[grepfru_it]

You need to AGILE your meals. An easy way to start is by creating a basic menu you can fall back on. I started lifting in college and had to increase calories on a college budget. I became okay with eating chicken, brown rice and broccoli everyday. To this day, I still default to chicken and rice when I need to eat dinner and don't have plan. So my default looks something like:

    - Oatmeal, banana, and/or scrambled eggs for breakfast
    - PB&J or ham&cheese sandwich for lunch
    - Nuts, protein bar, peanut butter etc for snack
    - Chicken and Rice for dinner 
    - Eating out once a week

Sundays are my shopping days so I make a mealplan for the week of what I'm going to eat before I go to the store. That's when I decide if I'm going to make something else. Sometimes I want waffles or pancakes, or I'll get a frozen pizza, or I find a recipe for an interesting dinner and I'll try to make it. I've been doing this since I have lived on my own. With a family this just scales out a bit to account for everyone. Before I go shopping I ask the question "what does X normally eat for each meal" and that goes on the list. Then I ask them if they want to try something different this week. Usually my children say No, they want the same yummy food every day. My wife usually says yes because she desires change in her diet. So this allows me to plan at the start of my food sprint, spend 4-5 days executing, and then 1 day usually eating out and reflecting on how the week went. The number one indicator my plan failed is waste at the end of the week. To minimize waste, you need to maximize usage. I track this using grocy[0]. As time consuming as it is to manage inventory, it does a really great job of exposing how much money you spend and waste. Plus it has a recipe section which allows you to easily mealplan and figure things out especially when you don't feel like doing it.

So to recap:

    1. Identify your flaws and workarounds to get to a default state
    2. Commit to easy recipes to fall back on
    3. Expand and track your waste
    4. Fine tune and feel great!

[0] https://grocy.info/