Today I wanted to go through my process of finding meal ideas, planning my grocery list all while saving money, and not wasting food.

First off I head into the kitchen to make a list of things I have and need to use up or can make meals out of. I learned this from Jordan Page and it is one of those duh, makes so much sense sort of things.

You don’t list every single thing you have because that would be ridiculous, but list the produce that’s going to go bad, the things you’ve had on hand for a while, and maybe want to use up, things like that.

During the week I’ll just keep a list on my phone of the things I notice day to day that we’re out of or I want to get. Usually, this is basic staples, but it’s also those random things you never remember to get like oil or nutritional yeast.

I also put the things on the list that we get pretty every week. Things like avocados, fruit, oat milk for Michael, those sorts of things.

Once you’ve got the staples and random things you’ve collected on your list throughout the week you want to look at the list and ask yourself?

Are there any obvious meals?

I usually try and find three meals to make in a week and the rest of it is just kind of the quick staple meals that are tried and true. But I always make extra of the main meals to eat for leftovers.

For me, breakfast has to be quick and easy. For a long time, it was a bagel with hummus, oatmeal or cereal. But lately, I’ve been making pancakes because that’s something Theo will eat (he also likes bagels). And I burnt myself out of bagels with hummus.

Lunch and dinner meal ideas are pretty interchangeable to me.

Ok, say you’ve thought of one obvious meal to use up ingredients you have on hand. From there I usually have something in mind like “Ooh you know what sounds good?”

I try to keep it to meals that I don’t have to buy every single ingredient unless it’s something that’s easy and doesn’t require a lot.

Curries, soups, and stirfry are a great way to use up things that might be going bad soon.

Usually have one meal that’s a new recipe I want to try out.

As I’m making my shopping list I’m writing down those meal ideas so I have them to look back to when I’m like “Um what I was I planning to make?" And you can see how many meals you actually have stuff for.

Here’s a link to a PDF where you can write down what you have on hand, meal ideas, and a grocery list.

And here’s what mine ended up looking like from this past week as an example.

Lately, with Coronavirus I’ve been doing a grocery pick up because it saves time and is great for parents who don’t want to take their kiddos inside. Depending on where you live this may or may not be an option, but if it is you usually have to put your order in at least a day in advance.

Let me know of any of your meal planning or grocery shopping tips and tricks!

Happy shopping!