinners

Personally I'm an Aldi convert.  It's fairly close, it's consistently cheap and 99% of the time it stocks everything I need.  I realise that not everyone shares my love for the German supermarkets (although I'm rarely so impressed with Lidl - is that just me?), so feel free to keep shopping wherever you usually go, but you may find some ingredients are more expensive.

Making a meal plan is possibly the single thing you can do which will make the biggest impact in terms of spending.  I have literally no idea how people can go into a shop without knowing what they're going to buy, it would stress me out far too much!  I plan my meals, I make a list of ingredients I need, I go round Aldi and put those ingredients into my trolley.  

But meal planning takes time.  You save some time because you don't need to wander aimlessly round the shop (and Aldi shops are quicker to get round anyway), and you save time spent staring in your fridge wondering what you can put together to make a meal, but you have to be able to dedicate 30-45mins to decide on meals and make your shopping list, and I realise not everyone has that time.  So hopefully my meal plans will take the hassle out of it for you and make life easier.

Ready meals usually fall into one of two categories: expensive or unhealthy.  Neither is great on a long term basis, but they are a quick and easy option after a long day.  Most of the meals in my plans involve cooking from scratch, but I can rarely be bothered with something that takes more than 30mins of my time, so you should definitely give it a go.  There are also some evenings when I get in and can't be bothered to make an effort, so I always have some easy options in my meal plans for when that happens.

I'm not a vegetarian.  I love a good hamburger, a fry up and my mum's lasagne.  But meat is expensive, and once you get out of the "meat and two veg" mindset it's easy to eat interesting meals and you don't miss it at all (I even converted my "a meal isn't a meal without meat" boyfriend).  I still include some meat dishes (especially if I can get a good deal), but in the main they'll be meat-free.

So my plan is to post a weekly meal plan (with links to recipes) and an accompanying shopping list.  I hope it helps you.