Another question for menu planners - re: social outings during the week

Question for people who menu plan / budget - how do you handle last minute invitations for plans during the week? I usually menu plan for the whole week and get groceries accordingly. Without fail, I'll be asked to join a dinner at least one night a week. Sometimes I decline, just say other plans or whatever, but sometimes it is unavoidable. How do you handle this? Freeze the food you planned to make? Turn down the invitation? Also, from a budgetary perspective, it becomes an issue. Just wondering how others handle. thanks!

Another question for menu planners - re: social outings during the week

I move each meal ahead a day. So i'll make Saturdays dinner on Sunday and when I go to the supermarket on Sunday, i'll just shop for Monday through Saturday! I'll have 1 less meal to buy for. I've also cooked ahead and frozen something.

Another question for menu planners - re: social outings during the week

i just push out the menu by a day. If i have meat for it then i'll freeze it so it doesnt go bad. Then its one less meal i need to plan and buy for the following week.

Re: Another question for menu planners - re: social outings during the week

If there are ingredients that are going to go bad, I freeze them, yes, so they don't go to waste. But because things happen- invitations, laziness, something unexpected... I always plan in 1 to 2 days of "leftover" meals. Now, we don't usually have leftovers because DH takes the leftovers for lunch to work. But sometimes we do have leftovers and then it works. But most times it ends up getting crossed out anyway because it ended up being an eat-out day or something like that. If you know that it happens "without fail" once a week, then you should plan that into your weekly meal plan and then just shuffle around the other dinners accordingly. but this way you dont have to waste ingredients or end up with extra uneaten meals.

Re: Another question for menu planners - re: social outings during the week

I agree with making the plan to allow for leftovers. I menu plan, but I probably plan 3 dinners for during the week. I usually know my plans ahead of time for the week, but if there's a last minute issue (I have to work or DH gets stuck at the office), we can just eat leftovers later.

And then if I had planned on making a new meal that night, I'll just bump it to another day (and as others have said, if meat staying fresh is a concern, I'll freeze it). I usually plan my more perishable meals early in the week and then later in the week I plan to use more pantry ingredients or stuff from freezer (like a pasta dish, for example), so if the meal plan gets skewed as the week goes on, there's usually less of an issue with bumping back meals.

But if you plan to make a new meal every single night, I think there's potential for a lot of waste. Plus, it's just DH and me and our 5 year old DS (who eats his own thing), so I like to build in times to eat the leftovers so we are not throwing out a lot of food.