Groceries can get expensive, so finding ways to make the most of your money during your grocery trip is important! In the United States, the average household wastes 31.9% of their food, estimated to cost about $1,866 per household every year (American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2020).
When thinking of choosing healthier options at the grocery store, your choices can sometimes feel limited because fresh produce tends to spoil quickly. One way to ensure you’re getting the most of your dollar spent at the grocery store is to plan your meals ahead of time.
To help you get started we compiled some online resources for healthy meal planning on a budget. These resources can be a great place to start if you want to cook and eat healthier. Many recipes are kid-approved, making them perfect for school lunches!
How to Meal Plan
In general, meal planning can be broken down into a few steps:
1. Find some recipes you want to try.
There are some great smartphone apps available to help you keep your recipes organized. Some, such as Recipe Keeper, have a meal planning feature in the app, allowing you to choose the recipe you want to make, and it will automatically add the ingredients to a shopping list for you to use at the grocery store.
2. Plan what days of the week you want to make each dish.
This can be customized to fit your family’s schedule! For example, if you know you’re going to be working late on Tuesday, you can plan to make a larger dinner on Sunday or Monday, saving leftovers for Tuesday. This way, you don’t have to cook that night, and the food doesn’t go to waste.
3. Write down the ingredients you need to buy – try selecting some recipes that use the same ingredient.
For example, you want to make a spaghetti dish with roasted zucchini. So you can be sure to use all the zucchini you bought for the week; you’re also going to make this Tex Mex Chicken dish.
4. Head to the grocery store!
Watch for mark-downs on produce, coupons, and specials. It’s always good to go to the store with a game-plan, and only go down the aisles with things you know you need.
If you get to the store with the plan to purchase zucchini for the week, but you notice there’s a great mark-down on asparagus, feel free to switch things up and adjust your meal plan when you get home.
5. Cook, eat, and enjoy!
Keep track of what recipes you liked, so next time you go to my Recipe Keeper app, you can choose from things that you know will be tasty.
As you practice planning your meals and collecting recipes, you’ll find some things work better than others. The great thing about this is that you can tailor the entire meal plan to you and your family.
Healthy Eating Resources
Here are some online resources with recipe ideas, examples of weekly meal plans, shopping lists, and more:
- This is a free PDF document complete with a week’s worth of meals, shopping list, and recipes.
- There are Vegan and Vegetarian options of the same meal plan that you can find here, along with videos and other helpful tips and tricks.
- 7-Day Budget Meal Plan and Shopping List.
- A cheap & healthy family meal plan.
- Healthy meal planning on a budget + 15 tips from a nutrition therapist.
- 12 days of healthy meals for less than $10 a day.
- 10 cheap dinner ideas for eating healthy on a budget.
Your Health Matters!
At the Family Health Clinic, we provide high-quality, affordable primary health care and mental health services to the areas surrounding Burlington, Delphi, Monon, and Wolcott. If you’d like to make an appointment, call us today at (800) 321-5043.
