Picture this: It’s the end of the week. Your stomach is growling. When you open your pantry there’s nothing but an open package of Poptarts and a bag of flour. The fridge is just as sad with a carton of expired milk and half a jar of spaghetti sauce. It’s a tragic sight.
You’re a broke and hungry college student and you have accepted that this will be your fate for the next four years. That’s a long time to be surviving on ramen and Red Bull, but, hey, it’s cheap. The truth is there’s better food waiting out there for you, and a weekly meal plan is the easiest way to find it.
It can be as affordable, healthy, and delicious as you want. And it's only 6 simple steps.
1. Understand what a meal plan is
I'm a big believer that meal plans will save your budget and probably your life too. But what are they? Simply put, it's a calendar for your food. Once a week I sit down and figure out what I'm having for the next 7 days for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a daily snack. From there it's as easy as making a shopping list and trying your hardest to stick to it.
The Kitchn really understand gets meal plans, ya know? They talk about what they aren't.
Say it with me: meal plans don't have to be pretty, only for big groups, all home cooked, expensive, a lot of work, or inflexible.
2. Take a look at your week and write it down
Now I know that I just emphasized that meal plans do not have to be cutesy and fancy, but I find it more motivating to be working off a cute template instead of a sticky note. That's what I made my go-to format into a printable PDF. Its gives you plenty of room to add in meals (which we're getting to) and to plan your week now.
If this format doesn't work for you there are so many more across the internet. Especially Pinterest. Simply Unscripted has a nice monthly option.
3. Get your recipe ideas
Every Friday that I sit down to write down my plan, I go down a Pinterest rabbit hole of healthy but reasonably priced recipes.
Recently I discovered Skinnytaste which has a huge cache of pre-made plans and tons of ideas for new meals.
But it's important to have a few comfort meals under your belt so your not stuck in the kitchen experimenting all week. After all, midterms are coming up and there are football games to attend. You don't have time to be slaving away every night of the week.
4. Plan smart and save money
Now that you have your ideas it's time to spread them around. Contrary to the popular meal plan laws, I don't plan by day. All I know is that I'm having meatloaf a few times this week and am packing my favorite pasta salad for lunch three days.
A few of my meals (the colorful ones) are my definite meals. Those are the pack to school and smoothie after a workout kind of meals. The rest is just whatever I feel like eating when I feel like it. For me, I feel like I have more freedom and can truly eat what I want and not what the Nicole who made the meal plan a week ago wanted.
5. Stay on budget
It's easy to get carried away here. Suddenly you want to make french fried caviar and four variations of pasta, all with different sauces and all this week. I hate to break it to you, but food does cost money. And some food costs a lot of money.
I'm a religious user of Walmart Grocery. Every week I make sure that I'm on budget before I leave the house. Usually that involves a little tweaking before I finalize my list.
If I'm a little over, maybe I'll pass on expensive fruit and change it for always cheap bananas as my snack. If I have some spare money, I'll treat myself to some humus with my pita chips. Or I could stash away that money into savings in case I need to go over budget next week.
6. Do it all over again
I'm proud of you! You just made a healthy meal plan that's within your budget! You're unstoppable! Now it's time to eat those delicious meals that you spent your day planning.
Then we do it all over again.
That's the problem with meal planning. It's not a one and done kind of deal. Making a few meal plans to rotate through adds spice to your life. Or if meal plan makes you feel alive--I'll own up to that--try making a few adjustments to old meal plans each week. Maybe having a guideline might make your life a little bit easier.
What are the hardest parts of meal planning for you?
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