Deciding what to feed your family every day can be quite stressful! With young kids in the house you’re never sure how they are going to react to new combinations and let’s face it, dinner time needs to be successful so that the rest of the dinner, bath and bed routine goes to plan. There’s nothing worse than getting the kids into bed and then suddenly hearing that little voice piping up “mummy, I’m hungry”.

So, how do you plan dinner with so much to consider? Kids, adults, dietary requirements, budget? I don’t know about you but my head can spin at just the thought of it!

Some people make meal plans and then base their grocery shopping around the ingredients they need but I want to challenge you to do your shopping an entirely different way. Why not try to find the best deals and then plan your meals around them instead? It can really help control your grocery budget as well as helping you meal plan!

Let’s take feeding a vegetarian family for example and let’s see how much money I can save them by hunting around online and doing price comparison on special offers before buying. We’ll use Quorn prices and products as an example as they are a popular vegetarian protein substitute. Quorn make ready meals as well as chicken pieces, fillets and mince so I could end up just buying a ready meal or I could use one of their meat substitutes as part of a more home cooked meal.

I used the search tool to look for Quorn products and can now see them all up on the screen. After flicking thorough the different stores I can see that Sainsbury’s have a big 3 for £5.50 promotion which includes a lot of Quorn products. It’s really good value BUT thanks to the mySupermarket price comparison chart I can instantly see that Asda are running a similar deal but it’s any 3 for £5.00 so if I shop in Asda I’m not only getting a good deal, I’m saving an extra 50p. I click on the special offer so I can see all the other products included in this deal. Quorn sausages, Quorn mince and Quorn Fillets are all part of this deal so I’ve now got the base for 3 meals this week. What I decide to put with them depends on what other deals are out there right now. As it turns out this is what I’m going to cook:

Monday night – Sausages, roast potatoes and peas

Tuesday night – spaghetti bolognese

Wednesday night – fillets, mash, carrots.

My basket has only cost me £10.58 today* and I have enough potatoes, spaghetti and peas left to use on the weekend or even as far as next week.

If you want to get savvy about shopping at mySupermarket you can also checkout the new Savvy Assistant. He can help you find the best deals tailored to you. You can’t miss him, he’s our favourite little piggy with a top hat and green glasses!

* Prices are taken from 5.9.2012

**This is a guest post by mySupermarket.com, reimbursement received.