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017: Meal planning & grocery shopping
836 Plays5 years ago
Dinah and Mia discuss their adoption of meal planning and hacks to make grocery shopping more efficient. This episode features an interview with meal planning expert, Nicole Avery, from Planning With Kids and Planned and Present.
Nicole gives some great tips about:
- developing a system to share the load (eg shopping)
- involving the family to suggest meal ideas
- taking into account your family’s schedule
- cooking in bulk to create leftovers for lunches
- making every meal work more than once
- meal preparation ahead of time
- enlisting family members to help with putting the groceries away
- where to find inspiration for recipes
- how to get your family to try new meals
- how to accommodate family members dietary requests and allergies
- how to get started and use simple rules to make choosing meals easier
- keeping it simple and not over complicating the plan.
Mia and Dinah talk about some of their techniques including:
- using criteria to guide your plan (like Friday pizza night, fish night, breakfast for dinner night)
- weekly planning vs monthly planning
- buying in bulk for staples
- using subscription services for toilet paper and pet food
- having magnetised shopping lists and meal plans on the fridge
- how to get inspiration for meal ideas.
LIFE ADMIN RESOURCES
Nicole Avery’s website – Planning with Kids
Nicole Avery’s Meal Prep Primer course
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Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.
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Transcript
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00:00:00
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Life Admin Life Hacks Podcast Introduction
00:00:30
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money and improve your household harmony. I'm Dinara Roberts, an Operations Manager and have been a meal planner for so many years. I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher and writer and if it's one thing I'd happily outsource forever, it's cooking dinner.
00:00:55
Speaker
How often does the end of your day approach and you have no idea what's for dinner?
Benefits of Meal Planning
00:01:00
Speaker
This app will help you solve this daily bug bear. Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks. We all need to eat, which means to varying degrees, we all have to shop and cook. This can take up a lot of time and a lot of headspace if you don't adopt an efficient approach. And even if you love shopping and cooking,
00:01:22
Speaker
Tweaking your admin in this area can result in you eating better, feeling calmer because you don't have that daily fretting and thinking. You're shopping better, you probably waste less food and you'll save money as you won't run out of things and buy duplicates of things. In Australia we now have the National Food Waste Baseline. The base year was in 2016 and in that year Australia produced 7.3 million tonnes of food waste.
00:01:48
Speaker
34% of which was created in our homes. And that's the equivalent of about 300 kilos per person per year, which is a hell of a lot of food. So it's worth thinking about the way you approach your grocery shopping and your meal
Nicole Avery's Meal Planning Expertise
00:02:04
Speaker
planning. And most of what I've learned about meal planning has been from blogs. And Diana and I turned to a well-known Melbourne blogger to get her take.
00:02:11
Speaker
Well, I'm so thrilled to welcome to the show Nicole Avery, who I've admired from afar for many years. They have a very useful and comprehensive blog planning with kids. Nicole has five children and through her blog, the book, the short courses and the podcast is Family Life.
00:02:29
Speaker
She's researched, experimented, and shared her trials and successes with parenthood and managing households. And I've loved that you've tackled those things in terms of the relationships and the tasks and the personal growth required to thrive among it all. So there are many things related to life admin that I could be interviewing Nicole about today, but in this episode, we're going to tap into Nicole's expertise with meal planning. So thanks for making the time for life admin life hacks listeners. Oh, I'm so happy to be here, Mia. Thanks for having me.
00:02:59
Speaker
So Diana really wants to know straight off the bat, what inspired you to get started? Did you actually meal plan before you had kids? I didn't actually start meal planning until I had my second child. And I sort of have a, what are those moments that really sticks out in your mind, even though it's, well, he just turned 18 on the weekend. So it's nearly 17 years ago, I would have had this moment now. My second child, I was on maternity leave still, because I hadn't officially resigned from my job. So I had
00:03:29
Speaker
the son who was about three and another one who was about six or seven months old. And I remember having the three year old sort of whining at my leg and then the six month old sort of whining on my hip, opening the pantry, just thinking, what am I going to have for dinner at four o'clock one afternoon? And then just thinking, dinner happens every night. I have to feed the children every night. I have to feed us every night. Why is it like this is some sort of surprise that's just occurred in the day that now I actually have to cook a meal?
00:03:57
Speaker
I know what's coming. Why don't I plan
Involving Family in Meal Planning
00:03:59
Speaker
for it? So I literally sat down and did a bit of a plan and just started planning it out weekly, just handwriting it, just the sort of mainly sort of five meals during the week that I would want with my husband on the weekend. It would be slightly different. And then just sort of writing a shopping list from that. And what I loved about it was it also spread the load because I could write the menu plan and the shopping list.
00:04:23
Speaker
but I didn't have to be the one to go to the shops with two little kids going to the supermarket, you know, with them as not. Yeah, pretty much. But there's no reason why someone else can't do that like my partner. So it sort of became quite liberating to plan because then it meant it wasn't all left to me and I found that I could actually spread the workload a little bit easier as well. Yeah, so for the uninitiated, is meal planning really just dinner planning or do you plan other meals as well?
00:04:52
Speaker
Look I only do dinner really but I guess the way it's evolved now into my life is that I do plan our meals in the evening so there'll be plenty of left over so it does cater for lunches if that makes sense. So I know your process has evolved over the years can you take us through how your process runs these days?
Meal Planning Techniques and Evolution
00:05:11
Speaker
Many planning is one of those tasks that works well when you batch it so
00:05:16
Speaker
You know, if you look at whether you're working in the home or working in the office, if you batch tasks, you get greater efficiency through it. You know, even as much as I love the benefits of menu planning, sometimes I think, oh my God, I've got to do the menu plan, I don't really want to do this. But it's one of those tasks that although you have that sometimes feeling about it, once you get into it, you get into the zone and you can get up through it really quickly. So I went very quickly from menu planning only from a week to then going to a month.
00:05:44
Speaker
And I also went very, from a very young age, pretty much from when they could sort of verbally speak to me, getting my kids involved in the menu plan. I have like a little template. They have a name and they can put down the four meals that they would like to have across the month. And we'll have a few parameters on that.
00:06:04
Speaker
The parameters are sort of built by me because we need to have some integrity in the menu plan. There's some nutrition value. Exactly. And just not so much repetition. So the goal is they can choose one of what we call like a homemade takeaway night. So we could have a homemade pizza. They can choose one of those and then that if there's no meal should be repeated on the menu plan more than twice.
00:06:28
Speaker
So if one child chooses tacos and then another child chooses tacos, but then the third child can't choose tacos because we can't be having tacos every second day, as much as some of the people in the house would like that. Not everyone loves tacos. So that's the first step. The first step really is to get involved with the kids. And I also get my husband to put down the meals as well. And I actually will sort of fill the gaps. Monday through to Saturday, I sort of have an activities column. So I'll note any activities on those days that may impact my ability to cook a meal.
00:06:56
Speaker
So that may be that I work late or it may be my husband works late. It may be that I have a soccer training to drive kids to. So they're all things that happen on those nights that might impact me cooking a meal and determine, help determine what type of meal might I cook. So I actually do it because there's no point trying to plan, you know, a really fancy meal when I'm going to get home at 6.30 at night and everyone's going to be starving by the time I get in the door. It makes it unrealistic. So I'll go through and I'll put out what are the activities we are doing?
00:07:26
Speaker
And then underneath each of those days for the month, what I'll do is I'll set up sort of a theme for each day. So for example, Monday might be because, for example, this Monday, we have a relatively late footy training, and I have some things that I won't get home till late. So what we do is I'll choose a meal like a stir fry, for example. On the weekend, I can do some prep and have the veggies chopped. I can even have the meat chopped up. So it means Monday nights in a matter of just throwing that dish together when I get in, it's really quick and easy.
00:07:55
Speaker
Tuesday might be a day where we have a slow cooker meal, for example, so I can chuck that. You know, with winter coming along, it's nice to have something warm and hearty. So, you know, I'd say like around the morning. Wednesday, we do have a couple of different things on that night. And it's a night tends to be where we need almost to have two sittings, where because the family is just without age, it's different activities. So I'll need to have a meal that sort of reheats sort of well for sort of two sittings. Thursday, for example, might just be a curry.
00:08:24
Speaker
Friday, we tend to do, you know, we might do like a homestyle lift, a homestyle takeaway meal. So it might be where we do like a homemade pizza or, you know, homemade burgers or something like that. On the weekends, I try to factor in meals that are going to actually, the cooking bulk that will then give me some food for lunches for myself for the week and some lunches for the kids for school. So Saturdays will be generally like a wrap style meal. So we might do something like tacos or sang choy bao.
00:08:52
Speaker
but I won't just cook enough for that meal. I'll generally cook at least double, if not a little bit more, so that that way I have additional food to go into the next week for lunches. Are you doing the bulk of the cooking in your house? Yes, I would do pretty much at least six days, sometimes seven, depends on what happens.
00:09:10
Speaker
But I'm not, I like cooking, so that sort of works. I sort of have what works in your relationship, whereas my husband does all the gardening. Like, I don't have to touch the garden, that's sort of what he does. But there's Sundays that I say to him, dude, not as much time in the garden this Sunday, because I'd really like it if he could cook the meal. And he's always fantastic and go, yep, no worries. But he's sort of not going to volunteer to go in the kitchen. So that's where communication becomes a really big key.
00:09:32
Speaker
And he needs a bit of a heads up time to know that that's what he needs to do and factor into his day.
Efficient Cooking and Shopping Routines
00:09:36
Speaker
And so we just sort of have that communication over across the weekend. We tend to have a bit of a planning because we have quite winter in particular. We have sort of four or five sport matches across the weekend. So we tend to have a bit of a discussion sort of Friday night, you know, who's going where, doing what, what meals are going to be cooked and when and by who. And we sort of work it out that way. So it's not all falling on my shoulders. My aim with cooking really is to make every meal work more than once.
00:10:01
Speaker
And I never used to be that way. I'd always just cook exactly the amount and that sort of stuff. But with five kids now, especially the ages, so I sort of got five kids there from 10 to 20. You know, a ones a uni student who's at home at lunch, my husband likes to take his lunch to work. I tend to eat a whole food sort of lunch. I don't tend to do sandwiches or anything like that. So I find if I can make every meal, you know, go an extra meal for someone's lunch and stuff, it's a really time efficient way of being in the kitchen.
00:10:30
Speaker
it's even doing things like in the middle of the week for example I said on the Thursday when I have like a curry I wouldn't just cut up on our veggies for the curry it also cut up some veggies and just pop them in the fridge for me to have the snacks and for kids to have the snacks because if you've got good food prepared people eat it but it's just if they have to do it themselves sometimes they just won't do it and that goes for me included if I can get in the fridge and what's my choices there's already a stack of like capsicum
00:10:54
Speaker
and carrot and cucumber cut-ups. It's easy. I'll just grab that and I'll just have that. Take the path of least resistance. Exactly. What is the grocery shopping fit into all of this? Who does it? What's the timing of that? Do one main shop tends to be across the week and that will tend to be on probably like a Friday mainly because I like to try and do food prep during the week.
00:11:18
Speaker
So I will often, it'll be on a Friday afternoon, the kids will sort of have their downtime. We've got one afternoon activity on a Friday, but I might pop out on a Friday afternoon and do a big sort of stalker. We have a bit of a process though, because, you know, shopping takes up a lot of time, especially when you buy the volume of food we do. And so we have this little rule in our houses, like, you're welcome to come to the food, because all my kids are at age now, the age groups and stuff, they don't actually have to come shopping with me. They can, you know, if their older kids can stay with the younger kids and so on.
00:11:47
Speaker
If you want to come to the shops with me, that's great. You can come and help me. And if you don't come and help me at the supermarket, then when I get home, you then have to help put stuff away. And that will mean that everyone, as soon as I get home, I have a little toot. And I know that means come back to the car and help with the groceries. And it works well because otherwise, it's quite a lot of hours by the time you sort of go to the shops, unload the car, all that sort of stuff. And it did take a while getting kids to put things away properly.
00:12:14
Speaker
And one of the first things they sort of try to do is just stuff stuff everywhere and think they can get away with it. But if you bring them back and call them back often enough to redo stuff, they sort of get that they need to put things. So I've got lots of jars and containers and stuff that things go in. And I have a big mantra, like they'll say, oh, Mum, where does this go? And they sort of try to waste time and not put things away and try and hope that some other sibling is going to do more work. And so my firm answer is start with what you know. And there's a lot of stuff that they know to put away. Work with that when we get down to the items they don't know,
00:12:45
Speaker
I then teach them to show them. So it probably took, you know, a good three or four months to get them trained up in that process. But now I'm pretty quite good at it actually. And my husband is great. There's often times like if I don't do it on a Friday night, he may go and do it on a Friday night or he may have time on the Saturday to go and do it Saturday morning. I tend to do a long run on a Saturday morning. So I may leave the list for him and he will go do it. So it's a great, if you could, the more organized you can be, the more you can delegate. So it's a bit of an incentive for me to keep planned.
00:13:14
Speaker
And do you only shop at the supermarket? No, I go to a few different places just because of the foods that I like to get. I have a local butcher that I like to go to, so he's probably about a 15 minute drive from here. And so I tend to buy, you know, we don't have a lot of room in our freezer, but I tend to buy, you know, enough to put some in the freezer and always have something there.
00:13:37
Speaker
I've got a fruit store that I like to go and visit because I know I tend to go to a couple supermarkets as well. So I'll sort of, I'll do Aldi. We've got a really good local supermarket here that I'll go to to get a few of the extra items that I can't pick up from Aldi. And so then I do a, especially during the middle of the week, I do a top up shop, which needs to go to a fruit and veg shop just to get the apples and mandarins and that sort of stuff with the kids. I've sort of got a bit of a walking routine in the mornings, not working outside the house.
00:14:06
Speaker
where I walk and I'll get fresh bread from a local bakery and then pick up the milk on a regular basis as well. Keeping milk in a house is a bit of a challenge so that requires a couple of shops during the week. Did you experiment with online grocery shopping?
00:14:20
Speaker
I used to use online shopping all the time when the kids were young, just because I found it way easier. But I actually don't mind shopping because I try to, while I do menu plan, like a lot of the recipes I have are very flexible. So for example, like in a curry or a stir fry, I know sort of what are the basic features I like to use. But if I go to the supermarket and something's in more, you know, it's just coming to season or something's cheaper.
00:14:42
Speaker
I can make those calls then, and it's sort of nice to have a look at the produce and what it's like. So I tend to like to do that a bit. And I just found that because I shop at a few different places, the economics of working out where to go, I'd find it just as easy to do it myself. But, you know, I do think there's an absolute place for it. And there will be times like, you know, you know, my husband's going to be going away in June.
00:15:04
Speaker
I'm quite sure probably right then I might do an online shop just because that's easier. I can just do it at a time that suits me when, you know, I don't have to, you know, wait for other things and that sort of stuff and here's and around. I, you know, and I'd certainly recommend it for mums with young kids. I think it's a really good option for sure. And it's great now because, you know, once when it first started, it used to be a lot more expensive because now you get the same specials. Most of them don't even have the much of delivery for you once you get over a certain amount, which is easy for families to do. So I certainly think it's a fantastic option for families.
00:15:32
Speaker
How often do you eat out or take away?
Incorporating New Recipes and Dietary Preferences
00:15:36
Speaker
Oh, pretty rarely actually.
00:15:39
Speaker
In terms of eating out, my husband and I probably once a month might do a breakfast. We actually went out just over the summer holidays for a dinner, but quite often, because we both run, we often go for a run and then go to a bit of a Whole Foods place somewhere nice that I like too, which there's a lot more cafes that are open like that during the day than there is at night time, so we tend to do a bit of that sort of stuff. Probably once a quarter, we'll go out to dinner with the kids because I still like them to get that experience.
00:16:07
Speaker
You know, we've done a couple of high-end places with the kids, but we also do a lot of cheap and cheerful. But takeaways is a real rarity. I'd probably say we get takeaway maybe four times a year. And that's, you know, it's just more of a cost thing. And, you know, as I said, often on the menu plan, we'll do like our own version, like our own homemade pizza and, you know, hamburgers and that sort of stuff. So we try to fill that gap and they have that. Yeah. I guess we've got, you're so organized and you have time to cook and you're sourcing great ingredients.
00:16:36
Speaker
food you're preparing, it's probably a lot more delicious than you're going to get ordered after time. So everyone's happy. And how do you add new recipes to the rotation? Where do you get your inspiration for new recipes? I guess Instagram is probably a little bit where I see them from, but I think one of the main things that I tend to do is I tend to test a new lot of products and recipes in terms of like, for example, I make my own kimchi and
00:17:01
Speaker
The reason I even started doing was that, was I bought some kimchi at a store and I thought that is awesome, I really like that, but that's really expensive, so I'm gonna learn to make that myself. I'm trying to eat a bit more vegetables and a bit less meat at the moment, so I picked up these beautiful sort of quinoa falafels, and again, I've had them a couple times, I love them, but they're expensive, so now I've tried a couple times to make them and it's not successful, and I will keep working on it, but I sort of have a rule, like when I cook a new meal,
00:17:29
Speaker
Because one thing I find as a parent is if you cook a meal and you serve it up and no one eats it, it's so disheartening. And you just think, oh, God, it's so interesting. So what I tend to do is when I cook new meals, I cook them.
00:17:40
Speaker
I have another meal there. And what I do is when I put the food out, I give everyone just like a small bowl, like a tiny tasting bowl. And I say to them, all I ask is that you eat this. You eat this small taste. If you like it, you can have more. If you don't like it, here is the option B that we have to go. But I just want you to taste it. And it takes all the pressure off because I find kids can be like, I don't want to eat that. That's not very nice because they think it's
00:18:04
Speaker
healthy thing. And I find that if they, they're quite happy to taste it, and quite often, you know, those who like it will go, no, I'd like some more of this. And they'll be like, they're the ones my sister's saying, no, I don't like that at all. That's not my thing. I don't want that. Can I have it at the meal? But I'm happier because they've tasted it. And I can sort of, you know, and I can sort of tell what people's reactions
00:18:24
Speaker
whether or not that can come into a regular rotation. And have you had any scenarios where one of your kids has decided they want to be vegetarian or vegan or change their eating habits in a macro way that you've had to take into consideration?
00:18:37
Speaker
Not the kids, but I certainly go through phases of things. And I'm Catholic and I gave up meat for Lent, so I had to redevelop things. And even with myself, and I guess, you know, I eat sort of a whole food line. So I don't, these are personal preferences. I don't have any allergies or anything like that, but I don't do dairy.
00:18:57
Speaker
No de grains, no processed sugars. I did, obviously, for the last month. I didn't do any meats, which was slightly challenging. But if I take that medication out of it, there's actually lots of, if you meal plan, there's lots of ways you can actually incorporate other people in the family's preferences and allergies, if they do have allergies.
Strategies for Reducing Waste and Stress
00:19:15
Speaker
And it sort of comes from doing some prep on the weekends. So for example, my family will have spaghetti bolognese, they'll eat that, and they will have the pasta.
00:19:24
Speaker
And I salad with that. And what I'll do is I'll have cooked up some sweet potato on the weekend, which will be my cup to go with the meat. So basically they'll have traditional pasta bolognese with their green salad on the side. I'll have sweet potato meat and salad on the side. So I've got that prepared. So I'm sort of having almost the same meal without having it. Try to make sure we have more fresh veggies. And it does mean sometimes it's a little bit boring. It literally has plates of cut up veggies because that's the way they'll consume it.
00:19:53
Speaker
I've often tried the large fussy salad and then no one touches it and then I get really sad and I eat it for my children. I just would love to mix together some sophisticated looking salad instead of chopping all the vegetables up individually. It looks like toddler food to me, but that's how they want to eat it. And if it's still going in, it's going to let go of the fancy salad. And that's it. A lot of the issues around food come from our expectations and our wants.
00:20:20
Speaker
At the end of the day, they're getting that food in and it's good food and it's fresh. I can't really complain. Do you think many plabbings have an impact on your food waste? Without a doubt. When I first started menu planning, I highly recommend this when you're starting, is that I used to factor in what I'd call a leftover day. That used to be like Friday night. So like I, you know, plan exactly a meal Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and then I'd have a meal which would be leftovers.
00:20:44
Speaker
And what that would give me room for is if we ended up going to relatives or friends or something and we didn't eat at home that night, then I could cook that meal on a Friday and it wasn't wasted. There was fresh veggies involved in that sort of stuff. Obviously the meat you could freeze. But also too, then if you actually have cooked all your meals, but you've got
00:21:03
Speaker
you know, little bits of leftovers, then it was sort of like, you know, it's like a help yourself meal. You sort of, what's in the fridge gets eaten and you can clear it out that way. So you can get really strategic with that. Planning out the food means that I don't just go to the supermarket and buy all these veggies, and then they, then they wilt. They've all got a purpose and I know exactly what they're for. I have flexibility to change that, because that's what some people think, like I'm stuck with just what that meal is. But once you've got the veggies home, so if you know you've got veggies to make tacos, but you think,
00:21:31
Speaker
not face tacos. You can, you know, make up like a savoury mince as you could turn it into a shepherd's pie. There's things that you could do if you've got those ingredients at home. But it's always easy to change a plan once you've got it.
00:21:42
Speaker
But it's hard to create something from the blue when you're under the pressure and it's five o'clock and you want to make a meal and make everyone happy. That's a really good point. In terms of the benefits of meal planning, you might be one of those people who think, oh, I don't want to be locked into something that I can't reform on the day. If I don't feel like cooking, I don't feel like that. It's so much easy to take a little deviation from a plan and have no plan whatsoever and just have that everyday crushing moment when you're like, what am I cooking?
00:22:10
Speaker
You need to try it for at least a month. The first week, you won't notice a huge amount of difference. But once you've got into the rhythm, and that's why I say plan for that month. And if you look at the template that I used for I said Monday night becomes a stir fry. And so Monday night, the first Monday in the month might be a veggie stir fry. The second one in the month could be a beef. The third one could be a chicken. The fourth one could be a tofu. That's four meals in the month you've just sorted out without even really thinking about it.
00:22:37
Speaker
I want to do that. And what happens is it doesn't have to be over complicated. It can be as simple as Monday's just your front night. Tuesday could be your taco night, if that's what your family likes to do. I know many people after the movie. Wednesday could be your roast. Thursday could be a slow cooker meal. Friday could be your leftover.
00:22:55
Speaker
You know, Saturday, like us, it might be a wrap and a wrap meal and then Sunday, I mean veg, go with a week, keep it as simple as possible because it's really easy when you're planning to think, oh, I would like this meal and it's got, you know, the latest, he's super food in it. But then it gets to 5pm on a Thursday night and you don't want to cook that. Keep it really, really simple. I think that's great advice because a few times I do meal planning in phases.
00:23:22
Speaker
to motivate myself to get a rhythm going and I have fallen into the trap once before where I got all aspirational with what I was going to cook and I had you know this night would be fish this night would be whatever and then I started looking up new recipes and when it comes to it you don't want to be
00:23:38
Speaker
learning new food two or three times a week, learning new recipes. So the lesson for me was stick to the regular things. Just get the shopping and the regular cooking happening first. Get fancy later on if you've got the energy, but just make a plan for your stock staple things that are already on the repertoire.
00:23:57
Speaker
you already know the kids are going to eat, and then start to slowly experiment with new recipes or fancy ingredients. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. We get really caught up in thinking that we have to set up variety all the time, which is why sometimes we talk so much about what are we going to have to eat tonight.
00:24:13
Speaker
But if that meal isn't sufficiently balanced, there's no reason why you can't serve it up every Tuesday. Even multiple nights in a row, I'm actually really curious about when in society did we decide we were going to have a different thing for dinner every night. When you think about it, it's kind of madness, this run for our own back, that we have to have this ultimate variety.
00:24:34
Speaker
Obviously, you don't want to get bored with what you're eating, but... Fine. I completely agree. I have the same breakfast pretty much every single day, seven days, and have done so. You know, I go through phases where it changes, but pretty much I have the same green smoothie every single morning. But you know what? It saves so much time and thinking, I don't have to think about it. That's my breakfast. I know I have the ingredients there. It's all sorted. It just makes my life so much easier and so much simpler. And I think we do. It's like we complicate things so much more than what we need to.
00:25:02
Speaker
You know, and if you're getting into menu planning, there's no reason why you don't, you can't run that same first week of menu planning over and over. If you asked me, what did I eat last Wednesday night? I would have to really think very, very hard about what was it that I ate last Wednesday night. So to get you some idea, but yet we feel like it's some sort of crime if we serve the family the same meal every Wednesday, a few weeks in a row. And they won't even notice, but you know, if they do start to notice them fine, change
Meal Planning Courses and Personal Strategies
00:25:30
Speaker
it up. Brilliant.
00:25:31
Speaker
Nicole, thank you. There's been so many ideas there that I think if people follow through, they'll bring themselves so much peace of mind. They'll save money and they'll hopefully achieve a bit more household harmony. And for anyone who wants to take this to the next level and get serious about this, Nicole has a three-week course on her site, a Mule Prep Primer that they can sign up for. So we'll have a link to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for sharing all those ideas.
00:25:57
Speaker
Oh, thanks, Mia. It was a joy to talk to you. So, Diana, that was action, Pat. What resonated for you? Actually, I felt quite validated because I've got quite a similar approach, Nicole, and I've been doing meal planning even before I had kids.
00:26:13
Speaker
I actually have a little Kiki-K magnetised menu planner up on my fridge that I use every week. It is a bit of an expensive way of doing it, but I do like the way that it looks. And so I do think, and it matches the shopping list that I also have up there. So I do think that, you know, it kind of makes the onerous task of meal planning just that little bit more joyful.
00:26:37
Speaker
I guess I do have a confession to make that we do have takeaway in our house once a week, usually on Friday night. And it is a joy to kind of look forward to that day in my meal plan. I was surprised at how frequently they get takeaway. Like that's a lot of discipline, really. I just, she obviously really likes cooking and they've got their systems down and I think appreciates really healthy food. But I think when you've got more children, it's really, really expensive.
00:27:07
Speaker
in the home. Exactly. I want you can buy in bulk affordably is usually at the crappier end of the scale. Yeah, I've got one of those magnetized shopping lists on the fridge. Mine's from Kmart though. And I have a meal planner thingy that's yes, Kiki K. But I think like Kmart and Taipo sell all these kinds of things these days. And I'd actually like to go fully digital with those tools. But I think having them on the fridge is
00:27:33
Speaker
It's good for my partner because it's in plain sight. It makes it more convenient for him. And my kids like to have their contributions. I can see now my daughter has scribbled chicken soup on the list this week just for me to take into consideration. But yeah, we get to take away about once a week. We actually have breakfast for dinner at the kids' request about once a week. So they can be eating cereal or having a boiled egg or baked beans or something. Yeah, once a week.
00:28:01
Speaker
Friday night is homemade pizza night, and I reckon we go out about once a month with the kids to a restaurant. So when it comes to actual meal planning, if I think about it, I think about it in terms of categories. I think, all right, we're going to have a vegetarian, a seafood, a stew or a soup, and a meat and veg. And you know, between the takeaway and a pizza night, there's not a lot of nights to actually have to think about.
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that although I definitely take into account the activities we've got on, so I make sure that the meals kind of fit with the night we have to get to basketball training. We almost always have pasta just because I know that it's super quick. But I definitely can't do that plan a month out. We definitely have to go week by week because I'm also sort of factoring in what nights. I might be out for work or my husband might be out for work.
00:28:56
Speaker
So I definitely can't get as far out as a month, which I think she was talking about. One of the things that I really liked that she talked about was how she had really enlisted the kids to help with putting the groceries away. And I definitely haven't mastered that yet. And to be honest, I haven't even got my husband doing it. So I really loved her approach to the start with what you know, because often my kids, even if I get them to help, all I do is just take it out of the bags and put it on the benchtop, which is really not
00:29:24
Speaker
helpful. Yes, excellent. And we also touched on that in the chat on buying bulk. Do you have enough storage space to buy things in bulk to save money and have less packaging and waste?
00:29:37
Speaker
And I used to do, I used to also go to Costco, but I think I had the similar experience in Nicole that I ended up buying things that I really didn't need. And so I've stopped that. So other than the toilet paper, which I also subscribe to, who gives a crap service, which I think is great. I don't really buy much in bulk anymore. I've actually also got the dog food on a subscription service. So that just gets delivered every six weeks.
00:30:06
Speaker
You know, and also on the same subscription service, they deliver the, you know, the worm and the flea kind of treatment stuff. So it reminds you to actually do it for the dog. So I find that really convenient. But no, I've really I used to do it a lot, but I found that now that my system is quite efficient and that my shopping list is always quite accurate. I don't really need that many staples.
Grocery Shopping Strategies and Meal Inspiration
00:30:29
Speaker
And in fact, I've tried to minimize how much food we have in the house and in the freezer.
00:30:34
Speaker
and just only buy what we need for the next week so that things don't go to waste because I often find when you buy things in bulk, you forget about them and then you don't use them. Yeah. Well, I get blue paper.
00:30:48
Speaker
I put alcohol in the category of buying bulk. If I'm going to buy wine, I'm not going to buy a bottle of wine. That's true. I'm going to buy a case of wine. I just got a Dan Murphy's and I'm like, let's set up for winter. I need supplies. So tampons, pasta, rice, I tend to buy the bigger sizes of those.
00:31:11
Speaker
all the laundry stuff, dish washing stuff, soap, toothpaste, I buy all them in multiples. If I see them on sale from at Costco or if I'm buying at one of those bog food shops, I will buy all of that in bog and literally set us up for the next year so I don't have to think about it. I buy nuts and sunscreen and things like bicarb soda and vinegar, coconut oil, olive oil, all of that. I buy huge quantities of that stuff. I've got a lot of space, I guess, to put it all in.
00:31:41
Speaker
and honey and things like oats and popcorn. We just go through so much of that stuff. So I just buy enormous packets of it. Are you still online shopping? Do you get yours delivered or you go to the supermarket? So I did have this really great routine where I used to do my meal planning for the next week every Thursday night. And then while my son was at gymnastics, I would do the online grocery shop, but now he no longer does gymnastics. I have really, I've lost that rhythm and I have been going back to the supermarket
00:32:09
Speaker
again. So I definitely need to figure out the right way of pairing that. Interestingly, now he's changed to having swimming lessons on a Thursday. So I'm wondering whether from this week I can give it a go while he's at swimming. Stay tuned, I guess, for that one. What about you? I have Wednesdays off from work. So that morning I usually scribble a meal plan, scan the pantry, scan the fridge, write the shopping list, go and do the grocery shop.
00:32:37
Speaker
I usually hit up like three different shops. There's the supermarket, there's the bulk food shop and there's a green grocer that also has great meat. Actually the green grocer has been one of those places it started off just to be a green grocer and now it's like a treasure trove of delicious things. So I kind of, I find it kind of annoying having to go to three different shops but they're all pretty close.
00:32:58
Speaker
and their well price and their quality. And Diana, where do you get your meal ideas? Where is your inspiration for what is actually for dinner? Monday to Thursday meals are on a very small rotation of things that I know are really quick and that I know the kids will eat. So I have used that both Hello Fresh and Marley Spoon service on and off for those weekend meals. So getting two meals delivered to kind of
00:33:25
Speaker
you know, mix things up a little bit without me having to sort of trawl through the recipe books. But increasingly, the meal ideas come from my kids. So one of the great things about the Kiki K meal planner is it has a box for next week on it. And so whenever the kids complain about, you know, I say, great, well, can you go and add to some ideas for next week of the things you want to have? And then I use that when I'm planning for the next week.
00:33:53
Speaker
I'm really letting them inspire me. But I, you know, I guess at the moment. Can I ask that? Do you have a feedback box in your house? No, but I think it's such a great idea. But we do have our, you know, our family meetings every Sunday night, which we could talk about in one episode. So that's kind of our feedback box that we have to do in person. I just love your efficiently. Oh, well, if you have some feedback, go and put it on the next week's
00:34:22
Speaker
got to have meal plans. Hilarious. Yes. I have to say, so I've, you know, I think we've all had the free trial of the Hello Fresh with a Bali spoon. What I liked about it was the fact that I didn't have to think about what was cooking, what I had to cook. And even though I didn't continue with those services, I do actually steal their weekly meal plans
00:34:43
Speaker
So sometimes I go onto the websites and I've tried actually quite a few of those different ingredient and recipe delivery services because they often publish their meal plans and have archives of what their weekly meal plans have been. And so you get the full lineup of Monday to Friday. Here's five ideas for dinner. I've also subscribed to various newsletters in the past. If you Google, you know, dinner idea newsletters,
00:35:08
Speaker
There's all sorts of subscription services you can sign up for and they will email you suggestions based on your criteria. And then there was some phase I went through where I just worked my way through various cookbooks. I just picked a cookbook. I think I, you know, for one of them was like a Jamie Oliver 30 minute meals thing.
00:35:27
Speaker
One of them was one of those Yodem Anelengi vegetarian things. And I literally just picked a cookbook and I come from that book. I just flipped through, wrote it down. Because that's the thing I find the hardest, actually thinking what to cook. I hate thinking about it.
00:35:43
Speaker
And I think that's what I also, I used to probably still do a little bit, but I've kind of subscribed to Nicole's way of thinking too, that I actually don't really care if we don't have that much Friday, Monday, the first day. I just. Absolutely. And when it comes to weekends, you know, we do entertain
00:36:00
Speaker
quite a lot. So then I really do pull through the recipe books and I'm often getting recipe ideas from the newspaper that comes on the weekend and those sorts of things. I'm cutting them out and giving them a try and I have a bit of a recipe folder that I put them
Top Meal Planning Tips Recap
00:36:13
Speaker
into. But Monday to Thursday, we're on a very boring rotation of tacos, crumb chicken, steak, sausages, pretty basic stuff just to get us through the week.
00:36:26
Speaker
We hope these hacks will inspire you to start menu planning if you haven't done it before or to make improvements to your current system. Here are our top tips. Develop a weekly or monthly plan for your meals. Use criteria to guide your plan. Enlist your family members to help with the plan and delegate other activities like shopping and putting the groceries away. Use your calendar to check the meals you plan are practical for the other activities you've got going on in your family.
00:36:53
Speaker
Use meals for more than one purpose, leftovers for lunch or another meal. Consider doing a weekly meal prep on the weekend. Let go of your own expectations and if your kids are eating healthy food, don't worry if they won't eat things like fussy salads. Keep it simple and stick to the staples before you start experimenting. And consider buying in bulk or using subscription services like who gives a crap for bulk items.
00:37:19
Speaker
And don't forget, it's much easier to change a meal plan as things change than continue to magic up a meal with no plan every night. If you'd like to join us on our life admin journey, please head to our Facebook page, life admin life hacks to follow us and share your thoughts on what we're doing and feel free to post any comments or certainly post suggestions that we might be able to use. We hope to see you there.
00:37:45
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeadminlifehacks.com. If you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app.