The major parts of any household budget are food, clothing and shelter and food costs can amount to a large proportion of these essential expenses. In previous times, when people tended to use the local shops daily and plan on a day by day basis you might have been able to manage your grocery shopping without planning weekly dinner menus but today, spending a half hour on this task before going to the supermarket can pay huge dividends and save you money.

Here are 5 good reasons for planning weekly dinner menus

You are susceptible to the lure of the takeaway
Planning weekly dinner menus will communicate to your family what is for dinner, they can communicate to you if they are not available, and so you can plan accordingly
Planning weekly dinner menus reduces the chances of wasted food at the end of the week – you only buy what you need within the dates you need it
You will eat more healthily because you will be planning ahead and plan it that way !
You will be less susceptible to impulse buying and special offers – stick to your list!
Equally, use special offers to cook in bulk and freeze anything you don’t need for the following week

Just try it – spend half an hour with the family before going shopping preparing weekly dinner menus and you will see the difference in your pocket (and in the dustbin at the end of the week!)

The bottom line here is that planning weekly dinner menus saves you money as well as time spent shopping. Isn’t that the goal for all of us?