I have previously posted about how planning meals and writing shopping lists save me money, time and stress. I use free digital tools to do this (although a pen and paper will work too).
The important bit is consistency and not wasting too much time stuffing around setting up a system. You will need to sort out what works for you. However, this is what works for me.
Once a week I plan my meals. Ideally I would always sit down in the same place and calmly write it out every week but my life isn't like that. I have two computers at home that I use regularly - a desktop computer in the study and a laptop. I also use a computer in the office when I'm not working from home and occasionally I use my husband's cute little eee pc when I'm out and about.
It is important to me to be able to access my shopping list/meal plan/recipes from all of those places. All of those computers other than the one in the office run Ubuntu linux. The office computer runs Windows XP and I'm limited in what I can install on that one (read: have no ability to download and install anything at all).
I enter my meal plan onto a free google calendar a week or so in advance. My husband and I have separate profiles on each of our computers. All have access to the google calendars (his, mine and the meal plan) from Thunderbird/Lightning (hint: install the provider for google calendar extension to get this going in thunderbird) and our customised iGoogle pages. We both have read/write access on our own calendars plus the meal plan calendar, and read access to the other's calendar. When I am writing the meal plan I can see quickly when my husband is going to be late home from work or when he is going out for a long lunch and is less likely to want a heavy dinner. (Edit: we've switched to using solely Gmail for email now - it is quicker than loading up Thunderbird, particularly on the eee pc.)
As I write out the meal plan, I add the ingredients that I need to the nifty web-based task manager, Todoist. I have a section set up for groceries etc which is divided by shop. As I run out of things during the week I add those to the list as well. As todoist is a web based app it is available everywhere that I have internet access. It also has a portal for access from your mobile phone.
Due to the fact that I'm hopeless when it comes to mobiles (sms is beyond me) and I'm too cheap to pay for unnecessary data, I don't usually access my shopping list on the fly. Instead, once I've finalised the shopping list I open Todoist up in print view, save the list as an html file and send it via bluetooth to my mobile. You could also print the list if you prefer.
The final part of my system is recipe storage. My previous system involved handwritten notes on scraps of paper decorated with dollops of sauce and oil spatters. Now I use Google Docs to manage my recipes. Each recipe is in its own file inside Google Docs.
One of the great things about Google Docs is that you can add multiple tags to each file. So a recipe for fruit mince pies might be tagged with 'baking' 'sweet' 'Christmas' 'fruit' etc. I can set up any individual file to be shared or can allow access to my full recipe repository. Google Docs is of course easily searchable and free.
Some other apps/extensions which make my digital life easier/more fun:
Gnome-do: a quick launcher for linux which includes the ability to quickly add or search events on google calendars
Ubiquity: a fabulous extension for firefox which performs all kinds of wonderful magic
Goosync: a nifty service which allows my google calendars to sync with my mobile phone via the cleverness of SyncML
Soocial: another nifty SyncML service, this time for contacts
Dropbox: a fabulous way of sharing all kinds of data with the whole world, a select few or just for backup. My mum and I have this set up to share all our family photos which are now available in a local directory on each computer. Dropbox automagically updates the folders when one of us adds new pics.
Feel free to ask questions/hurl abuse/offer suggestions in the comments section below. All the best to you and yours for a fabulously happy healthy and relaxing Christmas and holiday season.
Other posts you might be interested in reading
- Meal Plan Monday: What we’re eating this week Inspired by Amy at Feasibly Fit Mom, I decided to post this week's meal plan. I've previously mentioned how I use technology to plan my...
- Quick Friday Tech Tip: Print What You Like If you're like me, you often find great recipe ideas on blogs or other websites. I used to just bookmark the pages but I found...
- Recipe round up:3 recipes I’m trying next week photo credit: Photoportunity Each week I like to add some new dishes to the menu. We do have our favourites that pop up on the...
- 4 cookbooks and recipe collections I couldn’t do without I admit it, I have a small problem. Cookbooks and cooking magazines have overflown out of the kitchen, out of the bookcases and all over...
- How to plan your meals (flexibly) – part 1 I wrote this in response to Sunili's comment on my risotto recipe. It might be time-consuming but I really believe that writing meal plans and...
Tags: Budgeting, cooking, meal plan, meal planning, meals, pantry, planning, recipe, Recipes, tech
Beyond Beeton is a post-modern guide to household management inspired by Mrs Beeton’s 1861 Book of Household Management.
Sounds like a great idea! I'm just about to move out of home, so it's interesting to see ways I can integrate things like meal planning into systems I already use for other things.
That really is amazing, i think technology is surely but effectively influencing human life style and its a great thing.