Meal planning is meant to save money and time during the week. But, sometimes, the process of meal planning itself can be time consuming. Frugal living site The Thriftiness Miss offers a simple method for organising weekly meals — plan using an inverted pyramid pattern.
Photo by baron valium
Writer Jessie actually calls it the “upside down triangle method”, but the idea is the same: you plan your biggest meal first, then work your way down, according to left over ingredients:
For example, I usually make a couple of bigger meals throughout the week for dinners with siblings and parents. I start by planning these meals first…Next, I look at what I have and what I’ll have left over to make up my other meals.
If you don’t have a particularly “big” meal to make for a bunch of people, you can start with your most ingredient-heavy meal, then work your way down.
If you struggle to come up with meal ideas for the entire week, this is a great way to get started and make maximum use of your food purchases. Check out the post in full for more detail.
Grocery List Tip: Save Money With this Method [The Thriftiness Miss]
Comments
3 responses to “Maximise Your Grocery Budget With The Inverted Pyramid Method”
This is pretty good advice, and pretty much any sort of a plan will save you money, simply because having a plan means you are going to avoid impulse buys of processed food or takeaway meals. Any time you spend planning usually pays off later in the week when you get home after a long day and everything for dinner is already in the fridge ready to go (or even better, is already cooked in the slow cooker!)
Here’s how I save money on our groceries:
1) Cook from scratch where possible. Processed foods are expensive.
2) Shop once a week to reduce impulse buys at the supermarket.
3) Plan all the dinners for the week (breakfast doesn’t change, lunch is a sandwich or planned leftovers from dinner)
4) Eat less meat – 2 vegetarian meals a week will make a noticeable difference to your budget, and is good for you too.
5) Use thrifty ingredients such as mince, chicken drumsticks, frozen and tinned fish and vegetables, pasta and rice. Buy in-season vegetables, and “all-rounders” that can be used in most meals and that keep well in the fridge (carrot, zucchini, kale, cabbage, onions, , mushrooms, green beans, celery, capsicum)
6) Grow what I can. Herbs and lettuce are expensive to buy, and easy to grow.
Never go food shopping on an empty stomach! That will drive your impulse buy sky high; so, best time to shop is after a meal; possibly breakfast or lunch on a Saturday, then you can reward youself with a (regular size) coffee.
Isn’t this article about minimising the budget, not maximising it?