My husband and I were superstars with meal planning this week. On a whim, we stopped by Trader Joe’s yesterday afternoon to do our grocery shopping for the week. Usually, we sit down and plan out our meals with the help of coupons, in-store sales, recipes, etc., but this week, we got it together in about 60 seconds while standing in the bread aisle of Trader Joe’s. I’m still impressed. We had quite a bit of food leftover from last week’s trip, so our shopping wasn’t all that big.
In this week’s cart:
- Bananas (NuVal score: 91)
- Dry Roasted Pistachios (NuVal score: 67)
- Butter (NuVal score: 1)
- Romaine hearts (NuVal score: 100)
- Avocados (NuVal score: 89)
- Eggs (NuVal score: 33)
- Frozen shrimp (NuVal score: 75)
- Frozen edamame (NuVal score: 91)
- Rib eye steak (NuVal score: 30)
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Our grocery shopping trip was last-minute this week, so we shopped for in-store sales and used our reusable bags to save as much money as we could without planning ahead of time. We still managed to come in under our weekly grocery budget, but I think if we had coupons and really paid attention to the in-store sales and planned our meals around them, we would have saved even more. Oh, well. There’s always next week, and I’ll be sure to get my save on big time!
Do you tend to spend more when you don’t plan out your meals? How much more would you say?
Developed by an independent panel of nutrition and medical experts, the 
I plan out my meals every week. I have a pre-printed grocery list I made up based on what my basics are. On the back I write out a menu. When I’m “good” and have everything planned I never go to the store during the week. When I’m “bad” – ok call it unorganized before a shop – I’m at the store every day spending between $15 and $20!
I like myself and my life much better when meals are planned!