Fall Savings: My Guide to Smart Meal Planning

Fall has always been my favorite time of year, and that feeling only intensified after I became a parent. Summer can feel like pure chaos, with camp, family vacations and back-to-school shopping all adding extra costs.

For my column this week, I interviewed money experts on how we can get our finances back on track after summer spending. They shared tips about monitoring our spending, reviewing unexpected expenses, paying off debt and planning ahead.

For me, fall financial planning includes another major component: serious meal planning. With the arrival of school schedules, sports practices and earlier bedtimes, my family uses dinner as a predictable time to sit together. But picky eaters and different preferences can add extra challenges.

Here are are my tips for making meal time work for everybody while staying on budget:

Go back-to-school shopping for dinner

While I’m helping my three children (ages 5, 11 and 14) pick out binders and pencils for their new school years, I also like to use the sales to pick out some new items to help me with dinners. I use a binder to organize our favorite recipes that we make frequently and tabs to separate the categories, like special occasions, weeknight meals and desserts.

Just as with schoolwork, organization is key. With all of my recipes in one place, I plan our meals for the following week by Sunday so I can get the groceries we need before the busy week begins. That helps us avoid the temptation to order takeout at the last minute, which is an easy way to spend almost as much as a weekly grocery run.

Establish new study habits

As with any repeated task, dinner planning can get a little boring, so I like to introduce some fresh meals in the fall when everyone is excited about new routines. Each week, I take a few minutes to check out new recipes from my favorite cooking blogs, Instagram influencers and food websites.

My favorites include J. Kenji Lopez-Alt on Instagram, Weelicious.com and The New York Times Cooking section. I aim to try at least one new recipe each week. Sometimes, as with Lopez-Alt’s caramelized cream of tomato soup, it’s a huge hit, and we make it over and over again. Paired with hearty bread, that soup is an entire meal.

Offer electives

At my house, we have some extremely picky eaters, along with a range of food preferences, which makes finding one meal to satisfy everyone difficult. To address that problem, I’ve come up with the deconstructed meal: I make spaghetti with sauce, but I keep all components separate, so one person can have plain pasta, another can have plain sauce, and the more flexible eaters can combine the two into a traditional spaghetti meal topped with parmesan.

I’ve also long believed that soups are one of the most cost-efficient ways to feed families. For me, Barefoot Contessa’s Mexican Chicken Soup has been a go-to meal, partly because it comes with different toppings, including cheese, tortilla chips and avocado, which people can choose to add or skip themselves. (Soups also freeze well for future meals — another benefit.)

Similarly, make-your-own pizza is a big winner because people can add their own toppings or skip the cheese or sauce altogether.

Enlist a teaching assistant

Within the last year or so, my two older children have started taking charge of cooking dinner one night a week. It’s worked out great for all of us because they get practice cooking and planning meals, and I get the night off.

My 11-year-old son has perfected the art of making grilled cheese and salad. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s something everyone eats — even if my 5-year-old insists on eating his sandwich “raw” instead of grilled, and my 14-year-old only eats the salad.