I was not a fan of meal planning until well into my adulthood. It felt restrictive, and I didn’t love the idea of eating the same prepared meals every day, which is why I’ve always preferred the flexibility of food prepping. I’m a savvy shopper, passionate about food waste, and enjoy cooking, so why would I need a meal plan?
Ultimately, the desire to save money led me to create a meal plan on a budget, and I quickly learned that with the right approach, you can prepare delicious, affordable meals while sticking to a realistic grocery budget. Having an arsenal of easy and frugal recipes like my cheesy bean dip (three ingredients), cabbage and beef, and a one-pan sausage and rice helps keep you on track, along with a simple strategy which I’ll share below!
You can apply these tips to any healthy lifestyle, including low-carb, high-protein, dairy, and gluten-free. Create stress-free, budget-friendly meals that make your week easier and wallet happier!
Preparing three meals a day, whether for your family or just yourself, can feel overwhelming, and sticking to a budget can make it even more challenging. Many people assume meal planning is only for families, but cooking for one person comes with its own set of hurdles. In this post, I’m sharing practical tips and strategies to help you create a meal plan on a budget that works for any lifestyle.
Meal planning is simply knowing what meals you will have throughout the week. It’s not the same as meal prepping, which is preparing complete meals. Meal prepping requires much more time because you cook meals for the whole week. In my opinion, meal planning gives you a little more flexibility. You still know what you’ll eat all week, but you don’t have to dedicate an entire Sunday afternoon to preparing meals. In this post, I’m sharing my tips for meal planning on a budget and for pulling it together as quickly and stress-free as possible.
Meal Plan On A Budget
You’ll notice that I work backwards. Creating a meal plan on a budget means saving money every step of the way, and that starts with setting a budget, using things you already have, and scouring sales ads. Only then can you plan out your meals.
If you’re a family with young kids, your meal plan will look different than mine. For us, breakfast usually consists of scrambled eggs with cottage cheese and fruit. It takes five minutes. There’s no planning there, but I make sure those items are on my grocery list. All that to say, you don’t have to have a grand plan for every single meal. Sometimes, it’s simply having the ingredients to quickly assemble your go-to meals.
1. Set A Budget
- First and foremost, you need to know how much money you have to work with. Depending on how many people you have to feed, your weekly food budget can be drastically different than mine, which is why this post gives you the tools you need to meal plan on a budget rather than giving you a set meal plan.
2. Shop Your Kitchen
- Once you’ve set a budget, shop your entire kitchen. Look for items in the pantry, refrigerator, and freezer near expiration. If you’ve had leftover chili in the freezer for three months, it’s time to eat it, and that’s one less meal for the week you need to plan. After you do this, you will have a list of ingredients and meals to use first. Remember, wasting food is throwing money in the trash, and we don’t do that here!
A simple Pantry + Perishables Inventory List, like the one below, makes this and keeping inventory easy!
3. Shop Sales
- You want to do this before you create a meal list. If a great deal catches your eye, plan some meals around that. Try to find deals on items you can pair with some of the ingredients from above that you already have. For example, if you already have two bags of frozen broccoli and some rice, all you need is a protein. You could make beef and broccoli over rice if ground beef is on sale. If chicken breast is on sale, you could make a broccoli, chicken, and rice casserole. Combining ingredients you already have with items on sale is a great place to start when creating a meal plan on a budget.
4. Write Your Meal Plan
- Now it’s time to write your meal plan. This step is the most difficult for people. One day, I was talking to my daughter, and she said, “Some people can’t think of things like you, Mom.” I’ve never forgotten that. My brain never shuts off when it comes to food and recipes, but if you struggle to come up with ideas for meals, there are millions of ideas on the Internet. I recommend doing specific searches on Google. For example, if a rice bowl sounds good, you can search for “rice bowl” + chicken, which will only return rice bowls with chicken. Without the quotation marks, you will get results for anything with a bowl, rice, and chicken.
- Using a pad like this, write down the recipes you want to make on one side and the ingredients you need on the other, crossing off ingredients you already have. When doing this, combine as many ingredients as possible into one meal. For example, if chicken breast is on sale this week, you can use it in many different ways, like my chicken congee, high-protein pasta salad, or 4-ingredient chicken salad. Rice bowls are a great meal prep because the variations are endless. I make a batch of my oven-baked rice every week.
5. Time To Shop
- You now have a plan and a list, but there are additional ways to save on groceries. I share 25 tips in this post. If you’re usually tempted by other things at the grocery store, consider having your groceries delivered. Additional fees may apply, but they may save you money if you know you’ll be tempted to buy other items. My two favorite services are Instacart and Amazon Fresh.
Note. With Instacart, I pay for an annual membership, which provides free delivery on orders of $35 or more. Amazon Fresh does not charge surcharges but does have a delivery fee.
Meal Plan On A Budget – Extra Tips
Avoid Unique Ingredients
- Avoid using unique ingredients that will only be used for one meal. For example, if you find a recipe for chicken curry that calls for unique spices, buy a jar of curry sauce instead. Remember that recipes are guides, not rules, and many ingredients can be substituted or omitted. I wouldn’t go out and buy a five-dollar seasoning for one recipe. I would find a way to work around it. This also helps you repurpose existing ingredients.
Stock Up On Essentials
- Having a variety of seasonings and condiments on hand helps you pull meals together quickly and adapt them easily. For example, suppose you meal prep my broiled chicken thighs. You can completely change the flavor profile by switching up the seasonings you use and the condiments you serve with it. Slowly stock up on seasonings and condiments when they’re on sale. You should be fully stocked within a few weeks, and these ingredients will last a while.
Canned Protein
- Most people think of the meat or seafood department when choosing a main protein, but canned tuna and salmon are healthy and affordable protein options. Tuna salad with rice crackers is one of my favorite high-protein, five-minute lunches, and I always make my high-protein tuna pasta salad for meal prep!
Cook Once, Eat Twice
- At the beginning of your meal plan journey, you can freeze ingredients like cooked protein, rice, and raw and cooked veggies. You’ll have a freezer stocked with ready-to-go ingredients within a few weeks. I always double my broiled chicken thigh recipe and my one-pan sausage recipe (shown below) so I can freeze them into serving-size portions in my favorite freezer containers. one-cup portions. You can use these ingredients to prepare quick, easy meals.
I hope this post has provided helpful ideas for creating a meal plan on a budget. If you have any suggestions, please share them in the comments below!
Leave a Reply