Budget Meal Plans, Sorted.

A subscription meal plan built the same way I cook: budget-friendly, low-waste, and delivered to your inbox so dinner is one less thing to think about.

Every Friday you'll get an email with that week's plan. Inside is a PDF with your shopping list, a pantry staples page and five recipe cards, one for each dinner. Each recipe and the shopping list can also be downloaded on its own, so you can have just the list on your phone in the supermarket.

You'll also have access to the archive, with every previous week's plan in one place, so you can go back to a favourite whenever you like.

Most dinners take 30 to 45 minutes from start to finish. Now and then there's a slow simmer that runs closer to an hour, but that's lid-on time where the pot does the work, not you.

Some of that time is because we make things from scratch. Sauces, dressings, a spice paste here and there. You can absolutely buy those ready made, but buying the raw ingredient and making it yourself is a big part of how the shop stays where it does, and it tastes better for it. So if a dinner runs to 45 minutes rather than 20, that's usually where it's gone.

Every recipe gives you the prep and cook time up front, so you can look at the week and decide which dinner suits which night.

The Club is all about cooking, five nights a week. Nothing complicated and nothing that eats your whole evening, but you do have to get in the kitchen and make it.

If you actually quite like cooking and you're just sick of deciding what to cook, this is for you!

That's fine, the plan travels. I do this shop myself every week here at New World, which is how I know the under $85 NZD figure is a real number and not a guess. Yours might come in a bit higher or a bit lower depending on where you live and where you shop, and if you've got a market or a choice of stores nearby you'll often do better than I do.

The shopping list is grouped by section, fruit and veg, meat, chilled and freezer, then dry goods and tins, so you can get round any supermarket without doubling back.

The recipes work anywhere, it's the calendar that flips. When I'm cooking with courgettes and tomatoes in February, you'll be in the middle of winter. So take the recipe and swap the seasonal veg for whatever is good where you are. Same idea, different vegetable.

Same goes for the shape of the meal. If there's a salad on the menu and it's freezing at yours, put the same protein and dressing over rice or with some roast veg instead. The plan is a framework, not a set of rules.

The plans aren't written for a specific diet, and they aren't gluten-free or dairy-free. Many meals can be made vegetarian with a swap, but that's not guaranteed week to week.

Each dinner comes with swaps, and where there's a good vegetarian version, I'll tell you how.

No problem at all. Some weeks use up bits bought in an earlier week, like half a bag of frozen peas or the rest of a pack of noodles. Those are marked on the shopping list in a "New here? You'll need these too" box, so anyone just starting knows to grab them. If you've been with us a while, you'll probably already have them.

Things most of us already have in the cupboard: oil, salt and pepper, spices, flour, soy sauce, stock cubes, that sort of thing. They're marked (PS) on each recipe and listed on their own page, so you can check your cupboard before you shop. They aren't included in the weekly budget, and you can always swap in what you already have.

Definitely not. Before you shop, have a proper look in your cupboard, fridge and freezer. If you've already got a packet of pasta or half a bag of rice, use it. That's how a chef thinks: look at what you've got, work out what you actually need, and only buy that.

Nope. Any recipe that uses the air fryer gives you the oven method too.

The cookbook is nine ready-made meal plans you buy once. The Club is an ongoing subscription, a fresh plan delivered regularly so you never run out.

Try it free for 7 days. After that it's $12.99 NZD a month, which works out at about $3 a week to have five dinners planned, shopped for and sorted. If it's not for you, cancel before the trial ends and you won't be charged a thing.

Yes. It's a monthly subscription, you can cancel whenever you like, and you don't need to email me and explain yourself. You'll keep getting the plans until the end of the month you've already paid for. If you fancy coming back later, you just sign up again.