September Meal Planning: Week Three
Here we are - getting ready to start week three of this grand experiment!
Last week went mostly to plan food-wise although I didn't get as many recipe posts up as I had anticipated. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up this week...
I would give us an A- for the week in terms of sticking to the plan. The only variation we had was that we skipped the veggie soup I had planned for Wednesday and Thursday. Instead, we had Korean pancakes and dumplings - that we already had in the freezer. So, we went off plan but we didn't spend any additional cash... not too bad!
Week Three
This week, we're having overnight oats for breakfast with lots of spinach and greek yogurt to make sure we're hitting our leafy green and protein goals first thing in the morning.
For lunch, we're having beef kebab, veggie and tatziki quinoa bowls. These were a result of the kebabs being on sale and are pretty similar to the lamb kebab quinoa bowls we had in week one.
For dinner, we had to adjust the plan slightly and move the kimchi fried rice and dumplings nights to the later in the week. This was because... I forgot to buy kimchi. The Korean grocery store that we frequent is near my office so I'll need to pick up those ingredients after work one day this week. Instead, we're starting the week with Japanese beef curry and rice.
This week's meal prep was actually really easy. Like last week, I left the dinner prep until the evening and the recipe makes loads of leftovers so we're all set there. In reality, the only cooked meal prepping I had to do was to make the quinoa and bake the kebabs. After that, it was a simple task of sautéing up some onions, peppers, and spinach. I also made a super quick tatziki using the Greek yogurt and cucumber.
Having overnight oat breakfasts during the week means the prep time is a bit quicker than with our egg cups since there isn't a cooked component.
What did we buy?
Fruit: Bananas (7), Apples (6)
Vegetables: Broccoli (1), Red Bell Pepper (3), Onions (3), Cucumber (1)
Dairy / Dairy Alternatives: Almond Milk (2), Greek Yogurt (2x500g), Milk (pint)
Meat: None
Frozen: None
Cupboard: Honey (1), Olive Oil (1), Bread (1),
Household: None
Week Two Total Spent: £23.93
September Total: £132.77 + £23.93 = £156.70
Thoughts So Far
When working out our household food budget, I used the equation shared by Jordan Page from "Fun, Cheap or Free". I came across her video on food budgets about two years ago and found it really helpful when thinking about how we manage our household cash (see my post about starting our frugal meal planning here)
In particular, as mentioned in that frugal meal planning post, what I liked about her system was that it was simple - just $100 per person per month for groceries (including all non-food items you might buy at the grocery store like cleaning supplies, etc.). The plan starts at $300 (even for a family of two like us) and doesn't grow to $400 until you're a family of four.
So, by that measure, we should be spending £300 a month on our household groceries (I just did a straight conversion rather than messing around with exchange rates!). When you put it those terms... the fact that we're only at £156.70 means we have £143.30 left in that budget.
Not too shabby considering we only have one more week's worth of groceries to purchase this month!
Week three, here we come!
