Easy wins: save hundreds, reduce waste and meal plan before you shop

How do you shop at the supermarket?

Do you take equal parts of impulse and vibe, fashion a list of stuff you fancy and load up the trolley until you think you’ve got enough food for the week?

An old and horribly inefficient version of my family of four did this for years. And for years, we’d get near the end of the week and have a pantry that was simultaneously full of food but without the constituent parts to make a decent meal.

But then came a revelation. The most important piece of family admin is now the table we draw up that includes all the lunches and dinners we want that week.

Our meal list comes in the form of a grid, with columns for each day of the week and rows for lunches and dinners.

Once that’s done, we check that all the ingredients we need are either in the kitchen already or are on the shopping list. Then we add a few extras for snacks and breakfasts. Some days, we’ll eat leftovers in the freezer. But this goes on the meal planner too.

This meal plan – stuck on the fridge – includes extra details like page numbers for recipe books or who will be that evening’s designated masterchef.

We saved hundreds of dollars a month with this method, and we throw away much less food than we criminally used to.

We also spend a lot less time in the supermarket because we don’t just wander down every aisle. This is good because supermarkets are not generally where you want to spend your time.

But also the less minutes you have in there, the less opportunity the sneaky store designers have to tempt you with two-for-one offers, freshly-baked bread smells and those shiny product placements right in your eyeline (but yes, I will take those salt and balsamic vinegar chips, thanks very much).

Do a meal plan every week. Don’t let them win.