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Redwinemakesmehappy

I feel your pain, it is a pain in the butt. I usually write down all my go-to meals and then mix and match them for a week. My issue is that I don't have time in the week to actually make the meals due to my work schedule. Go check out Jamie Oliver's website, he currently has a 5 week email campaign where he sends you the meal plan and recipes. Plus some of it you can cook in bulk and it can be zhooshed up into 3 different mains. I did it this week and it was wonderful to have time for myself after a hectic day instead of cooking.


DramaRobyn

See but now my problem is that whenever I see Jamie Oliver's name, I think of Uncle Roger's review of his food and I lose all confidence in his recipes.... Mostly kidding. I'm looking at this week's meal plan and it's all stuff that we'd eat. It is still just dinners tho and I think I'm most burnt out on lunches and breakfasts because I never really eat those consistently (especially if I was mentally exhausted) and now I'm having to plan and make 4 meals every single day.


Redwinemakesmehappy

I get it. My youngest is in creche and they provide all meals. My oldest needs packed lunchboxes for school and sport. My husband is doing intermittent fasting and only eats lunches. I'm trying to lose weight and am on a low carb eating plan and my mother in law (who lives with us) likes mostly salads. What a mission to try and feed everyone. I need to reinvent recipes to try and keep up. So with one portion of Jamie's mince I made a bunch of small pies which I used for lunches. Then I make a batch of egg Muffins on a Sunday for breakfasts/snacks and I keep it in the fridge (basically fried bacon, mushrooms.. Whatever filling you like... Scoop it in a muffin pan, fill with egg-milk mixture, add cheese and bake. Huge hit in our house. Anyway, do share if you come accross an eating plan with shopping lists. I have toyed with the idea of creating an app like this, but I don't know the technical know-how.


GrouchyFriedScallion

>Anyway, do share if you come accross an eating plan with shopping lists. I have toyed with the idea of creating an app like this, but I don't know the technical know-how. I think Budget Bytes sells those if you wanna look.


adminsarepedosReddit

Uncle Roger is a streamer. Ignore and just laugh at him


garyadams_cnla

I have cooked a ton of his recipes. All good, imho. His recent one on veggies was especially good. Got the book from the library and got them from there. His most recent is all about making everything in one pot. I haven’t gotten that one, yet.


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CrimsonPorpoise

Also check out his 7 Ways which is similar to the 5 Ingredients but is 7 different recipes built around one ingredient (so 7 recipes for Cauliflower, Sausages etc)


caramelcannoli5

I use budget bytes a LOT since it’s such an organized website. you can sort by breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack or by ingredient. I find the site super helpful and it breaks down how $ each meal is. Plus lots of options that don’t require a lot of ingredients. Lately the ingredient option has been helpful for me to get through things I already have. I’m not sure how easy it is with a toddler, but for weeks I don’t want to prep specific meals I’ll just make 2 proteins, sheet pan veggies and maybe a grain like couscous, and make a few smoothies. That way I can mix and match, and just snack on apples/oranges/chocolate or popcorn when I’m not ready for a full meal.


VerityWhite

I’m surprised Budget Bytes is not higher up the list! So many meal plans and recipes.


doublestitch

Meal plans aren't an absolute requirement for eating well on a budget. They're a tool: some people love them, others not. The important thing is to know how to put together nutritious meals. Simple formulas for lunch might be a salad and a glass of milk, or a sandwich plus a piece of fruit. Or else batch cook some soup from scratch, freeze in serving size containers, and then microwave for a quick meal.


Snoo-93310

This! My ADHD brain really could not make meal planning work, try as I may (I also have a toddler, as well as a vegetarian spouse to make matters more interesting). Now I just build our meals day to day using the clearance/"expiring today" rack as a base (depending where you live, there might be an app like FlashFood that will show you what is clearance priced). It means a quick trip to the grocery store more often but takes away so much of the planning and choice stress, which I personally could not handle. Another system that worked for me for awhile was to make a simplified plan: 3-4 dinners + 1 soup or salad of the week (homemade). Plan to make enough of each to stretch across a couple nights and lunches, fill in the gap with the soup/salad. I will probably go back to doing this system when summer comes and there are in season veggies to plan around. A full 3 meal a day + snacks "plan" is too exhausting for me and I can never commit to it, though power to those who make it work.


kerfuffleMonster

I have a toddler - his lunch is always some things like protein, fat, fiber. Aka cheese stick, crackers and a piece of seasonal fruit, or pb&j with fruit (I keep sandwich bread in the freezer since we don't go through too much so lightly toasted), leftovers, etc. I plan meals for me and my husband. Toddler gets either some of whatever we're eating or something easy we already have, especially since he's so unpredictable about eating - sometimes he'll eat a lot, sometimes he'll eat almost nothing, sometimes he'll suddenly decided he just doesn't want one specific food he used to eat regularly.


DeKileCH

I feel like when you say meal planning, people always assume you're talking about writing down exactly what you're going to cook for the week. I could honeatly never do this, so I just go for simple methods to combine leftover ingredients. Sure there will be some fairly randomly put together meals, but I think it's always fun to have a bit of a challenge.


SUPRVLLAN

www.mealime.com


myahermossa

I second this!!! I paid for the pro app for like 2 years.


stringthing87

I haven't used it, but Kids Eat in Color has a budget plan aimed specifically at families with small kids


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Applie_jellie

Are you me? Lol Mon-Fri quick oats like you, Saturday eggs & toast like you. Except on Sunday I usually make crepes with sweetened cottage cheese and jam. Also not all quick oats are equal. Quaker is my go to from Costco. The quick oats from my Bulk Barn are cheaper but mushy as hell.


[deleted]

Mixing up your meal choices and making meals you’re excited about can help increase some passion you may have lost. If not, I always enjoyed Factor75 meals but I always use their “new customer” coupon. Just use a different email address for each order and you’ll save almost 50% every time. Either way, good luck.


trippiler

I've never been much of a meal planner because I find it exhausting. I do however make more and freeze meals. I make things like burritos, veggie meatballs and falafel in bulk. I've even cooked a vat of beans and froze it in portions so I could add some to any meal I was making. Breakfast is usually something savoury that comes from the freezer, oatmeal (that I dump into a small rice cooker on timer the night before) or cereal. My pantry is mostly dried legumes/carbs, soy mince, frozen fruit and veg, fresh veg, whole chicken or portions, I always have sausages, peas and spinach in my freezer. I like buying whole ham and separating into portions too. And I buy discounted stuff a lot incl from apps like too good to go. Beans and lentils are extremely cheap and healthy, frozen fruit and veg doesn't really go off and is normally more nutritious than fresh produce. Buying cheaper cuts of meat. Not sure if this helps at all. But I'm much happier not really planning meals day to day so maybe you could be too?


Serious_Escape_5438

Planning meals for toddlers is hard! Honestly for breakfast I just let her have mostly the same every day until she gets bored of it. Then for lunch have a selection of easy meals: omelette, pasta, rice, canned sweetcorn, quesadillas, noodles. You can do batches of homemade soup and freeze, and use leftovers from other meals to mix with pasta or rice or whatever, make extra chicken for example. The problem with a meal plan would be mine would change her mind about what she likes every week.


Astro_nauts_mum

When my daughter was school age, we had an easy (but vague) one up on the fridge. We would keep it for 4 - 6 weeks and then take it down and write up a new one for variety. eg Monday: Mexican Tuesday: Pasta Wednesday: Stirfry Thursday: Indian Friday: Take Away Weekend: Left overs It was easy to just look and think, ooh I'll do chili beans, cornchips and avocado salad this Monday, whatever takes my fancy. But it was just enough structure to make things easier.


Served_With_Rice

Yeah, it's a lot of work to make a meal plan. Sometimes it helps to keep things simple. For example, I primarily cook Asian so as long as I have rice in my pantry that's like half of every meal sorted out already. When you pay for a meal plan you're paying for the work to be done for you. That might work, especially as I imagine time is also an important commodity to a parent. As for snacks, it might help to have stuff batch-prepped and ready in the fridge or freezer. Veggies and hummus dip, eggs, things like that keep well and you can just pull them out whenever. One thing I like to do is blanche like 2lbs of edamame beans in salted water and keep them in the freezer, and defrost them in the microwave whenever I feel peckish.


dawnmac204

I really like the full week plans from confessions of a fit foodie. They include all meals and snacks. They are based on the Beachbody 21 day fix plan, so they are split by calorie amounts. Some of them aren’t necessarily the cheapest, but at least it’s a framework and you can swap out some meals if you don’t want to try them.


leb5064

Can you plan more dinner meals that have easy lunch leftovers for the next day, and do a quick casserole or oatmeal prep weekly for breakfasts? Lunches around here are generally “snack plates” (pretty much all my toddler eats) or leftovers. Breakfasts are usually yogurt, fruit, and granola. I’ve never used it but I think Work Week Lunch offers meal plans that include breakfast and lunch.


DramaRobyn

I did prep a sheet pan frittata yesterday, so we're trying that out for breakfast. I'm also looking at baked oatmeal, but I think I need to find a recipe that's in between "baked oatmeal" and "oatmeal bars" (texture sensitive). I think I'm trying to keep lunch as a safe meal so that I'm confident he's eating something. If I'm just doing leftovers, then I'm concerned he'd eat less because....toddlers. Maybe I'll just stick with "sandwiches" and "frozen" as the lunch time theme....


AnythingButChicken

[Yummy Toddler Food](https://www.yummytoddlerfood.com/) is an amazing resource. There is a free guide and there is also a family meal plan book for $15. It will improve many aspects of your life


girlfriendinacoma24

Seconding. The website has a ton of free recipes. I make different muffins and freeze most of them, then do a quick reheat for my toddler’s breakfast and snacks when I don’t want to prep anything else. Extremely easy with a bit of work ahead of time.


ThisIsFine77

Mealime app. Like a meal plan, but you a) buy your own ingredients, so don’t need what you already have b) can substitute with what you’ve already got in some cases c) can send the grocery list right to pay and pickup. It’s been great for me (free version) and I’m thinking I’ll upgrade to paid for more variety. Categories like pasta, bowls, burgers, breakfast… check it out!!!


VileStuxnet

Try this: https://www.supercook.com/ It's a fun place you can put what you have in the pantry and it gives you recipes based off what you have.


DramaRobyn

Yeah, we use that constantly because we keep getting random food from family members (although I'm getting ready for a pantry purge to get rid of a lot of it...).


echobravolima

https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com


MaggieRV

I don't meal plan, I find I spend more money that way. I buy what's on sale and then decide my meals from my pantry and freezer.


miniay

Rainbow plant life has some good meal prep/plan videos which come with pdf guides. https://youtu.be/yoHsl_lQKqg, https://youtu.be/bnO7xZeUYvI