As well as this being a great way to have a more nutritionally balanced diet and encourage you to only buy what you need, meal planning is also an effective way to do better in exams as, if you're anything like me, it's easy to zone out of lectures and think about what's for tea!
My Top 10 Planning Tips:
1. Get some nice stationery- okay, this might just be me, but I find I'm far more likely to write things down and not lose it if it's in a pretty notepad!
2. Always have a shopping list on your fridge door- this way you can jot something down as soon as you run out of it.
3. If there's space, stick another list on your fridge, this time writing all the leftovers inside that need to be used up. This is so important if you have a large family to let people know what needs to be eaten (or what is allowed to be eaten!).
4. You can probably tell I am a huge fan of lists. If you have a baker at home, I recommend having a list on the inside of your cupboard to remind your family/housemates what is inside your baking tins. This probably isn't a common problem, but often I have come across a cake tin at home with one lonely forgotten (and slightly fluffy!) flapjack.
5. If you buy products on promotion either freeze the extra items or double the recipe and freeze them later- but always check you have enough space in the freezer before falling into this trap!
6. Organise your meal plan around your weekly schedule- I usually have something happening every evening while I'm at uni so I often find it tempting to buy 'easy' but expensive meals from the campus shop. To get around this I try to cook in bulk when I do have time and defrost a meal when I get back late in the evening.
7. Go with theme nights. Growing up, Wednesday was always 'pasta night' (much to my friends' amusement, this meant I would always have leftover pasta in my packed lunch on Thursday!) and Friday was often 'fish night'. This means you know exactly what you need, how much you need and when you need it.
8. Check the weather! This may seem like a strange one, but with the changeable weather in Britain you may feel like a warm soup while you're shopping but there may be a heat wave during the week!
9. Allow yourself to have takeaways and eat out from time to time, but have an idea of when this might happen so you don't go buying unnecessary food for these days.
10. Check out the portion planner on Love Food Hate Waste's website. It's particularly useful if you have a large party to feed and you're not used to cooking for so many! Find it here .
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