Meal Planning – Keeping it Frugal

Hey all. Well as you can guess, this post is about how we planned and executed this week’s meals at a fraction of the normal cost. Things have been a bit complicated this week because we have been away from home for 2 1/2 days whilst filming for the television programme we are on and so we had to incorporate in the plans, meals for ourselves and also for our friend who stayed home with the children. She happens to be a vegan so we have had to extend our knowledge and food prep skills in that area too. She is doing us a big favor so we did not want to give her any additional work to cook for the kids or even for herself. So we have had to really plan things carefully and with staying within our budget in mind.

Of course, a meal plan takes into account food preferences and dislikes and also includes making sure that nutritive content is good. So for our friend, we prepared Red Peas stew with rice and salad and also lentil curry. She chose what she wanted to eat it with. 

We also had to bear in mind that eating out can be quite expensive. Instead of eating every meal out whilst we are away, we took with us, food from home enough to suffice for some meals and as a treat, have one meal away. After a full day of filming, we are tired and drained and don’t want to go out to eat anyway, so packet soup mixes serve us well in our hotel room along with bread rolls and nuts. We make our own sandwiches to have on the train for lunch and we also stock up on juice and water which are easy and convenient to take in our suitcases. Breakfast is offered in the hotel as part of the cost of staying there so that has been good.

Here are the additional meals executed this week.

Sunday: Roast Beef Dinner 

Monday: Chicken Pasta Bake

Tuesday: Jamaican Stewed Peas with Beef and Rice

Wednesday: Chicken Pasta Bake

Thursday: Kebab and Chips (Takeaway request by the kids and easy for us too as we returned from filming late and tired)

Friday: Jacket Potato with Cheese and Beans

Saturday: Meatballs and Spaghetti

It was a good week. The filming is going well and we still do try to and manage to stay within budget in terms of the food bill. We do this by carefully planning meals and sticking to them (most of the times anyway). Life will sometimes get in the way and changes need to be made but as long as you don’t drop off and stay off the meal planning cart, it’s ok.

This week we are linking with Katy and learning just how others do their meal planning.

Have a good week and do let us know how your meal plans are going.