How I stopped wasting 2 hours every Sunday on meal planning spreadsheets

I used to sit down Sunday night with a big spreadsheet and cross-reference every recipe with the grocery flyer, and it would eat up 2 hours easy. Then I switched to a simple paper notepad with 3 columns: what we already have, what needs using up, and quick dinners under 30 minutes. Now I just write 5 meals in about 10 minutes, mostly based on whatever meat is on the deli markdown rack at our Kroger in Austin. The trick was ditching the perfect plan and accepting that Tuesday might just be breakfast for dinner, and that's okay. Has anyone else found a faster system that actually cuts down on food waste, or do you still do the full spreadsheet thing?

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lee_bailey6510d ago

The breakfast for dinner thing is the real key. I gave up on the three column notepad and just started asking one question: what protein can I grab that's cheap and flexible. Ground beef or chicken thighs can go five different directions so I stop planning around recipes and start planning around one base. I still check the flyer but only for the loss leaders, nothing else. My Sunday thing takes maybe 15 minutes now and the fridge gets cleaned out way better than when I had a whole spreadsheet mocking me with unused ingredients.