How meal planning can help organize your household

As food continues to be a major cost for families, local economist Jodie Kachkar, shares how meal planning can help bring the grocery bill down.

Grocery shopping and cooking can be hectic at times for families. Local home economist Jodie Kachkar joined CTV Morning Live’s Kent Morrison for tips and tricks on how to organize your grocery list.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kent Morrison: What’s one of the first things that you do in meal planning?

Jodie Kachkar: I take a look at my calendar because I need to know if I have a night where I’m not going to make it home for dinner, or if I need to get home to eat and then out the door for a certain time. I’m looking for pinch points where no one’s home for dinner, so it doesn’t matter. I do that and I write down the days of the week and what I’m pulling out of the freezer, if there’s any points where I’m going to be out. For example, Tuesday night is soup night at my house because it’s a busy night and we have people coming and going. Then I start putting meals in.

Kent: What’s your advice for when you’ve got your ideas and you’re making sure that you’re efficiently going to the grocery store and not forgetting something?

Jodie: A list but use an app. When I had a teenager at home, nothing drove me more crazy than when I rolled in the door and he’s like, “Oh, I needed deodorant.” I was like, “Oh, that would have been really helpful to know an hour ago.” So my husband, I and my stepson used to have a common list app that everyone could add stuff to and that works really well. I didn’t have to remember to put it on because it wasn’t my item. If it was something that you wanted, you put it on the list, and it will show up on the app.

Kent: How often are you doing this process? Is this a Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening thing? Or how often are you going through the meal planning?

Jodie: I do it on a weekly basis because that’s how far I can think ahead. I have a colleague that does this by the month, and I’m like, “Wow, I bow down to you,” but I can’t get it together that far and produce doesn’t last that long. I do it on a weekly basis and I start on a Sunday afternoon, and then I start making the list, checking what I already have, anything that I want to use up, and do a bit of a temperature check in my fridge. I order my groceries online. I do not set foot into a grocery store because the more times you go in, the more likely you are to spend more, and buy more things that you didn’t need to buy.

Kent: What would you say for people who think they don’t have time to figure this stuff out?

Jodie: Pick three meals. Buy groceries for three dinners for a week, and just fit them in.

Kent: Can you tell us your dry-erase weekly planner?

Jodie: I live with a multi-generation family, so there’s a lot of interest in what’s for dinner. It does change now and again, and I write things on it like, “Jody’s out this night,” so they know dinner will be late and it lives on my fridge.