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Shop-Free Meal Planning

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You know when you open your freezer and you see a whole lot of food but you can’t remember all the things that are in there and you can’t be bothered to check? Well, to be honest, that happens here sometimes as well. I’m ashamed. I really do hate food waste and I want to do something about it.


We reckon that we have enough food in the fridge, freezer and cupboards so that we don't have to do any food shopping for at least a couple weeks! See how we did this week.

So what I have done is to clear the freezer, to reveal a whole host of food that I don’t even remember buying. With all the food I discovered and with all my garden produce (only tomatoes and courgettes now) and also food in the cupboards, I reckon I can manage without any food shopping for the next 2 weeks.

I always find that some of the nicest foods I make are from leftover ingredients!

Hurray! I can report that I have managed this for one week so far. You might be thinking I will certainly need to go buy at least milk and bread but no! I made my own bread from ingredients in the cupboard and we always buy and use long life milk which is already in the cupboard.

 


Some of the meals were repeated throughout the week because we had a lot and in our family, we don’t mind that.

So these are the meals we had:

Sunday: Roast Chicken Dinner with potatoes, broccoli, carrots

Monday: Egg and chicken fried rice using chicken from Sunday along with frozen peas and sweetcorn

Tuesday: Oven cooked chicken and chips

Wednesday: Vegetable soup and homemade bread

We reckon that we have enough food in the fridge, freezer and cupboards so that we don't have to do any food shopping for at least a couple weeks! See how we did this week.

Thursday: lentil curry with rice

Friday: Vegetable soup and homemade bread


So far we still have left in the freezer, chicken breasts, pieces of boneless fish, frozen courgettes and carrots which we have cut into big chunks ready to be put into a soup. The cupboards are also stocked with cans and bottles of ingredients such as kidney beans, chickpeas, and sauces.

I am confident that I can pull off another week of meals all from what we already have in. In fact, I am thinking that we may even be able to do two more! We found enough fruits to make at least 5 fruit smoothies, so we should be able to do without buying fresh fruits too.

Since I have started linking up with Katy, I have learned so many positives about meal planning that I could never go back!

Have you ever tried this? Any top tips to share with us? Please use the comment box below.

 

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Filed Under: Frugal

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Comments

  1. Sarah - Mud, Cakes and Wine says

    September 23, 2018 at 11:30 am

    Your soup looks amazing, this is the same here we are about to clear down the freezer of the couple of fish fingers in a packet and the random things we have. as i need to sort out our food waste too

    Reply
  2. Tree says

    September 23, 2018 at 11:45 am

    I’m avoiding the shops at the moment but it’s impressive not to need to buy anything at all!
    Nice one… Meals sound good too.
    Tx

    Reply
  3. Katy Stevens says

    September 23, 2018 at 4:14 pm

    Two more weeks would be fantastic! At the moment we are using up lots of bits we have in as well, I’m really enjoying the challenge. We spent £20-30 less this week (and next week as I’ve done the shop already!) and I’m really pleased x

    Reply
    • Joleisa says

      September 26, 2018 at 10:07 am

      It is certainly doable! With being away for three days this week with traveling and filming, we still have so much food that we haven’t used.

      Reply
  4. Kim Carberry says

    September 24, 2018 at 10:05 am

    I have good intentions of having a shopping free week but it never happens. I have stopped buying for the freezer though. I have so much in it. I love the sound of the soup. Perfect for this time of year x

    Reply

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Hi, we're Jo and Leisa, twin sisters and authors of Joleisa.com. Originally from the sandy beaches of Jamaica we now reside in England where we followed our calling to teach. But sometimes that call changes and our new passion is writing. We're here to give the ups and downs of it all with our lifestyle tips and tricks to help you avoid the sour lemons that can get in our way of frugal budgeting, intentional living and happiness. Join us and learn more about how we found the simplest ways to achieve easy living. Read More…

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