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c/budgeting-wins•lilya76lilya76•1mo ago

Just realized meal planning by cuisine type is way smarter than by day of week

I used to plan my dinners like Monday was chicken, Tuesday was beef, etc. That fell apart every time I got home late and had to swap things around. Last week I tried grouping meals by cuisine instead, like two Mexican nights then two Italian nights in a row. It saved me like $30 because I could buy one batch of cilantro and sour cream for all the Mexican dishes instead of wasting half a bunch each time. Has anyone else found a weird system that actually works better than the obvious one?
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3 Comments
grays13
grays131mo ago
Oh the cilantro thing is a good point but I gotta say, grouping by cuisine doesn't always save money if you're not careful about using everything up. I tried the same thing with Thai and Indian nights back to back, but then I had leftover coconut milk and curry paste that went bad before I could use them again. What worked better for me was planning two weeks at a time with overlapping ingredients, like doing a Mexican night then a taco salad lunch the next day to use up the extras.
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spencer_owens58
I started freezing my leftover coconut milk in an ice cube tray exactly for this reason. Two cubes per meal and it keeps for months. Also if I do a big batch of curry paste I portion it out in a little baggie and freeze that flat so it breaks off easy. Have you tried freezing extras on purpose like that?
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quinncarr
quinncarr1mo ago
My roommate tried that and ended up with five different cuisines of leftover rice.
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