The Importance Of Planning Meals

I won't tell you how much money I've wasted over the past two months, since moving house. What little respect for me you may have, would be gone and never to return. I recently downloaded Toshl Finance on my phone, in a vague attempt to understand where all my dolla was going, and although I never manage to keep it up for more than two days at a time, I've become aware that my trips to the Co-op are costing far too much, and are far too regular. Having a pretty good supermarket so close is a blessing and a curse. Why stuff a weekly shop into your puny student fridge when you can just pop out everyday to get something for dinner? WELL there is a reason. It is money management and health. There are two reasons.

Money Management

If you don't plan, using up what you already have in your cupboards, you're going to be spending unnecessary money. Instead, you can plan your meals and only buy in the extras you need, with a budget in mind, so you're halving the ingredients you could be picking up to make a meal. Why pick up curry sauce and rice if you already have pasta in? Just pick up some pasta sauce. That is the general idea. If you are in desperate need of a curry, this is fine. I am talking about believing there is no option other than curry. There is. Your pasta is waiting. On another note, curry sauce and pasta is a really good combination. Get the curry sauce, fuck rice.

Health

If you take time to plan your meals, you're less likely to impulse buy that reduced pizza, or order in a takeaway. But also, you can make your meals a lot healthier by using up your veggies. Invest a couple of pounds in vegetables for the week and see how you can use them up by putting them in every meal. If you buy bell peppers to dip in hummus, why not fry them off and add them to pasta sauce, on top of pizzas, in curry or in your scrambled eggs. It's the same with spinach and broccoli, they can be added to most meals. 

You want pizza but you have wraps/bread, pasta sauce, cheese and vegetables in the fridge. Make a pizza with that! Recipe here. 

This morning, I was thinking of going to the shops later to find something for dinner. But after contemplation over a cuppa tea, staring out at the perpetual morning rain, I went through my fridge and cupboard. It only took half an hour to realise I could last another week for just £6!! Bloody heck.

Take a look at what I came up with and try to do the same with what's in your cupboards. This wasn't premeditated for the blog, it's just a normal day with a fairly random assortment of food I had left over. I think I'm in a good position because I have a really well stocked cupboard, so my food shops are mainly for perishable fridge food. Once the base ingredients are there, shopping is fairly cheap!

As so many of you are just moving to uni, would anyone be interested in a cupboard tour? I know, it sounds funny but I reckon it would be useful to some. I wish I'd seen one! 

Let me know if you see any more meal potential in what I have written down, that I haven't thought of! It would be cool to find more ideas! :) 

Happy eating,