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I’m actually not going to tell you how to meal plan. Everyone’s circumstance is so different, and different methods work better with different personalities, and I myself have changed my “method” so many times over the years because I kept needing to flex with what would work best for us in that season of life. I honestly still haven’t landed on a “method” that I love.

That being said, the basic bones of what I have done the majority of the time is to plan out several dinners for the time period (week, biweek, or month), but not every single dinner (leftovers are awesome, guys, and so are spontaneous dinners out with friends). I get what I need for those meals, and then I have a list of things I can make. I pick from the list based on whatever I need to fit my circumstances that day. Things come up, and I don’t want to be locked into a specific meal for a specific day. I will maybe plan a few specific breakfasts and lunches for that time period, but otherwise I just get some staples and we figure it out as we go for breakfast and lunch (more on breakfast and lunch in later posts).

BUT this post is not about meal planning methods. I just figured it would be helpful to know what I do for context. Nor am I getting into specific ideas yet. This post is more about some higher-level strategies to keep in mind before you sit down to plan meals.

Overlap ingredients

Just a quick word on this: Try and overlap ingredients so that you’re not buying single-use items. If you really need Swiss cheese for something, incorporate Swiss cheese into a couple of other meals as well. If you buy pesto for pasta, maybe also use it in an omelet another day and to season some chicken another day. It can help save money when you use ingredients across several meals.

Seasoning, not stuff

Avoid high-dollar ingredients and stick with cheap, flavorful seasonings.

Guys, I cannot say this enough. Get to know your seasonings. Seasoning does not mean spicy. It just means flavorful! Instead of smothering everything in cheese ($) or cream ($) or fill in the blank ($), give your food flavor from other things. Don’t be afraid to use a lot of seasoning! It doesn’t mean you can’t use cheese or sour cream, but don’t rely on them for flavor.

Honey, for example, is an expensive ingredient. Marinades or sauces that require more than a couple tablespoons of honey are an automatic “no” in my book. That “sticky honey chicken drumstick” recipe looks delicious, but I’m not going to use $7 of honey just to add flavor to my chicken.

There are a lot of herbs and spices in the world, and even more ways to combine them. I love the creativity that invites, but you might not. It does not have to be intimidating, though. This goes back to what I said in this post about learning how to do a few things really well. Find a couple of marinades or seasoning combinations that you really like, and perfect them. (I’ll be posting my favorites later.) You don’t need to “kind of” know 10 chicken marinades. Have 1 or 2 no-fail staple chicken marinades that you know are delicious, and you can use that chicken for all kinds of things.

The beautiful Central Market wall of bulk herbs and spices is my happy place, but we don’t have one here in Kansas City, so now I get my bulk spices from Sprouts. I buy all my spices in bulk. For some, the benefit is buying exactly what you need (a baggie of dried dill for $0.15, anyone?) rather than a whole jar of a spice you may only use once or twice. For me, the benefit is paying a tiny fraction of the cost for large quantities of spices I know I will use over and over. It is so much cheaper.

Vinegar is another cheap, flavorful addition to amp up the flavor. Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and rice vinegar (I make a lot of Asian dishes) are some of my staples that I almost always have on hand.

As you plan your meals, try to add up the approximate cost of all the “flavor” items. Is it surprising? Think of how much “actual food” you could buy with that money. Do what works for you; I’m not trying to guilt anyone into never making honey chicken ever again. And you don’t need to say goodbye to cream cheese forever, but a general awareness of the cost of “flavor” items can help you better manage where your money goes. (I will always and forever make homemade tzatziki sauce to go with my already super-flavorful chicken shawarma because I am not a monster.)

Please hear me: I am not saying “Eat boring food.” I am saying, make amazing food without the $$ ingredients!

Herbs, spices, and vinegars are your secret weapon. Use them!

Staple recipes

Beyond your meal plan, it is helpful to have some staple recipes you can whip up in a pinch that don’t call for “special” ingredients but rather pantry ingredients you might already have on hand. (Think snickerdoodle cookies, balsamic roasted chicken, or vanilla raisin baked oatmeal.)

For one, you won’t have to go out and make a special purchase, which is particularly helpful in a time crunch. For two, vanilla and cinnamon are much cheaper per use than chocolate chips ($), pecans ($$), berries ($$), cream cheese ($), maple syrup ($$), heavy cream ($), caramel ($), etc. Some of these items are still fairly cheap, but it’s helpful to have some staple recipes that don’t require ANY extra items.

At the grocery store

Your job isn’t done once you have made up your grocery list.

You can also get to know the general cost of things at many grocery stores around you, and know your bottom line. For me personally, I will not pay more than $2/lb for chicken, because I know I can almost always find it for that price somewhere. I will not pay more than $1/lb for apples, so if apples are more expensive than that, I just don’t buy apples. I’m not being stubborn. It just takes that kind of strategy to make sure my budget can stretch all the way to the end of the month while still feeding my family well. This is where being flexible and using substitutions comes in. If I need to make a very specific dish for a specific reason, then I will just go ahead and pay for the apples. But otherwise, I will flex. This can throw a wrench into many people’s idea of a “meal plan,” haha!

Familiarizing yourself with general prices at the stores around you can also help you strategize which things to buy at which store. Back in Texas, we just made a morning of it every two weeks and went to all three of our regularly frequented grocery stores to get what we needed for that time frame. Now, we make more frequent smaller stops when we happen to be near one of the grocery stores.

A few weeks ago I threw caution to the wind and tried to get everything I needed for about a week’s worth of meals all at one store, and it ended up costing about 1/3 more than I was expecting. Oops. It was a pretty tight stretch after that. Some people really value being able to stop at one place and get all their grocery shopping done, and that’s great! But the cost savings makes it worth it for me to split my shopping between a few different stores.

I realize much of what I have said here is pretty broad or vague, so I will get into many more specific recipes and tips and tricks in later posts. I have so many things I can’t wait to share with you! This is just to give an overview of a few concepts I try to consider when I plan our meals. These things won’t all work for everyone, but maybe they will give you something to think about. Was anything surprising to you?

Other posts in the Stretch Your Grocery Budget series:

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: Meal Planning
• Part 3: Dairy
• Part 4: Breakfast
• Part 5: Freeze It