My DH and I have always meal planned, ever since we were students and before we were married
lol
but we always meal plan and shop at Lidl which helps control your options more.
We shop from Fri-Thu each week and spend around £45 for 2 of us at the moment. We use the cook once, eat twice method. Basically, we cook for 4 people and eat it over 2 nights. When Baby J arrives I'm hoping to b-feed but when she starts weaning we will wean her straight on to what we eat (pureed obv), so hoping the shop won't go up too much (discounting nappies etc) ofc!.
Evening meals for this week though are -
Sweet chili salmon (1 night) / fishcakes (1 night) with courgette, broccoli and leeks in homemade cheese/white sauce.
Homemade pork meatballs with kale, green beans and cous cous (2 nights).
Slow cooked pork shoulder with sweet potato wedges, baked onion strings & homemade coleslaw (2 nights).
Pizza with rocket and baby leaf salad (1 night).
As we both work FT as well, our lunches consist of cheese salads with celery/carrot sticks and hummus/cottage cheese (although with me being PG I throw in some sliced lean ham and have a jacket potato with mine every other day). DH has yogurt with seeds/nuts for breakfast and I have blueberry wheats or porridge or banana/peanut butter toast depending on my mood!
I found babycentre website to be quite good for meal planning per trimester as well as snacks. Luckily we already eat the majority of what is on there any way.
The other thing we like to do is try a new recipe each week as well so it doesn't get boring. We also have a selection of go-to's meals as well.
It takes practice but you will get there!
Let me know if you would like any ideas, more than happy to suggest meals.
