How do you organise your meal plans?

I am wanting to make up some meal plans which I can rotate. We would like to try to save some money in doing so. My thoughts were to do it fortnightly since we shop fortnightly. I also had the thought to make it a set sort of thing where we have the same meat (or whatever) on set days, so for example, beef on mondays, chicken tuesdays, vege wednesdays, take away thursdays (ect...). Then I was also thinking about the veggies we had each week (usually shop for veg/fruit weekly) and how to maximse them so I dont wast them, so we could have salads for a few days, maybe boiled taters and then mash....ect. I also want to try to start baking 1-2 times a week.
Does any of that make sense?? What else should I consider?

Kikki-K have a meal planner pad that is pretty cool. It plans brekky and lunch too (which I often skip, but can be handy to remind myself we have ham or something to use up). Big help with making the shopping list too. I like the idea of having a sort of 'theme' for each day. Maybe have a sort of database/list of meals somewhere so you don't forget meals in your repertoire. I wouldn't plan EVERY dinner though, because at least once a week things get shuffled around, so you have to give yourself a bit of room to move.

I have a monthly meal plan, so whatever we are having we will have on the same date every month, rather than days if that makes sense. I made sure each week to have 2 meat meals, some vego meals, a cheap meal, a quick and easy meal etc. I do my shopping weekly and write down exactly how much fresh produce I need so my waste is minimal. If something doesn't suit a particular day, then I swap it for another meal that week :)

i printed off a meal planner from the organised housewife (google it) and laminated..
i do meal plans for just one week at a time, i find ninemsn recipe finder awesome!

will come back later..cooking dinner :D

3 red meat meals, 1 white meat, 1 fish, 1 veggie (pasta based), 1 leftovers. everything (except leftovers) has min 3 veggies, and often 1 starch (either potato, pasta, beans or rice).

double baking on the weekend (eg: a roast and a lasagne)

:D

lilias we're a bit like you, we do a grocery shop fortnightly and fruit and veg weekly. The first thing I do before we go into shop is take a look at what we've got and what I can make from it. If we have a heap of rice, but are running out of pasta for instance, I'll plan for mostly rice dishes and buy pasta that week (does that make sense?) so we have pasta for the next week. I often cook a big batch of something, not as a plan to eat it all week but so there are meals in the freezer for the coming weeks, that I can incorporate into future meal plans! At the end of this week for instance my plan is:

*Go through the pantry (it's tiny) we have chickpeas, lentils, baked beans, rice, pasta, cereal and oats plus breadmaking ingredients and spices. I restock these when I notice there won't be enough for the next week.
*I know I'll be making curry at least one night because we have pumpkins to add to chickpeas and rice. I'll make a big batch and freeze enough for a meal in the future. (the next week? maybe...)
*I know we have pasta so will plan the ingredients I need for that. I can either take a pre-frozen meal I prepared earlier, or buy some tomatoes and herbs etc to make a new one. Mince/Meat as well if you're that way inclined.
*We don't have a lot of meat in the freezer, so I know that either this week or next will be a meat buy-up. We try to use meat a few times. E.g. A Chicken will be a roast chicken, then the leftovers for curry or sandwiches or vietnamese salad, and the carcass for stock for congee or to freeze.
*We usually have the same fruit and veggies around- seasonal plus mushrooms and onions. At the moment, we're stocked with pears, plums, oranges and apples, pumpkin, corn, zucchini and peas. I'll make the surplus either into baby food or pie fillings that I can freeze or add to breads/cakes (that's the fruit in cakes, not peas ;) ).
*Often we'll have an egg based meal at the end of the week. Failsafe quiche with leftover veggies grated into it. Plus the dodgy tomatoes that have been half cut and put back in the fridge.
*We always have UHT milk at home as it's at least 2 hours to 'pop down the shops'.

Our planning would be different if we had a deep freeze and pantry space. I think we'd do a big grocery shop once a month in bulk and then fruit and veg and milk every week.

Lilias, I am also in the process of doing up a meal plan. I will first go through my pantry and see what I can use up, as I tend to buy food and not using it. Also need to go through deep freeze and see what meat I can use up. As Olive mentioned, ninemsn has a good recipe finder where to can enter in up to 4 ingredients, and it brings up recipes you can make.

I have been collecting a 'database' of recipes, and been typing up the name of dish on one side, and brief recipe and ingredients (or cookbook & page no.), to make laminated cards. I am going to pop a little bit of velcro on the back, and do up a Monday - Sunday laminated meal plan. That way its nice and visual for my DH, and he or I can move meals around if we need to during the week.

Will just be doing my meal plans weekly. We wont be restricting meats to certain days, bit too same same for us. Will try to plan for one new recipe per week (or maybe fortnight) to add new dishes.

Also bought a slow cooker, and looking forward to trying out some recipes in that!

Hi Lilias, I do this too - but on a weekly basis. I just find I'm always running back to the shops for the odd litre of milk, fresh bananas, etc... So weekly works best for me.

I do up a meal plan the day/night before I shop & plan what we are having for dinner each night. I'm lucky, because our school provides the kids lunches each day, so it's only breakfast items & dinner stuff for the entire family & then I just usually have leftovers for lunches.

I try to incorporate 1 fish dish, 2 chicken & 2 red meat dishes (usually beef as lamb is hard to get here & I don't like pork) per week & try & do one 'slack night' - usually Friday nights where I make something like a zucchini slice, nacho's, or something like that. We tend to eat out every Sat & Sun night as it's actually cheaper for us to do this. Imported/foreign ingredients are quite expensive & eating at a local Chinese restaurant is super healthy & super cheap.

Also, I like to try a brand new, or new-ish recipe every week. Last week I introduced tuna mornay & it was a huge success!

Good luck with it! It's a great idea!