meals · guide
How to plan a week of dinners on a budget, without thinking about it all week
Planning meals is rarely hard because of the cooking. It's hard because you're holding five things in your head at once: what you like, what's in the fridge, what it costs, whether there's enough protein, and what you ate yesterday. These five rules take most of those decisions off your plate.
1Plan from the meals you already cook
Most households rotate a small set of dinners they know and like. That isn't a lack of imagination; it's efficient. You know what those meals cost, how long they take, and that everyone will eat them.
So start with a list, not a recipe book. Write down the 10 to 15 dinners you actually make. That list is your whole menu. A new recipe can join it when you've tried it and liked it, not before.
Why it saves money: new recipes usually mean new ingredients, bought in full packs and used once. Familiar meals reuse what you already buy.
2Cook once, eat twice
Cook every dinner in a double portion: one for tonight, one for tomorrow's lunch box. Seven dinners then cover fourteen meals, and lunch stops being its own problem.
It costs less than it sounds. Doubling a pot rarely doubles the bill, because the oil, spices and stock are already there, and the hob is already on.
3Change the base, not the whole meal
Variety doesn't need seven new dishes. It mostly comes from the starch underneath: rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, or something else like bulgur or couscous. Follow one rule: never the same base two days in a row.
Rice on Saturday, bread with soup on Sunday, pasta on Monday, back to rice on Tuesday. The week feels varied, even though you're cooking the meals you always cook.
4Start with the fridge, not the shop
Before you plan anything, look at what's already there and what needs using soon: the half bag of carrots, the yogurt that ends on Thursday, the chicken in the freezer. Put the meals that use them early in the week.
Then split your shopping in two:
- The big shop for everything that keeps: dry goods, frozen food, onions, potatoes, carrots, tins.
- A small top-up mid-week for things that wilt: fresh herbs, bread, soft fruit, salad.
Fresh things bought on Saturday for Thursday are the ones that end up in the bin.
5Price the week before you shop
Give each of your meals a rough cost once. It doesn't need to be exact; a round number is enough. Then the week can be priced before you leave the house, instead of discovered at the till.
Turn your monthly food budget into a weekly one by dividing by 4.33 (the average number of weeks in a month). Take off the staples you buy every week anyway, and what's left is your dinner budget.
| Weekly share (600 ÷ 4.33) | ≈ €139 |
| Staples: milk, coffee, oats, tahini, peanut butter | − €25 |
| Seven dinners, cooked double, about €12 each | − €84 |
| Left over this week | ≈ €30 |
If the week comes out over, swap one expensive dinner for a cheaper one you like. Lentils, eggs and chickpeas are protein too, and they cost far less than meat. If it comes out under, let the difference roll into next week.
+A note on protein
Rather than counting grams, decide how many protein-rich dinners you want each week, say four, and make sure the plan has at least that many. It's simple to check, and it keeps the most expensive part of the shop under control.
Need a few dinners to start? The recipes each make 4 portions with rough calories, protein and cost, and go into the planner in one tap.
Let Sawsan hold it
Sawsan is a free meal planner built on these five rules. Add the meals you already cook once, and it prices them and keeps them on your phone. No account, nothing uploaded.
Open the meal planner