Frugal

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Starting at planning menus - Any advice? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm looking to have tasty and balanced food while maintaining a reasonable budget and being more organised.
I know how to cook. I already have tasty yet not complicated meals I'm use to make but I never needed to be organised about it before.

So I decided to start to write menu in advance, do a some meal prepping probably a bit of batch cooking.
I found resources online to start following a plan but maybe you have advices for the beginner that I am.

Thank you!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yep, I got your point! I was agreeing with it, then adding my own thoughts about what I think is a complementary technique of stocking up on staples.

ah, my bad - sometimes I'm a bit socially clueless 😅 I thought there was a misunderstanding.

Since OP didn’t mention living in poverty but was asking for cheap and healthy meal planning tips, I shared my thoughts on that.

another good point - frugality is separate from poverty, I guess in some ways that even tracks my experiences with poverty - I am able to be more frugal out of poverty than in. Reminds me of that James Baldwin quote, "Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor."

In my experience, when you approach it like this, it’s a great way to live more frugally by taking advantage of bulk discounts and sales. So personally, I disagree with the idea that stocking up is a bad thing.

That makes sense! My own experiences with stocking up has been more fear-based than based on any actual calculus of what I use and at what rate, so I end up buying a huge bag of rice that goes unused for years, and I'm always just eating really old rice, lol.

So, yeah - stocking up in an unplanned and spontaneous way is a completely different approach than planning your food consumption and buying with bulk discounts at the right times.

Aside from reasons of frugality, it’s nice to know you have a good amount of calories in your house in the case of, for example, a global pandemic. I know that’s not the topic here, but just pointing out that there are other good reasons to store food.

This is a big concern I have had in the past, and a big reason for my stocking up as well. I went through periods of food insecurity in the past, so I would stockpile food almost as an emotional security blanket. It's been a hard thing for me to finally let go, but I have been slowly working my way towards a more reasonable approach to my pantry.

Thanks for your good ideas and tolerance as I stumble through our interactions - I appreciate your patience ❤️

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Hey, we're all clueless about things sometimes right! 😅 💖

What you said about the fear-based stocking up is so real. It's an easy way to try to feel like you're in control when you have suffered from food insecurity in the past or when you're nervous about the state of the world generally. It makes total sense that you had that experience!