Skills books › Feeding Your Family Well on a Budget

How to plan a week of meals on a budget

Decide what you will eat before you go to the shop. A meal plan on paper is the cheapest kitchen tool there is. It takes about half an hour a week.

Why plan?

Without a plan, most households buy what looks good and then decide each evening what to cook. That leads to:

• extra trips to the shop, each with things you did not mean to buy;
• food thrown away because nobody planned to use it;
• expensive "emergency" suppers, such as takeaways;
• a month-end gap, when the money and the food run out together.

With a plan, you buy only what you need, you use what you buy, and you know before the week starts whether the budget will stretch.

Start from what you have

Check the cupboard, the fridge and the freezer, and write down what you find. Plan the first meals of the week around food that must be used soon. Half a cabbage and three soft tomatoes are Monday's supper, not next week's rubbish.

Build the week

Plan suppers first, because they cost the most. Then plan breakfasts, lunches and lunchboxes.

• Use a plate guide: every supper has a starch, a protein and a vegetable.
• Theme nights: for example, beans on Monday, lentils on Wednesday, eggs on Thursday, fish on Friday and chicken on Sunday. The family knows what is coming, and you plan faster.
• Cook once, eat twice: cook a double pot of beans on Monday and use the rest in a different meal on Tuesday.
• Plan for leftovers: Sunday's extra rice becomes Monday's fried rice with egg and cabbage.
• Keep breakfast cheap: maize-meal or oats porridge with milk, or bread with peanut butter or egg.
• Repeat what works: two or three weekly plans used in turn are enough.

Cost the plan before you shop

Work out roughly what each meal will cost, using the prices on your till slips. Add up the week and compare it with your weekly food budget:

weekly budget = monthly food budget ÷ 30 × 7

If the week comes to more than the budget, swap a chicken night for a bean night before you have spent a cent.

Plan the month, not only the week

Many households are paid once a month. Money is plentiful for a week and scarce for the last one. To close the gap:

• Plan the last week first. Put the cheapest, longest-keeping meals there, such as samp and beans, lentils, pilchards and porridge. Buy those ingredients in the big shop at the start of the month, so that they are already in the cupboard.
• Split the budget into a big monthly shop for staples, tins and dry goods, and a smaller weekly shop for vegetables, fruit, bread and milk. Set the weekly amounts aside in envelopes or a separate account.
• Eat the expensive things early: fresh meat and soft vegetables at the start of the month, dry and tinned foods later.
• Do not spend next week's money on this week's extras.

Cooking for one or two

Cooking for one can feel like too much trouble, which is how people end up living on pies. Cook a pot that lasts two or three meals. Planning matters more, not less, when the budget is small.

This guide is based on Chapter 3 of Feeding Your Family Well on a Budget, which includes one family's costed week.