If you pop into the shop three times a week, most of the time you buy too much. A weekly menu is the simplest way to avoid that: you know what you will eat, so you know what to buy. Below are seven dinners for a family of four and a list that comes together in one pass.

The principle: menu first, list second

First write down what you will eat. Then take the products from the menu. Not the other way round. If you go for "food for the week" with no menu, the trolley fills with whatever looks pretty, and by Thursday there is nothing to cook for dinner.

The second principle: two or three dishes repeat. If potatoes go into three dinners and chicken into two, you buy more and cheaper, and nothing goes to waste. The third: Monday and Tuesday are the most perishable days, and Sunday is kept for leftovers.

The menu by day

Here are seven dinners, simple and inexpensive:

  • Monday: baked chicken with potatoes and onion, fresh salad.
  • Tuesday: pasta with vegetable sauce and cheese.
  • Wednesday: borscht, bread, sour cream. Cooked for two days.
  • Thursday: fish with rice or mashed potatoes.
  • Friday: polenta with brynza and sour cream, see the article on mămăligă.
  • Saturday: vegetable stew in the manner of ghiveci, with meat or without.
  • Sunday: soup or a roast, with the week's leftovers turned into patties.

For breakfast: eggs, porridge, sandwiches, cottage cheese. For lunch on weekdays: yesterday's dinner. That is the most economical rule of the week: you cook once and eat twice.

One trip: a list by aisle

Go to the shop with a list split by aisle, not by day. Then you walk through the shop once and do not go back to the shelves. Here is the structure, and for each item in the basket below you can see where it is cheaper now:

What it costs: Weekly family grocery basket: cost and where it is cheaper

The whole set at the best prices600.55 leiFound 16 of 17 items

Where to get the set

  • METRO14 of 17 itemsMost items
    1,388.00 leiMissing: Eggs, Cucumbers, Sunflower oil
  • Nr112 of 17 items
    489.25 leiMissing: Eggs, Potatoes, Cucumbers, Apples, Rice
  • Kaufland12 of 17 items
    556.85 leiMissing: Eggs, Apples, Pasta, Rice, Sunflower oil
  • Family Market11 of 17 items
    363.40 leiMissing: Eggs, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Apples, Rice, Sunflower oil
The whole basket

The aisles are: meat and poultry, fish, dairy and eggs, vegetables and fruit, grain and pasta, bread and dry goods. Work out the amounts from the menu: for chicken in two dinners a kilogram to a kilogram and a half is enough, for fish a kilogram for four. Do not buy "just in case": your back-up plan is in the cupboard.

Chicken: buy more and divide

Chicken is the main source of protein in this menu. It is handy to buy it when it is on offer and divide it at once into portions: half into the freezer. A whole bird is cheaper per kilogram but takes time, and fillet saves effort. What pays better we discuss in the article on chicken.

Chicken offers in the catalogues now:

In the catalogues now: chicken

All offers

Potatoes and vegetables: the base of the week

Potatoes, carrots, onions and cabbage keep for a week and longer, so you buy them at once. Fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs take for two or three days and top up. Potatoes keep best in a dark cool place, and onions separately: side by side they spoil each other.

Potatoes in the catalogues now look like this:

In the catalogues now: potatoes

All offers

You do not have to take everything cheap, but the base of the week should be inexpensive and filling. In-season vegetables are your best friend here.

Dairy, eggs, bread

Milk, kefir, sour cream and eggs go into breakfasts, sauces and baking. Eggs keep long, milk does not. Take milk for three or four days and top up the rest. Freeze bread: slice it and take out a piece at a time.

One more habit: take dairy for the week where it is cheaper. The stores with the best milk offer can be compared:

Where it is cheaper: milk

All offers

How to stretch meat and not get bored

Meat is the dearest part of the week. Stretching it is easy: add vegetables, grain, beans. Patties with courgette or cabbage, soup with potatoes, pilaf with carrots. There is less meat in the dish, but it is just as filling.

So the dishes do not get boring, change the side and the sauce, not the main product: chicken with rice on Tuesday and chicken with potatoes on Friday are already different dinners. Spices and herbs cost almost nothing and change the taste.

A back-up plan and a checklist

Always keep an "emergency dinner" from the cupboard: pasta, eggs, tins, frozen vegetables. It saves the evening when you have no strength and keeps you from ordering delivery.

Checklist:

  • Write the menu for seven days.
  • Take products out by aisle, check what you have at home.
  • Compare with the flyers and discounts.
  • Buy perishables for the first days, freeze the rest.
  • After three or four days top up bread, milk, herbs.
  • On Sunday eat the leftovers and sum up: what remained, what was not eaten.

Next time you will make the menu more exactly. If you want it cheaper still, look at the minimum basket and the general habits in the article how to save on groceries.