Friday Question #96
Do you plan out your meals for the week? Or do you eat on the fly?
Here is what I am trying to figure out – how you all do it. So many bloggers I read say they plan out their meals for the week (that was a big tip on last week’s Friday Question) – it saves them time, money (they can stick to a shopping list), and helps them stay on a healthy diet. Maybe the question should be:
How the hell do you know what you will want to eat a week (or a few days) in advance?
Seriously! Steven and I have list of meals we rotate through (in no particular order), but some nights, we don’t know what we want to eat. We have to discuss it. We have certain staples we keep in the pantry that allow us to make dishes on the fly. And we do tend to cook more over the weekend so we can use the leftovers during the week, but we never sit down and plan out our (dinner) meals. It’s more like a phone call (or email) at 5:00 pm – “Thai sound good?” or “How about pizza tonight?!”
I do tend to eat the same thing for breakfast and a rotate through similar items for lunch. I guess I am assuming people are talking about planning their dinners?
Note: After writing this, I read Kara’s post on the same topic! She is setting a goal to start meal planning. Check out her post!
Themocracy
I plan out the menu for the week. I enjoy cooking and trying out new recipes so I will plan one or two new dishes and a few dishes I know everyone likes. Part of my meal planning does include nights that we will have left overs. For example, my husband loves my home made spaghetti sauce. The result of the recipe is a large pot of spaghetti sauce. I will freeze some, after we eat what we want, and then usually serve it again the next night. That way my groceries go further. Some nights we do what we call scrounge around, that means everyone has to fend for themselves. By freezing extras like the spaghetti sauce, or a soup in quart bags (a single serving at a time) then when have those scrounge around nights, we have more to choose from. We rarely eat out so those scrounge around nights are important to me, it gives me a break from the cooking. I keep things around like rice and other items so if I feel like making a dessert at the last minute I have the ingredients to do so. The rice is for a rice pudding. I also keep ingredients around that make easy meals so if my daughter wants to cook us supper she has what she needs.
I home school my daughter so meal planning for lunch is important as well. Sometimes the lunch is a sandwich, other times it is as elaborate as a home made chicken pot pie and a chocolate mouse (for my daughter).
Breakfast meal planning is the easiest. Both my daughter and I enjoy cheerios so that is what we usually eat. Although last night she begged me to make her french toast for breakfast this morning.
I do not know what the family will want for the week. What I do is when I a meal planning, I will usually ask them if they would like a particular meal during the week. Since I am the grocery shopper and the meal planner, I decide what we will be having and just ask them if a particular thing sounds good to them to have sometime during the week. When I am trying out a new recipe, the best answer they get about what I will be cooking until it is actually served, is that I am making a surprise. LOL
As ya’ll can tell I am neither a vegan or a vegetarian. I hope that it is ok for me to discuss this topic and the foods we eat here.
I have just started meal planning and it’s working great. We go grocery shopping once every two weeks. I just plan meals with veggies that will spoil fast at the beginning of the week, and meals with things that will last in the fridge until the end. We might have to stop at the store one or two times for something we forgot or something we wanted that we knew would spoil if we got it too early. Besides that it seems to be working. It also keeps Brad from eating cookies for dinner when I work a night shift.
Funny you should ask this, we just started making more of an effort in the past month to plan our meals. It’s gone relatively well so far – I think the trick (for us anyway) is to make sure we plan at least 2 meals, maybe 3 for the week. That way we have options for lunch and dinner; we still retain some flexibility. We’re each on our own for breakfast, but for whatever reason I don’t mind eating the same thing every day for that meal – for a long time it was oatmeal, and these days it’s a delicious quinoa/couscous dish. It does help that my husband’s main new hobby is cooking…I’m not sure how well this whole planning thing would be going otherwise!
We do about 50/50. We plan specific dinners for 3 or 4 dinners for the week, but then assume that we’ll have leftovers and a few “on the fly” pantry meals 2 or 3 times a week too. It works out for us, because, like you, I like to leave the options for dinner a bit open– especially on the nights when I teach all day, I’m not usually in the mood to fix a formal, “planned” meal.
Have a great Friday, Kim!
The most planning I do is announce to hubby “this week maybe I’ll make meatloaf / enchiladas / [whatever strikes my fancy]”, so you might classify my preparation/planning as very much on the fly… I may have a vague idea that I have the ingredients required for enchiladas, let’s say, and that I’d maybe like to make ’em sometime in the near future, but when exactly, it gets determined by mood and hubby’s return-from-work time. … and when I do fix something, we usually have leftovers for one or two subsequent meals. I can’t see myself planing meals out… perhaps with kids it becomes more of a necessity, but right now we’re fine without either meal planning or kids 😀
At the beginning of the week we usually figure out if there is any specific food that we’re craving and we pick meals based around that. And in my head I consider the meals slightly fluid too – if I planned chili on Friday night but on Tuesday that’s what I want, then I’ll make it on Tuesday. But yeah, there are some days where what I planned just doesn’t sound appealing. I find that usually it doesn’t sound appealing just because I’m feeling lazy though – not appealing = too much work 😉 So sometimes we go off schedule and go out to eat (very rarely, but like yesterday’s lunch), scrounge something up from pantry items, or pick up a couple of ingredients to make something different if we have a particular craving.
I think the first couple of weeks we meal planned it was very hit or miss, but now that we’re used to it it’s kind of nice to not have that 10 minute talk about what we want to eat. We’re both pretty indecisive though so maybe that’s part of it 🙂
I don’t plan out a menu for the week, even though I probably SHOULD. It would save me a lot of stress and anxiety! But I don’t like knowing that I “have” to eat a particular thing at a particular time, you know? I might have a general idea, like if I have an ingredient I need to use up, I’d find something to do with it… but nothing really written in stone.
<3 <3
hehehe.. i do NOT plan. my sister does for the whole week. i find it to be too much of a pain and not enough of a help. we just keep things like veggies, soup, pasta, veggie burgers (and eggs for elliot) around and usually throw together some combination of those. i eat the same exact bfast every day and similar lunches. it’s just way easier for us.
I don’t have a concrete plan but I do think up a few things I can make with the same ingredients and then wing it from there. I also make two servings of things so that I can have lunch the next day. I don’t know how I will manage if I ever get a significant other. I only seem to know how to cook two servings of things. There goes my lunch!
I try to plan for the entire week on the weekend, when I have time to go to the grocery store. I’ve been doing a terrible job lately, which makes it so easy to eat crap or come home and get crabby because we have nothing to eat!
If we had a more normal schedule, I would meal plan to a degree. As is, we’re lucky if we even eat a dinner 2 times a week with our work schedules. It’s an awkward set up, basically not eating a meal at all most days, but we’ve gotten used to it.
We plan 3-4 meals for the week… and then pick up simple quick to make stuff like ravioli or sweet potato… salad stuff so on nights that we don’t want to cook we can put one of those together… We write a list and just pick an item from it through out the week… if I am really not in the mood to put anything together then I made oatmeal. :)… it works great for us… a) I can’t stand thinking about what to have for dinner.. I like to just consult a list and say I want this.. and b) I buy all of groceries on Friday night or Sat after workout and am set and don’t have to step into a grocery store for a whole week. Breakfast is the easiest..cause i have green juice and Raymond has bagel and espresso..
Our fridge is FULL on Sat and Completely Empty on Friday.. works perfect 🙂
I plan out my meals every Sunday for the entire week. I sometimes switch which meal on what day but other than that I stick to my schedule. Luckily my bf isn’t picky and he’ll eat whatever I put in front of him. I guess it’s never a question of what I feel like that week. Normally I’m making stuff I enjoy so it’s usually like ooo I can’t wait to have this on Wednesday! Haha I dunno. It’s a little weird how regimented I can be!
At least 2 meals a week are planned after we go grocery shopping. We get all of the needed items we normally eat for the week. One staple that’s a part of our new diet is salads, so automatically, we get salad fixings. Most of our meals that we have are salads (not just a simple side salad, but more elaborate salads that are meals with veggies, egg, sometimes a meat). We also add a starch, like a a small red potato.
I’m starting to plan my meals better as we roll into our new diet. Because I love to cook, I’m leaning more towards being creative with our meals, trying to include at least two food groups for each meal.
On Sunday Jason and i sit down and talk about our schedule for the week – If I have something after work, if he has a paper due that he needs to work on, when I want to run/go to the gym, what time we’ll be home, etc. Then I choose meals that work with our schedule. I’m going to be out until 8PM at the gym? I need to prep something that he can throw in the oven. I’ll be home by 7:30? I can make dinner when I get home but it needs to be something quick. I write out the menu and make a grocery list based on that. Breakfast is the same thing every morning and lunches tend to be leftovers, sandwiches, or the occasional frozen meal (unless I get ambitious and plan and make something in advance). Because our evenings are so scheduled and we both get home so late, I HAVE to plan in advance or we wouldn’t eat until 9PM!
I guess it comes down to the following: I eat to live. I don’t live to eat. So, I’m perfectly happy not having too many choices and just going with what I’ve written down. Makes me less stressed in the long run.
God bless the people who can plan our their meals. I do not work in such an organized fashion. PLUS, my buds can never be that predictable. They have a mind of their own and often don’t want what I’ve planned for lunch that day–never mind later that week. Maybe these planners are on to something?! Maybe they have less binges/mindless eating than I do. Hmmm…
Hmmm…I guess I am somewhat boring – I’m so into planning and pretty much know what my favorite foods are (like, I could eat quinoa or oatmeal any day of the week). So I just pick two recipes/week that usually share an ingredient or two – for example, this week I made 2 quinoa recipes and used cilantro for both of them (I always end up wasting so much cilantro! hahaha I know, it’s about $0.89, but it kills me). I make them on the weekend and eat the leftovers all week.
I guess I have never been ABLE to be the kind of person who just eats what they crave/want – because I can never figure it out! Sure, sometimes things don’t sound good to me after I’ve made them. On those nights I go with a quick, easy meal – like an egg sandwich or savory oats.
Simply put, I’m a creature of habit and pretty darn boring! If I find a husband, he’d better not mind.
For me, this is a tough one. I can get way too obsessive with meal planning — trying to buy exactly the right amount of food so nothing is wasted, etc. Also, it’s important to me to have a good relationship to my body and to listen to what it wants. So, if I want homemade pizza even though I really “should” use the leftovers, I go with the pizza. Yes, I feel guilty sometimes. I feel like I’m wasting food or something. The freezer is my friend, as it can absolve guilt most of the time 😉 I do think it’s inconvenient to go to the store multiple times. So, I try to load up on some staples. I just don’t have the energy around food anymore to sit down and write out everything I plan on eating. I can’t be that structured. I did this for years, with an anorexia mindset, and I just don’t feel right about it anymore. Life is more enjoyable for me if I can take each day as it comes.
Great question! I love your Friday questions 🙂
I just eat/make meals on the fly. Don’t get wrong, I would LOVE to plan out meals, it seems like it would make things easier.. but, living with my parents doesn’t really allow it. Or it does but I don’t feel like doing it while living with them. 😛 Heh..
Are you thinking about giving meal planning a go?
I feel like it is much harder to plan your meals when you live with other adults – more coordination is required!
I probably won’t try meal planning. At this time, anyway!
I tried planning my meals once. I wrote it all down and everything. I got as far as planning for Tuesday and decided that just wouldnt work for me. I eat by my mood, and that changes like 40 times a day.
We are notably lacking someone that wants to cook, so we end up going out way too often. Well, you know, assuming that 5-7 nights a week is too often… 🙂
My wife and I are both unlikely to suddenly start enjoying cooking, so I think what we need is for one or both of our daughters to catch the cooking bug. Not sure how to get that to happen since they aren’t going to get inspiration from us.
I’m a planner. I usually plan, shop, prepare and cook on Sundays. I know what I am having for breakfast and lunch each day and rarely deviate from that. Dinners I kinda plan or have the ingredients of what I think I’ll make, but by week I will be craving something or not wanting what I planned.
If I don’t plan, bad things happen. I start to know the pizza guy by name.
I used to be much better about it than I am now. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time to get a grocery list and meal plan together these days. Not sure why I’ve slacked on it though because I really stressed so much less when I had a plan!
I plan out the meals ahead of time and try to find recipes that use similar ingredients to keep grocery costs down…
I don’t plan out my weekly meals, it’s really hard while at college. But I think once I am responsible for preparing my own foods and grocery shopping I will. I think it would work well for me because it’s pretty rare when I’m in the mood for a particular thing, I’m pretty flexible with what night I eat what.
Meal planning is SUCH a good idea…in theory. It’s really hard to apply it and stick with it though. When I meal plan, and shop accordingly, the meals are usually mostly new recipes and a couple faves. But in all honesty, although I try to meal plan, it usually only happens once a month.
We plan occasional meals, but not a whole week’s worth. A majority of them are on the fly.
Harrison eats the same PB&J sandwiches + banana every day, so that’s easy planning. I usually plan out some basic thing (hummus wraps with fruit, lentils and brown rice, chickpea masala with rice, etc.), but I always plan out my dinners. I have a word document with all the days of the week, and I fill in the main dish and then any sides that will accompany it. Harrison cooks two nights, I cook two or three nights, we go out for one, and we eat leftovers for two. As I fill in the meals, I use a binder of collected recipes or cookbooks and check the pantry. Anything I’m missing, I put in the “grocery list” part of the document (which is organized by section of the store, so I’m not running around back and forth like a crazy lady).
It sounds really neurotic when I type this all out, but…I guess I am neurotic.
Ha ha ha. Yeah…
Usually my dinners are “grab Subway sub on the fly”…does that count as planning ahead? 😉
I’m a planner! I love to cook, which helps, plus planning meals is better for my wallet and my waistline. I shop on Thursdays, buying enough for three main meals during the week (that make enough for plenty of leftovers for work lunches, etc.), and cook the bulk of the food over the weekend. I do it that way because I am often tired during the week, which makes me not want to cook, which makes me prone to eating like crap. We usually eat out once or twice a week which also leaves leftovers. So far this method has worked for me — I tend to prefer food I cook to other options and my weight has stayed steady for several years.
I try to plan lunches and dinners for a week at a time because I’m gone a lot of nights. If I can make a meal and use it for dinner one night and lunch/dinner the next, I try to. However, I find myself stopping for fast food on the way from one job to the other if I don’t plan so I just try to minimize that!