I know, planning meals to inflation is not fun, But it is also no secret that meal planning saves HUGE on the budget!
Especially in these times of inflation and rising food prices, it is important that we do what we can to keep our money under control. So let's find cost-effective ways to plan your meals based on inflation and ever-increasing grocery prices.
1. Meal Plan What You Have
Before inflation planning your meals, take inventory. And yes, I'm talking about the actual inventory of what you have in your refrigerator, freezer, pantry, and spare refrigerator (not everyone has an extra refrigerator these days).
Garage? Write down what you have and create your meal list inflation from there before creating a list of meals you want to have during the week.
There's no better way to create a budget-friendly meal plan than working with what you already have on hand!
2. Make a Family Favorites List
If you've read my book Get Rich With Money, you know all about the blue binder in the pantry that holds all of my family's favorite recipes. You don't have to create a notebook, but you should at least have a list of your family's favorite foods.
Rotate these meals. You already know your family loves these meals, which means they'll actually eat! And reducing food waste is important (especially now that food prices are rising). So make sure to rotate these meals when meal planning to suit your budget.
3. Only Buy What You’ll Eat
Now is not the time to try crazy new ingredients that may or may not please the whole family. That doesn't mean you can't try new recipes, However, try to choose recipes that use very specific new ingredients that you haven't tried before. And when you use those ingredients, Google inflation will substitute them until you find an alternative that your family will actually eat.
4. Remember the Filler!
If you've been reading my blog posts about controlling food costs, you're probably familiar with fillers. Filling foods are food inflation that are added to a plate to stretch it.
Filling food inflation are usually inexpensive ingredients like cabbage and onions, but you can also use cheaper ingredients like meat to make the meal last longer. So when planning your meals, look for fillers that you can add to your meals.
- Shredded cabbage and carrots go well with tacos!
- If you add potatoes to the fried flour, it will double in size!
- Adding spinach to pasta provides more nutrients.
- Adding rice to these quesadillas stretches the quesadilla meat, so you can make more for lunch the next day.
5. Actually Eat what You Make
This may seem obvious, but it has to be said. You can plan your meals all you want, but it's pointless if you don't actually eat the food you buy. You have to actually eat the food.
For this reason, you should create a meal plan with food inflation you know your family will eat. There's no point in maintaining a grocery budget or keeping food costs under control if you're not eating the food you bought with your hard-earned money. That's why you should also check.
6. Meal Plan Around Your Week
Yes. If you want to make sure that the meal plan you create is suitable for your family, he should actually create a meal plan for the week. So before you start meal planning, first take a look at your calendar and see what you plan on doing this week.
If you won't be home or running around much next week, plan lots of crackpot meals or super quick meals. It's the wrong time to make a recipe with 25 different steps and long cooking times just because you don't have the time. Be realistic about what your week will look like and plan accordingly.
Conclusion
Be prepared to use abbreviations whenever possible. Seriously. If you have trouble getting vegetables on the table, buy frozen vegetables instead of fresh ones. If you purchase this steam-in-the-bag, all you have to do is heat it in the microwave, add avocado oil, salt and pepper, and voila! The vegetables are ready! There is no prep work.
If you're having trouble finding the time to cook that whole chicken you keep buying, consider buying a rotisserie chicken instead. There is no preparation. No cooking. You can also shred the meat while it's still hot from the store and save it for later use.
In order! If you have any tips to make meal planning of food inflation easier despite rising costs, please share them below. We all love budget-friendly meal plans. And if you want more meal planning tips and tricks from me, as well as already created recipes and meal plans, click here to get my Meal Planning Made Easy Workbook please. I worked hard for you!