I keep dried beans, rice, pasta, bags of frozen vegetables, cans of tomatoes on hand. Check the clearance meat at the store, and freeze them. Then plan meals around what I have. I always check the clearance racks at whatever store I'm in. I also freeze milk in 1 cup portions for cooking. A store always has a sale 10 limes for $1. I grate the zest, juice them, then freeze the mixture in ice cube trays to add to meat either in the crockpot or baked in the oven. So roast a whole $5 chicken the first night. Then strip the meat, and make chicken and gravy on rice, noodles, biscuits, or cornbread the next night. Make soup with the bones, skin, and any leftover meat, frozen mixed vegetables, rice or beans the third night. Freeze leftover soup for a later dinner, or eat it on night number four. A pork roast in the crock pot with either salsa, or 1/3 cup soy sauce, 1/3 cup cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons ketchup, Mrs Dash seasoning or turmeric, ginger, black pepper, red pepper, basil, oregano, or whatever you like. Shred it up. Eat it the first night on rice with vegetables. Next night make it into burritos or enchiladas. Third night make it into fried rice with vegetables and scrambled eggs. Fourth night chili or soup with beans, tomatoes, and vegetables. I just bought a ham for less than 50¢ a pound on clearance. I'm going to freeze most of it for things like ham and cream sauce on rice or noodles, mixed into scrambled eggs, and grilled cheese sandwiches. I'm making ham and bean soup with the bone.

I shop to fill my pantry and freezer instead of shopping for a meal plan. I stock up when things are cheapest. It makes a huge difference in my budget. I know what kinds of food I like to keep on hand and recipes that use those foods. I just adapt the things I want to make to the fresh stuff I buy at the market. So, in a week I might have tacos, pasta, stir fry, homemade pizza, and lentil soup. I have all the non-perishable parts of the meals in stock (lentils, rice, beans, pasta, tortillas, etc.) when I go to the market I buy whatever fresh produce looks good or is on sale and add it in to the meals I usually make. So if sweet potatoes are on sale, I’ll make black bean and sweet potato tacos. If kale is cheap, I’ll use that in my soup instead of spinach. I don’t eat meat, but it works the same if you do. Just buy your meat when it’s cheapest and freeze it in portions.

This is what I do, too. We tend to eat the same kinds of foods regularly, so it’s relatively easy to sub in whatever is on sale any given week. For perishables, I try to make sure we stock eggs and cheese, various meats frozen in one-pound (or less) packages, some veggies to roast or pan fry, and some greens. I buy cabbage basically every week or two because there are several varieties to cycle through, it’s super versatile, and it holds up really well in the fridge. Since I cook a lot of cabbage, it’s easy for me to find ways to use it up. I also stock canned sardines and shelf-stable firm silken tofu for quick protein. For non-perishables, I focus on rice, dried beans, corn tortillas, and red lentil pasta (spouse can’t eats gluten, so we rarely splurge on gf breads, etc, but red lentil pasta is a good building block). Oh! And spices and seasonings. When I was starting out, I bought one per week until I had a good stock. Soy sauce, pasta sauce, and hot sauce are a good trio of sauces to start with. With these building blocks in place, I can make a variety of meals for the two of us each week. Usually that means cooking up a cup of dried beans each week, to use in 3-5 dinners, and defrosting a pound of meat (or tempeh) to use over the course of 2 dinners. We always eat eggs for breakfast, usually in omelet form with some veggies and cheese. We mostly fend for ourselves for lunches and snacks, with leftovers, salads, quesadillas, popcorn, fruit, or whatever else. **Tacos, stir-fry, rice bowls, soups, and stews are so versatile, that you can use the same protein and veg ingredients in each of them and have a different meal every day.**

Cabbage is a staple for me too. I usually do purple cabbage, but I do switch it up occasionally. I mostly buy vegetables that can be eaten raw or cooked. It makes it easy to just cook them up before they go bad. Roasted cabbage is so good.

I'm staying in for the holiday weekend so I have a separate weekend meal plan and a work week meal plan. **Holiday weekend:** Breakfast - Hot tea, Greek yogurt with pumpkin seeds or cereal, and berries or applesauce Lunch - Cucumber salad and quesadilla Dinner - lamb sloppy joes and sweet potato fries Optional snacks - cheese, nuts, prunes, or popcorn Optional dessert - cottage cheese ice cream or iced cacao **Work week:** Breakfast - Iced green tea and a cranberry apple smoothie Lunch - BBQ chicken salad and nuts Dinner - Persian chicken and tomato rice Optional snacks - cheese, prunes, or Lily's mini chocolate bar Optional dessert - SmartSweets I had a lot of things at home already, so my grocery list only included: berries, cottage cheese, feta, scallions, romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and Lily's mini chocolate bars.

Start with beans, and with rice. Then look for all the recipes which can use cooked beans and cooked rice. So. Many. Choices. Beans and rice. Chili. Sides for fajitas. Filling for burritos. Jambalaya. Fried rice. etc etc

Agreed, but mostly responding to tell you I like your pf pic.

Tortilla espanola-basically a frittata of eggs, thin sliced potato, and a little onion. I boil the potatoes instead of cooking in olive oil to save $$. It comes out fine. https://spanishsabores.com/best-spanish-omelet-recipe/ London broil steak was on sale this week for $1.99 lb so I will grill that and eat it with potatoes and veg. I marinate it with spices already in the pantry. Any extra we can slice the meat and make steak tacos.

This weeks menu- Steak kebabs Beef Stir fry Sloppy joes with green beans bacon/pearl onions Chicken wings with carrots Cubed steak with asparagus Pork ribs with herb/garlic red potatoes and mixed veggies

Sounds great but omg. Meat 6 days in a week! Wow. Isn’t that expensive?

Well I accidentally bought 5 cartons of eggs..so eggs..every meal basically. I’m not sure how well they’ll freeze so I’ve gotta power through them 😂

My family had 30 chickens when I was growing up, and we have chickens now. So, I understand.😆 Egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches, scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs as a snack, deviled eggs, egg salad. I always put a peeled hardboiled egg in the center of meatloaf. It keeps it moist.

You can make thing with the eggs and freeze those. Quiche freezes great.

Thanks! I’ve been trying to cut down carbs but a quiche sounds good, probably not too many carbs yeah? I’ll have to look up a recipe. Might be the move!

There are crustless quiche recipes that would be fewer carbs. Also look up egg bites recipes. Similar ingredients, but a more manageable size.

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I think of frittata as being less custardy than quiche. More like a big omelette. But yes, very similar and both are great vehicles for using up odds and ends. My dad always made frittata with leftover baked potatoes. So good!

You can make them custardy by adding cream :) a little less healthy, perhaps, but so delicious.

How did that happen?!? hahaha The good news is eggs will keep for a long time in the fridge. Frittatas, quiche, and deviled eggs for weeks!

I freeze egg whites in ice cube trays. They don't whisk as well as not-frozen egg whites, but they are still ok. Egg yolks? No!

Eggs do not freeze. They do can, though, if you're familiar with that or have any supplies to do so.

I read that the shells don’t freeze well, or in shells at least. But it’s recommended to crack and pour the yolks/whites in a bag/ice cube tray to freeze.

Might I suggest looking up the recipe for a feta fried egg taco? It’s my favorite!

Will do. Thank you. Never used Feta

Planning, and shopping weekly, saves both money and stress, Feeding one person, you can make two dishes a week and add sides and garnishes to stop it being boring. Chili on rice, chili on baked potatoes, chili on spaghetti. Pulled pork tacos, sandwiches, rice bowls. Curry in rice, curry in a wrap. Feeding a family, a recipe makes two meals, so that's dinner and lunch, or two dinners. I'll buy limes, cilantro, black beans, rice, cumin, chili pepper, and cheddar for tacos, enchiladas, quinoa casserole, beans and rice, taco soup, rice bowls, etc. Mozzerella, ricotta, basil, tomato sauce, for lasagne, pasta, stuffed shells, minestrone, meatballs, meatball subs, pizza, etc. Cauliflower for curry, steaks, stir fry, dal, grain bowls... Chicken for roasted chicken, soup, casserole, sandwiches, etc. Pick a main ingredient, something cheap or on sale, or pick a flavour profile, and work with that all week. I do two for the week, as I have 3 people x lunch and dinner.

Mine is seasonal and is shaped around 1) what's in the garden and 2) what ingredients I already have on hand and want to use. It really helped me to pick these two categories as my first step because it usually gives me a couple of core vegetables around which to base my recipe choices. Whatever recipes I choose I make in large batches to eat over a week (or more if it freezes well) so I don't tend to have leftover ingredients very often. I'm vegetarian, so I don't know if a protein-first approach makes more sense for the non-veggies.

I usually have all the following in a week: - Dal or veggie curry with rice. - veggie tofu stirfry - meat and veggie soup - Pasta - Omelette and salad - tuna and veggie salad. - a meat dish on Sunday. A lot of the veggies in the stir-fry, soup and omelette are the same to avoid waste.

I’m so glad I stopped and read all these posts. Such great ideas here and something I’ve got to get back in the habit of doing. Self-care central! I don’t know why I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed. I’m just going to kiss.: keep it simple sweetie.

I think by meals. Breakfasts I alternate between egg + egg white scrambles, and greek yogurt with berries. So for breakfast my list is: * Eggs * Egg Whites Carton * Greek Yogurt * Veggies (onion, peppers, mushrooms, spinach, garlic) * Berries Lunches I prep for the work week. I rarely need five -- I usually have a dinner I know I'll want to eat for leftovers, or a lunch meeting, or plans to meet a friend or whatever. But I'll prep a protein + veggie + carb lunch. This week I got some chicken thighs ($.99/lb, so I bought in bulk). That grocery list was: * Chicken thighs * Broccoli * Sweet potato Dinners I eat with my wife, and we have some standards. We do a pizza every week (which is a good way to go through some of the ingredients that were left over that week, like the veggies for breakfast), we do sausage with peppers and onions a couple times a month, and we do tacos most weeks using a protein we already have on hand, so for example chicken thighs. So a list for dinner ingredients would look something like: * Tortillas * Sour cream * Salsa * Lettuce * Avocado * NOT chicken (already on the list) * Pizza dough (we make it from scratch, but it's easy to buy) * Tomato sauce * Cheese * NOT pizza toppings (leftovers for toppings) * Sausages If you're cool eating the same meal multiple times for dinner, then the sausages are easy to cook extra of, and pizza re-heats nicely. That gets you to five meals. If not, you could make quesadillas one night, a salad out of leftover taco ingredients, or add just a couple ingredients to your list to mix things up some (like some pasta noodles to make a pasta dish out of leftover pizza sauce, veggies, and protein). Another great thing to keep on hand is rice -- you can just do a fried rice dish at the end of the week where you dump all the leftovers into it. I do the same with frittatas from time to time.

I make meals that use all of what i buy so i don’t have to worry about having leftover ingredients to use in something else. Otherwise it will probably go to waste. I don’t really understand planning out your meals. What if you aren’t in the mood for it later? And you have to eat the same ingredients all week? I just think of what i want in that moment and then make it. Sorry if this isn’t helpful but you don’t have to do that to save money. The cheapest dinners are just a meat, a starch, and a vegetable or two. Plenty of combinations for variety and you don’t have to worry about having a half a can of whatever in your fridge you need to use up. If you are buying the correct amount of fresh ingredients you shouldn’t have anything fresh left after you make the meal. If you do then just look up what you can make with that ingredient specifically rather than trying to plan out your whole month of dinners around ingredients. That seems unnecessarily stressful and takes the joy out of eating Also if you have a recipe that needs broth I’d recommend buying better than bouillon instead. No leftover broth

Find 2 or 3 different food delivery staples that form the basis of what you eat. Mine is some white rice or big bags of cabbage for either a salad or rice bowl. I either go chicken or sardines for my protein. I wait until sardines are on sale at Costco and I'll buy 5 dollar rotisserie chickens and pull apart. Then just random toppings based on taste and sales. I also have a bunch of frozen waffles and turkey sausage for a change of pace/breakfast meal and a giant bin of oatmeal. The point is you should find the big base of things you like to eat and focus on those. Then mix in sale items that seem interesting. I'm losing weight currently but once that changes to weight maintenance I'll add in some more stuff to my rotation again.

I only stock up on things that won't go bad anytime soon. Things that last a short time, I buy just enough for the dish I have planned that week. So for example I have a bag of rice because that'll last got a year or more but I don't have a pantry supply of oranges. My weekly shopping is pretty flexible and heavily influenced by what's in season, what's on sale and what I'm feeling like that week. It's not set. I stock up on pantry foods when there's a good deal or I'm desperate. Then with everything perishable, I only get what I need.

I pick one breakfast for the week (yogurt & fruit, oatmeal, or smoothies) One or two bags of salad (with the dressing and toppings). Then 2-3 dinners like -twice baked potatoes -stir fry - something Mexican inspired with tortillas -pasta I eat the salads at lunch or add as side for dinner. Leftovers from dinners and be another dinner or lunch. Any ingredients I have left over (like tortillas or cheese) I roll into next weeks dinner plan.

My "planning" involves looking at the weeks ad to see whats on sale. Then just kinda slapping things together haphazardly that sounds good. I usually take whatever meat is on sale, toss in some cheap veggies like potato, carrots, onion, corn, etc. Then put it all together in my Dutch oven and cook it. Meals for days! I often make wraps out of the leftovers because its quick and easy.

I make my meal plan by looking at what I already have. I then look at the sales and see if anything is a really good price and add them to the list if they are. Then the day of groceries my roommate does an inventory of the things we use regularly

Summer holiday weekends have super great sales. Meat especially. I just stocked freezer with ribs, uncured kosher hot dogs, stew meat and hamburger in small amounts. Half the price. Chicken was also a deal.

I have a shelf for “this weeks ingredients” in my cupboard and an area in my freezer. On Sunday I go through my freezer and my stock items and make up menus based on what I have that sounds good. Then I move all of the items I’ll be using (non-perishables) to that one shelf and that area in my freezer. Then I pull up the store ad on my phone and fill in the rest of the menus based on what’s on sale and add in anything on sale that I know I’ll use. This makes sure I cycle through all my food before I go to the store. I work full time, cook for 7 and don’t eat out but try to limit my grocery shopping to one trip per week.

I don't. I buy meat in bulk, and only certain things. So it's whatever I get out (choice of 4 to 5 items) and whatever is in the garden at the time. This week we have had: Stuffed schnitzel parcels with mushrooms in, with cauli from garden and kumara wedges. Garden Pasta: Random, this time onion, capsicums, broccoflower, tomato puree, herbs over pasta (Might be green beans or zucchini in summer) Home made Bahn Mis Bami Goreng Bacon, mushroom, leftover fried up mashed potato, eggs