ilovemealplans.com

In my pursuit of both time and money saving in the kitchen growing your own fruit and vegetables is an interesting topic for me. I’m no gardener but before Baby G came along I did manage to grow a few vegetables, beetroot, rocket, garlic etc. Then I had the time to fuss over my vegetables and every night I spent time carefully removing slugs from my patch – we seemed to have a lot of slugs! Now at the time I would have been in the garden I’m upstairs fussing over Baby G and his bedtime routine.

It was very satisfying growing some of my own food. It was convienient too, just stepping out of the back door for my salad ingredients. However, now I’m a Mummy I’ve clearly come down hard on the side of saving time over saving money when it comes to growing vegetables. Should I get back into growing my own? Can it still be done with less time to spend in the garden? Certainly having an allotment has become more popular and lots have a long waiting list as everyone scrambles for a small plot to cultivate. After watching a recent morning news slot which suggested that growing your own vegetables didn’t save any money after the price of tools, seeds, seedlings, pots, canes was factored in I decided to do a little research myself. I found only positive articles about the money saving benefits, one family claims to have saved around £6,000! Read the article for yourself here.

What do you think? Can anyone give me any tips? How can I get started in my garden again or indeed should I save time and head to the supermarket instead? Please leave comments!

Why take the time out to get organised with a meal plan? Here are 10 reasons to persuade you…

1. Using a structured meal plan saves time thinking and considering recipes each day; reusing meal plans or rotating a monthly plan of recipes saves even greater time.
2. Planning all meals in one go allows for food shopping to be cut to once a week, saving time spent popping to the shops everyday, and less money being spent with daily shopping trips often adding up to more than one large weekly shop.
3. It is possible to plan for leftovers, when you have a roast dinner you can plan to use any leftovers in a stir fry or pasta so there is less food wasted which is good economically and environmentally.
4. Busy days can be less stressful as a quick meal or casserole prepared ahead will make things easier.
5. No more worries about a healthy diet as planning a whole week of meals lets you make sure your diet is balanced.
6. Last minute dashes to the takeaway, which can be expensive and unhealthy, will be gone as there will always be something planned for dinner.
7. Less snacking – meal planning helps to get dinner on the table before you get too hungry and start to snack.
8. Time spent in the supermarket is shorter as no need to wander around hoping for inspiration and trying to remember what is left in the fridge.
9. Families can get kids involved in meal planning, even sometimes choosing meals they can help to cook.
10. Everybody should be happy with what is cooked, as family members can all have some say in the plan and will know what to expect each evening.

One more reason:

Plan a week of meals and it is ideally suited to ordering all the ingredients online. Online shopping is very useful but does require organisation and planning.

Woo hoo!!!!! My very first website, my first blog entry. It’s taken me about four months to get here and I’m proud to say from my meagre computer knowledge I’ve created this site all on my own.

Well I promise regular food related blogs and today how ironic that I didn’t use a meal plan, instead we treated ourselves and ate an Indian takeaway. It was delicious and can you believe it, thirteen minutes later and it was here!

Now, I do have one money saving tip: How often do you end up throwing half your takeaway in the bin? Often there is just too much food, so we order a meal for one and share it between two. We find we have plenty to eat, no food left over and no wasted money. Then we feel full up but not totally stuffed.

Off to bed happy now, I’ve spent all my evening working on my site and I’m proud to say I’m officially a blogger!

Love Vicky xx