Help planning grocery shopping?

Question

I am a complete mess when it comes to grocery shopping! (The great irony is I'm someone's personal cook part time....good cook, bad shopper, I guess!)

I am a college student and have only this year gone off a meal plan.

I've been a wreck; I usually just soups and PB&J because I'm so overwhelmed.

I love to cook, but I don't know how to plan for the week.

Please help!

How do I get organized? Should I plan out my meals in advance? (That's what I do for my boss)

Answer 1

I plan my meals 2 weeks out that way I don't waste groceries either. Keep staples such as pasta, rice, bread and canned foods like tomatoes in your cupboards at all times. Keep meats in portion sized bags in the freezer and take them out as I need them. I always have a couple of onions, garlic, milk, cream, parmesan and jarred pesto in the refrigerator. That way if I don't have anything planned I can at least whip up some pasta for dinner.

Answer 2

Yes, plan your meals in advance. What I do is make a list of 6-8 meals that I think I'd like to make during the week. Then when I go to the store, I buy everything I need to make all the meals. Then I cook whatever I want from the list, or mix and match ingredients to make other things. It helps to look at the grocery ads while you make your list, so you can plan around the weekly specials and save $$$

Answer 3

I flip through cookbooks and write down the page number of recipes I like. Then I take a look at the ingredients and write down what I need with the page number of the recipe next to it. I keep a grocery list attached to the fridge so family can add whatever we need whenever. If someone uses the last stick of butter then they simply write 'butter' on the list on the fridge.

Planning ahead of time, honestly, doesn't take too much time. I save a lot of money by fixing our meals rather than going out to eat all the time.

Answer 4

Yes thats a good place to start. Than write down what ingrediants you need, then go through your cabinets and refrigerator and check off what you already have. If you want you can then rewrite your list according to ingrediants, like all dairy together, all meats, all can goods etc...

I also love to cook and have done this before,also there is an awsome website called meals.com which will allows you to find recipes and build a grocery list. Good Luck

Answer 5

yes definately plan your meals out in advance. and make a list for going to the store. it is easy to get side tracked once shopping. the stores are designed in such a way to discourage you from going in the middle aisles where the real food is. they put all the instant quick stuff on the outside perimeter.

try also to plan for making a big meal on say saturday or sunday, and use left over meat or pasta or something later on in the week in salad a casserole, soup etc.

Answer 6

A six pack of Bud and a bag of chips