The Benefits Of Menu Planning

If you’re wanting to save money on the groceries and make life easier at the same time, then menu planning is the answer.

Menu planning is writing out in advance what you’re going to eat for the next so many days. I’ve written about how to menu plan previously if you want to check it out. There are many different ways to menu plan so adjust it to suit your circumstances.

Over the years my menu planning has changed and evolved to suit our circumstances. Some of the ways it has changed is that we now buy meat in bulk rather than weekly, so I plan out what we are going to eat around what we already have on hand. I’ve started planning weekend lunches more, as I’ve found that’s where we tend to go for takeaway. And we’ve also changed from weekly to fortnightly planning as our pay cycles change.

So why menu plan? Below I’ve listed some of the benefits of menu planning.

Menu Planning Saves You Money

By planning what you are going to eat and writing out a shopping list based on your plan, you aren’t buying food that might get wasted. As supermarkets spend millions on working out ways to tempt you into impulse buying, having a plan helps you avoid impulse and reduce the cost of your grocery bill.

You can use supermarket tactics though to your advantage, by planning meals based on supermarket specials. Decide for yourself though, what is a bargain. Often a supermarket’s idea of value isn’t necessarily good value at all. And a lot of what is in their flyers is pre packaged or junk food that you can make cheaper yourself or avoid altogether.

Planning meals and buying all the groceries at once means less trips to the supermarket, which means less petrol and less temptation to impulse buy.

Planning meals also reduces the need for falling back on takeaway and fast food, which can be horrendously expensive – and can cost you extra petrol to pick it up.

Menu planning helps you plan the cheapest meals for those weeks when it is harder to make ends meet.

Menu Planning Saves You Time

Reducing the amount of times that you go to the supermarket not only saves you money, it saves you time. Running to the shops everyday to pick up something for dinner of grab something that was forgotten eats into your time. And not only going to the supermarket, but going out for takeaway takes time also.

Planning what you’re going to have in advance means that you avoid the ‘what are we having for dinner dilemma’ every night. Having it in writing and easily accessible means that you can get home and go straight into preparing it, or even better, your partner or the kids could have done it for you! This also reduces the nag factor, the other members of your household don’t have to ask what’s for dinner, it’s written there so that they can see for themselves.

When your menu plan is easily accessible, it also serves as a reminder to defrost food before it is needed. Cooking marinated meat or need pre-soaked beans? The menu plan helps remind you that these things need to be done ahead of time.

A menu plan helps increase efficiency by allowing you to easily pre-prepare food. Chopping an onion and know that you’ll need one for tomorrow also? Why not chop it all at once and save time and washing up tomorrow. It only takes a few extra seconds to chop an extra onion, but a lot longer if you have to get everything out again the next day, peel and chop the onion and wash up the board.

A menu plan helps you plan meals around your schedule. So if you have a busy night during the week, you can plan an easy meal for that night, or pre-prepare something for that night. Menu planning also helps you plan double up or bulk meals where you cook extra and freeze the leftovers. These leftovers can then be easy, nutritious and inexpensive reheat meals for busy nights.

And the best time saving benefit? Planning a night off! “This is your night to cook honey, I’m off to soak in the the tub.”

Menu Planning Saves Waste

Menu planning can help you use up what you have before it expires, by planning meals based on what you already have on hand. If you plan a meal that uses sour cream for example, then plan another meal or some baking to use up the rest of the sour cream before it expires.

Stats show that around 40% of the food that we buy gets wasted. That’s almost half of your food bill going straight in the bin. And that’s on average – some people waste more! To put this into real terms, the Australia Bureau of Stats revealed that the average family basket of groceries in 2007 cost $281 per week. If 40% is being wasted then the average family is literally throwing close to $6,000 in the bin per year.

Menu planning to reduce waste alone could save you big time on the grocery bill.

Menu Planning Can Improve Nutrition And Diet

Planning meals can help ensure that you are eating a balance of foods. You may plan a beef meal one night followed by a vegetarian meal, followed by a quick pasta on a busy night, followed by a fish meal. Planning can also ensure you have a pantry stocked full of all the good foods, whilst avoiding all those junk foods. They’re not tempting you if they’re not in the pantry.

Menu Planning Allows You To Be More Creative in The Kitchen

One of the biggest criticisms of menu planning is that it stifles creativity. I think that it’s just the opposite.

Do you have dozens of cook books and magazines? How often do you try something new? Do you look at the recipes and think, I don’t have the ingredients on hand. Sitting down to menu plan means that you can thumb through those cookbooks and plan to cook a new recipe, write down the ingredients that you need and ensure that they are on hand when you go to cook it. I find that with menu planning I cook more new recipes than if I don’t plan.

But what about that spontaneous creativity that comes when you look into the pantry and whip something  up outrageous without rules and without recipes? Again, I think that planning helps here too. If you don’t have food in the fridge and in the pantry, then these spontaneous forays into creativity are practically impossible anyway. Sometimes it pays to plan for spontaneity.

I usually plan a ‘free’ day. This day is interchangeable. If my free day is on Wednesday, but I feel creative on Tuesday, well I switch. Sometimes I’ve planned chicken pie, but would rather seared chicken with creamy mustard sauce. Nothing is set in stone, a menu plan is there to help you, not impede you.

I’ve been menu planning now for almost 8 years. While having a well stocked kitchen gets me around those lazy weeks where I don’t plan, things run much more smoothly and I save a lot more money and time when I do menu plan.