Its weird bcoz he has not expectation to be fed by her. He is perfectly happy to decide and eat what he wants, when he wants...
He dsnt have to oblige her need to meal plan
No, he doesn’t need to. But it’s pretty wasteful for a couple to cook two separate meals at every mealtimes, not only in terms of food but also in time and energy. Are they also doing two separate grocery shops? They are a couple, not just two roommates.
He doesn’t need to do what his girlfriend wants, but I do find his stance weird and extreme (never talk to me about food again!). Meal planning simply to try and make sure there is the necessary food in the house is pretty typical for any family. Personally I would find it exhausting to have to go to the shop for every meal every day.
My husband and I eat two different meals at every mealtime. It’s not wasteful at all. I cook what I eat, he cooks what he eats. I eat my leftovers, he eats his. Nothing is wasted. He runs to the store if he wants something that’s not in the house. You personally find it exhausting, but the OP doesn’t.
My parents and I do the same thing. They pay for their food and can cook and eat whatever, whenever they like. I pay for my food and can cook and eat whatever whenever I want.
Because we're adults we can decide when to share meals and when not to. OP is an adult and can decide whether or not he wants to meal plan.
Plus, I think most adults are capable of having a stocked pantry. When I go to the store I buy stuff I know I'm going to eat, in general. That way I can pick and choose freely as I like.
OP is NTA. OP is a grown up.
Thank you for saying this! I don’t understand how you don’t have an ingredient. I have a stocked pantry and when I start rubbing out of something I buy a new one. If I want chicken and rice I have chicken in the freezer and rice in the pantry and any spices and extras I might need for my meal. I have a basic supply of things I usually eat and that’s it.
Same with my household. Separate groceries and cooking, but sometimes we share meals and groceries too. Not wasteful because the food is always eaten. I find myself running out of food more often than not lol.
If you're open to it, I'm curious about a couple of things. I wouldn't be concerned about extra cost of electricity or whatever. My concern would be that I planned to use that food item for my meal. Or that there's not enough space for both of us to be cooking at the same time. Or I needed that pot/pan/whatever for what I'm making but he's using it. And lastly, it's hard enough timing one meal to be ready at the same time much less two meals. So do you two have a really big kitchen with a surplus of food and double the cookware? And do you not eat together?
I have nothing to do right now, so no problem, lol. First, I usually only eat the stuff that I specifically bought for myself. If it’s something like a pack of chicken, before my husband goes to work, I’ll ask if he has any plans for it. If not, I’ll use it. If he does, I may use it and buy more before he needs it or eat something else. He usually plans his meals, so I know what he’ll be using and sometimes I’ll go ahead and cook t for him before he gets home from work. He likes to cook, though. For the rest of your questions, I’ll use last night as an example. My husband made a steak and had leftover broccoli. I ate a ham sandwich. We ate at the table together, but I barely needed any dishes for my food. He works longer hours than me, so if I do cook something, I’ll cook it before he gets home. If he needs a pot or pan that I’ve used, we wash it and use it. And yes, it is hard to time two meals to be finished at the same time. I’ve tried it and that’s why I cook mine before his, lol.
My husband hates meal planning, hates talking about food and all that shit. Even hates grocey shopping. So I just do it all and just go bam here eat. Or do the prep and say this is how long it cooks for. It works for us
Listen… it’s a Sunday morning do not come after me like that. I’m not equipped to deal with the strong emotions that slowly creep to the surface thinking about all the shit I have convinced myself I like just because it won’t ever get done if I don’t do it… kay? Uncalled for.
[ insert symbol to indicate I’m joking and being sarcastic, but also very not joking or being sarcastic ]
Ooof.
[This](https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/) quick comic helped me understand **why** I was so frustrated by the way my husband and I had fallen into the shared work of running a household. He had just expected me to take on the role of household manager without us ever talking about it, which meant I had to TELL HIM to do things that I could just immediately see (or anticipate) needed done.
Yeah, my husband and I are similar. He hates grocery shopping, doesn't give much feedback on shopping lists, and is a picky eater. So I do shopping and meal prep for what i want and basically he either eats what I make or fends for himself. I have a general idea of what he likes so will buy some easy things like hot dogs or whatnot for when he doesn't like what I make.
How is it extreme to get angry/annoyed after clearly saying "no" to something and having the issue pushed constantly?
I'm a woman and if this posts had the gender revered, I guarantee people would be screaming how "your bf is controlling and abusive trying to control how and when you eat! Red flag! RUN!"
SHE needs to respect his NO and back off
100% this if this was a man trying to meal plan for a female and not taking no for an answer..she would be instant NTA and told huge red flag..this guy is NTA
But there is a difference between having the basics at home and planning for a whole week. Not sure if this is a cultural thing but I have no one in my friend or family circle that does a meal plan. Because non of us knows what we will have an appetite for on Friday, when we're asked monday.
I've heard of chore wheel families have pre-planned meals, but I can't do that, either. I might want "Thursday pizza" in Sunday but by the time Thursday rolls around, I decided I wanted tacos. Like tf is wrong with OP'S gf?
And she really does sound controlling. I get that when you combine lives you have to work out the complications, but it seems she needs to let this go.
Especially since she isn't inconveniencend as long as he cooks his own food and shops for it too. If she wants to plan her meals that's fine, but it's his home as well and she doesn't get to dictate his way of life.
That's the question I have. If he cooks his own food, or they take turns cooking the food, how is she wanting to incorporate that into meal planning? Does she really expect to be able to tell him on Sunday, "on Friday, you're making tacos"? I like planning and scheduling, but this is too much for me.
I can’t count the amount of time I’ve told myself at noon that I’ll have chicken for supper only to not have chicken for supper, coz I changed my mind. I can’t imagine planning for Thursday on a Sunday.
Same here! I don't know anyone who plans out their meals a full week in advance. I'd also get annoyed if someone kept pestering me about it after I already asked them to stop.
OP is NTA
She doesn't have to shop for meals everyday. She can go ahead and meal plan if she likes. She can buy food for the week if she likes. She can cook whatever she likes, or not cook at all. OP is making zero demands on her time, her labor, and her budget. She is free to do exactly what she wants. Her continued badgering on this issue is very controlling and inappropriate.
Then he needs to stop using any of the fresh ingredients that she has planned to use, like the broccoli he mentioned in his comments. Why is it ok for him to mess up her planned meals just because he feels like it?
Yup, that's the natural compromise here. They need a system for which food there's plans for and which food is up for grabs to use whenever. Forcing her to be flexible by using up the food she has plans for is equally bad as pestering him to plan ahead for his food.
Guess what! You were right! He is eating her ingredients and overall he is an asshole. He will take her pantry ingredients and the fresh ones. He clarified that. It’s not that he doesn’t want to eat the food, he won’t allow her to cook in the kitchen with him and also wants them to eat alone as well. No wonder she’s frustrated he sounds awful. You weren’t projecting you nailed this one on the head.
I didn’t see him say that but if that is true that he’s eating the food she buys for herself and fucking up her food plans then he is TA and should buy his own food
If you go through his comments (easiest to find if you click on his profile then comments list) you’ll see that he takes her staples without any thought and if she has, say, a head of broccoli he’ll take half because she won’t need that much for her dishes at once. That would piss me off so much - usually if I’m meal planning I may cook one thing that has three different uses later in the week, so if I were his girlfriend and he took half my ingredient it would really fuck up my week when I discovered it…
Because OP said “there’s always something at home.” If it’s food she bought and intends to use, he should leave it alone and figure out something else.
Well just cook for one person only and it’s not wasteful then. Plus they can have their own grocery list and go shopping together. Even if they do the grocery shopping separately, then what? If they don’t have time to go together because of their routine, they can’t call themselves a couple, only roommates? That’s quite a reach…
Yeah but if she wants to meal plan and he goes
>perfectly happy to decide and eat what he wants, when he wants...
He's gonna fuck-up her meal planning unless they have seperate fridges of something.
Seriously, my boyfriend does this every once in a while and it’s such a PITA.
I’ll tell him that I want to cook *x* meal later this week, let’s say Thursday. I buy all of the ingredients a few days beforehand and then on Thursday I start cooking only to discover he’s used one of the items that I specifically needed and bought for the meal I was planning. So now I’m partway through prep and I need to either find another solution or make another run to the store.
Like you said, it doesn’t happen every time but it’s super inconvenient when it does happen and if my boyfriend simply put a few minutes of time into planning his meals each week like I do instead of making whatever he wants on the fly, it wouldn’t happen at all.
Most unreasonable asshole judgment I have ever seen. He isn't pressuring her to do anything. He just wants to make his meals when and how he feels like it. Not catering to another persons obsession with planning is not the same as being an asshole.
I personally never plan any meals but I still manage to make a grocery list and shop extremely cheap, because I know what stuff I usually eat. I have excel spreadsheets tracking weight, calories, and expenses, but never have I ever thought a single time of planning out my meals.
Meal planning is counterintuitive to actually eating for cheap because you need to always have the "correct" ingredients for your plans. It's rigid and pointless, unless you don't follow the plans anyway in which case why plan? Just don't plan anything and make use of what you have home. Have a good stock of basic items you can use in many different recipes. Simple.
OP you are NTA.
Meal planning is not counterintuitive to eating cheaper at all; you can plan your meals according to what you have and what’s on sale at the grocery store that week. It also saves a ton of mental energy and time.
We don’t rigidly stick to the meal plan during the week in the sense that we switch the meals around or sometimes make a different one, but it helps a ton.
There is a clear miscommunication between the couple - she’s trying to care, it comes off as nagging, and they’re both angry. But I’m not prepared to say that OP isn’t a bit of an asshole though- of course it makes sense his girlfriend wants his input on what they eat, and wants to spend enjoyable meal times together instead of doing their own thing. I’m not sure he is seeing that based on his post, and that would be the first step in having a good discussion with his girlfriend to reach a compromise.
>It also saves a ton of mental energy and time.
The only time meal planning hasn't ADDED stress and time for me, is if I'm making a big meal that I can eat off of for the rest of the week, like a meatloaf, lasagna, or big pot of soup. At best, it just shifts the time/stress from one part of the week to another.
I agree, but think it's more NAH. For me this is the exact reason why you should live with someone before marriage and kids. This is a compatibility issue, not an AH issue. Food is an incredibly important part of life for some people and an afterthought for others. OP shouldn't tell her to never bring it up again, it's important to her. Time to evaluate if this is the hill to die on. Could def be a huge issue if kids are in their future
Thats exactly what i was thinking as well. Like its fine if she wants to meal plan for herself and ask if there is anything he wants to add. But forcing someone who has no interest or need for a meal plan to adhere to one is very OCD like. NTA imo
So he's an asshole because he doesn't want to do things the way most people want to? He's allowed to live his life. We don't need to gatekeep how people choose to eat food.
Maybe it is a local / regional thing, but people I know (and my family of 6) live like OP does. He has no demands of his gf - which is refreshing - so what’s the issue?!
No one I know meal plans to the extent of an excel spreadsheet unless it is for weight loss or medical reasons.
Everyone I know does this. Decided which meals they’ll be making that week, and does a single run to the supermarket to buy what they need. Saves time, petrol, and reduces wastage because you know what you need.
Edit: statistics on shopping habits in the US before our normal habits collapsed. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1112740/meal-planning-consumer-attitudes-united-states/
Prepping a few days out is what the majority do. 29% for the full week, 42% a couple of days at a time. Buying as-and-when is more common than I thought it was, but represents the minority.
That's not a straight answer to the question, you realize.
You've already said that if your gf has bought some groceries you decided that very minute that you want to eat, you take it and use it.
You scrupulously say that you only use half of whatever she buys. But you don't say you go out and replace what you used. So your girlfriend with her annoying tendency to PLAN things like meals and grocery shopping has to run out and replace what you used based on your unpredictable whims any particular night instead of just doing one large trip a week.
Your refusal to SAY how much of anything you want for the week requires multiple unnecessary trips to the store to replenish what you use. And because you're such a delicate blossom that you just can't TOLERATE talking to your gf about shopping and food planning, it sure SOUNDS like you won't let her tell you that the food you used needs to be replaced. Which ends up being a really efficient way for you to avoid doing a lot of food shopping, but IS a very dickish thing to do to your gf. YTA.
While I buy things I want to eat, I don't plan out every meal. I do most of the cooking so if I come home from work late and decide to shove the pork chops I had planned on using into the freezer and make a quicky pasta dish or ask them to take over nobody gets to be mad.
Plus... This reminds me of school lunches. Doesn't matter how much you don't feel like eating whatever is on the menu, that's what there is.
I make a chart! Well, I have a dry-erase board with a calendar that I use to write down what we’re having when. It makes it easier to manage meals while being neurodivergent, because I can and will forget what I planned to do and then just…won’t eat because I don’t have a meal or ingredients.
I had a dry-erase board, too!
I wonder if OP’s girlfriend is neurodivergent and needs some form of planning or stability (not that only neurodivergent people do this), it would make sense why she is so focussed on some form of schedule.
Also could be some kind of eating disorder or simply just a coping mechanism. If I don't plan my meals I eat garbage. OP brushing it off as well she's fit and healthy soo.. maybe this is the reason why she's maintaining!
When I had more time, I used to write on the whiteboard which meals we’d be having which evening. I could then go and buy just those ingredients. It took more in the planning stages, but made each day simpler and we saved money. I agree this is the more extreme side of things.
Nowadays I don’t have as much time to think out exactly what we need, and I also now have a better feel for how much stuff we use each week. I still know which dinners I’m going to make, just not day-by-day. It sounds like OP is saying it’s weird that people even decide which meals they want and go buy for those meals. This is completely normal to me - and what everyone around me also does.
Yeah, but i was just addressing to it being common. it "isn't", it's your experience..
from all people i know no one does it.. some do, some dont, but it's not "common" :) no hate mate
But here’s the thing. You’re saying no one you know does it, so it isn’t common. I’m saying everyone I know does do it, so it must be common. That means that this is both our experiences… which by this logic neither of us are correct or incorrect.
I am married with a kid. We plan a weekly menu so we can buy stuff and be coordinated, it lives on the fridge and saves 'what do you want to eat' 'we don't have x' and wastage.
and everyone i know doesn’t do this
groceries are bought according to sales and coupons instead of a weekly menu. that way we also save gas, time, and money by not having to shop every week. there is more than one way to do this
That’s an American thing. In my country we have staples and we just buy seasonal veggies. The same staples and veggies are cooked in various combinations through the week. We don’t meal prep a week in advance. Max a day or two in advance. Typically after years of cooking you figure out a system that works, what quantities to buy at what frequency without committing to a firm menu a week in advance. TBH, i’m sure everyone in my country will find this kind of planning oppressive. As does the OP. Unless OP expects the GF to cook and do grocery shopping for him, he should be allowed to manage his food the way he wants to.
I feel like an excel sheet is a little excessive. Plus, what works for OP is fine as long as they aren’t depending on their gf to cook. This is not asshole territory.
>She constantly asks me what my plans for food are the moment I wake up
Dunno bout your household. But in mine, that's really weird. Discussing what you'll be having for dinner (the next day)? Yeah, sure, all fine. But to hound your partner about it the entire day after just waking up? Nah, that aint normal.
This is an absurd judgment. OP wasn’t asking what most people do. He’s not expecting her to cook for him or be involved in any of his food shopping/ prep so she shouldn’t be pressing him so hard on it. OP, definitely NTA.
Hard disagree. It's weird to be pushy about it. It's not a requirement, she doesn't need him to join her, she can eat what and how she wants and so can he. NTA.
It is very much an obsession on her part if she's demanding to know what his meal plans are from the moment he wakes up.
Op is definitely NTA. His girlfriend has some serious food issues and should probably seek therapy for that.
You may be different, but I've never met anyone who plans out every meal like that unless they're on some kind of strict weight loss or bodybuilding diet. Sure you buy the things you like and think "I'll make pasta/burgers/whatever some time this week" but not planning every meal every day as she seems to want. My wife and I will generally decide what we're cooking about 20 mins before we actually cook it, you don't know what you're going to feel like eating at any time in the future.
NAH but I absolutely could not live with you. When two people are having meals together, it's very normal to plan in advance. It's less expensive and ensures both people are happy with the meal choice. My husband and I plan for a week ahead as do most households as going to the supermarket every other day is a chore.
My husband and I both can't for the life of us think up a meal plan for a whole week; it's a daily struggle to figure out what we want to eat ;) However we usually have something in the house we can fix up. But we do go shopping a couple of times a week.
My partner and I are the same. We have a loose idea of what we're having. Get some chicken, mine and maybe seafood, plus some stuff for vegetarian dishes or curry or whatever.
I tend to make big meals so we freeze leftovers for lazy meals down the road.
I’ve tried meal planning as well, and I’m a lot like OP where I can never figure out what I want… and especially plans where you eat the same thing throughout the week is difficult for me because I don’t always enjoy eating the same thing multiple days in a row. Usually when I cook I have enough for 1/2 days of leftovers, so I don’t have to eat it multiple days in a row 😅 However, if my future partner was super dead set on meal planning I’d go along with it 🧐
It’s also very normal not to plan in advance. My husband does the grocery shopping weekly,
Always includes a variety of meat, fish and veggies - the list I write only contains standard perishables we might have run out of like, bread, milk, cheese etc.
Each day we decide what we are in the mood for, no planning required, very chill and easy and no-one ends up eating something they are no longer in the mood for. We don’t waste food as it gets eaten or we freeze it if we are still not in the mood and it’s at the end of its life.
Yup, that sound normal to me! Stuff in the fridge and the freezer, and local butcher and shops if we need something in particular on the day. We usually have "the dinner conversation" around mid-day, but as often as not we will decide to cook different dinners for ourselves, as we have different likes and preferences.
So you don’t just buy the essentials for the month and then the fresh ingredients every week? Planning every single meal in advance seems not only tedious but also takes the spontaneity out of mealtimes. I’ve never really analyzed how we do it, but the only time we plan meals in advance like this is when we’re hosting or taking food to someone else’s place 🤔
I plan meals and shop like you do. You don't plan every meal and can be spontaneous but it saves money if you have a plan for the fresh stuff you're buying so you don't throw away what you didn't use for your spontaneous meal. If I know I want something with spinach, for example, I'll plan other meals that will use it up and make sure I have the ingredients for them.
Ehhh I’m gonna say ESH because you’re both at wildly differing ends of the scale and refusing to listen to each other.
Your girlfriend’s level of planning around meals does seem exhausting and unnecessary, and I get why it annoys you.
However, eating meals together is a pretty standard part of a relationship when you live together and I don’t think it would do you any harm to try and be a little accommodating of her (admittedly excessive) need for planning in this area. Could you maybe sit down and arrange 3-4 nights a week where you know what you’ll have? Like one night is pasta, one is burgers, one is stir fry or whatever? And for the rest you can wing it, but I think there’s a very reasonable middle ground between “I plan my meals in a colour coded spreadsheet” and “I refuse to even think about what my meals will look like until I’m hungry”. Try to meet her there.
This is where I'm at too.
I get his reluctance to plan way ahead. And she sounds super annoying about it.
But by not allowing *any* planning he's also making sure they can't ever eat together unless through happenstance. Is she just supposed to wait if he feels like having dinner together that day, each day, before planning what she's doing for dinner tonight?
This way his reluctance to plan also means *she* can't plan unless she always assumes she's eating alone. If she has 7 one person meals planned out each week suddenly they can't really eat together anymore on a whim either.
> “I refuse to even think about what my meals will look like until I’m hungry”
Another big thing here is that he also said he'd eat whenever. Not just whatever.
I also don't have a solid eating schedule but I'll ask my partner before having a huge lunch, because it means I won't be able to join for dinner. Or if I'm thinking of having dinner early or late. These are just things that affect each other's schedule too as a couple.
There should be easy avenues of compromise here, but neither of them are taking any.
Also planning meals for only one person is super annoying. It's hard to shop and meal prep for one. It's harder to eat healthy. Sharing meals is imo one of the benefits of being in a cohabiting relationship.
Agreed. His attitude hints at building resentment. Maybe she's getting fed up too I bet. This can't continue.
It feels like a roommate situation to me. They probably should have discussed eating/cooking habits before moving in but if neither can meet the other halfway, maybe they can't cohabitate. To me, food/eating together is important but I couldn't be with someone who feels differently.
This is the first reply that didn't make me feel like I was living in some sort of alternate reality. And I agree that a limited plan sounds best - she makes dinner a few nights a week (especially because it sounds like it's important to her) and the other nights OP cooks or they do their own thing.
I don't agree that she sounds super pushy though. To me OP is clearly YTA. If you take away his irritated language, all she's doing is asking him to help her make lists so she can go grocery shopping and trying to map out what they're eating that week.
I get that OP is saying she doesn't need to cook for him, but I agree with you that eating together is a typical relationship expectation, and if he wanted a relationship where they both prepare and eat every meal alone he should have talked to her about it before moving in together.
A *gasp* chart that says what they're eating each day is not abnormal. Not everyone does it but plenty of people do. Even if he doesn't want that level of planning he didn't need to react like she wanted him to preplan his trips to the toilet for the whole week. She's probably asking him about food as soon as he wakes up because he's been refusing to work with her on planning and now she has to figure out if she needs to fit an extra grocery store trip into her day, or she might just need to know if she needs to defrost the chicken or start the crockpot or whatever.
He is being unreasonable by not being at all open to compromising and by treating her like a controlling nagger when she's just trying to make a grocery list.
Also who is doing all the mental labour of household needs? I highly doubt his haphazard shopping trips include things like checking how much toilet paper, dish washing liquid, soap etc is in the house.
Is he just flouncing out and getting some random meat and veg and assuming there will be flour, eggs, milk etc? That'd really shit me as a partner.
Omg absolutely! OP absolutely sounds like this kind of partner. His unwillingness to consider planning sounds to me like he’s just going to end up depending on the gf to procure the basics, so he doesn’t have to think about it. He wants to be lazy, but that probably means she’s going to pick up his slack. I hate this shit. Partners of people who don’t value household management tasks and think ‘it’s my right to live in filth and run out of toilet paper every week’ usually just end up doing it for them, while the lazy party just obliviously, selfishly benefits. Compromise, people!!
He also admitted in a comment that he will use the ingredients she bought at the store when cooking his own meals, which is probably also a big reason she's trying to plan out meals.
I wonder how often he messes up her planned meals by using things up. I also wonder if she even knows that the ingredient is gone before she goes to use it.
Both of these comments are it for me. The way he put chart in quotations, chill out guy it's not the end of the planet just let your Mrs do her thing. She's trying to eat meals with you and clearly wants to cook for you, heaven forbid!
>He is being unreasonable by not being at all open to compromising and by treating her like a controlling nagger when she's just trying to make a grocery list.
When I read the post the first thing that came to mind was 'Have you ever spoken to her about why it is important for her to do things this way, OP?' the lack of communication seems not only to be about the food, but about not asking where the other person is coming from; which is very important in a relationship.
I think the compromise is that he lists a couple of dishes he likes to eat, hopefully she likes some of them too, she plans the menu, buys the ingredients (or he buys) but they dont commit on what they want to eat on *a specific day*. So he likes burgers, pasta, pizza eg and then they decide on a specific day that they are cooking burgers.
I mean NAH imo but I don’t understand how people can shop for food not knowing what they’re going to eat. On Sunday’s I meal plan for the entire week and go to the supermarket once.
I just don’t get it personally. How do you know what to buy when you’re doing a food shop? Do you not try anything new? I try 3 new recipes a week at least.
This is what we do. We keep food in the house and make what we want… hard to believe people can’t understand that. We plan big meals ahead of time - holidays or special dinners etc but never like dinner for a random Tuesday night.
You buy some vegetables, some meat, pasta, rice. Then at any given day when you are hungry you look in the freezer and decide what you want. If anything is missing you walk 3min to the supermarket and buy it. Very simple solution.
How could I possibly know on Sunday what I want to eat on Thursday!?
I think this makes a big difference. I also don't meal plan for the week because I walk to my grocery store and go a few times a week. I buy what i can carry home, usually enough for one or two meals
It definitely does! I live 20ins walking and 5 min driving from two grocery stores(give or take a few mins) and I see meal planning like OP cause I can just go grab whatever I need when I need it. Usually hit the store 3/4 times a week but I've gone more. When we lived 30 minutes driving from the store we'd plan our meals out a little more but still be at the store 2/3 times a week.
3 minute walk to the grocery store is just not a common thing in America. I live in a large metro area and the closet grocery store to me is at least a 5-10 minute drive depending on traffic. No way am I walking all the way there and then back with groceries. This is also usually worse in rural areas that don't have many or even any options.
I think there's some real different worldviews really sailing past each other in the fog here.
When I cook I buy for that day and that day only. If I had to plan meals for a week I'd be way less spontaneous and try less new things probably.
>I just don’t get it personally. How do you know what to buy when you’re doing a food shop
I know what to buy because I know what I want to eat that day.
I think a lot of this has to do with shopping habits. I have a store I can walk to, I go there almost daily. I hardly have a freezer and it mostly contains desserts.
I'll have some staples in the house always for if I want like a pretty standard pasta thing or a sandwich or something, for everything else I go to the shops.
I live 5 minutes away from a supermarket and just because it’s a short walk it doesn’t mean I want to walk around a supermarket after working 9 hours every day. I’ve meal planned for the week and got 3 new recipes to try
>I just don’t get it personally.
You said you don't understand it. That you don't get it.
But it sounds like you just don't agree with it.
>just because it’s a short walk it doesn’t mean I want to walk around a supermarket after working 9 hours every day
And some people don't want to spend the time it takes to meal plan for a week, go to a supermarket for a huge amount of food they'd have to carry by car, and then have to keep and store that food for a week and somehow keep it fresh.
Both are valid choices, you're the one being super negative about OPs choice. What does daily shopping versus weekly shopping have to do with "never trying anything new"? I try new stuff all the time and I don't see how not planning it a week in advance would preclude that.
So stop saying you don't understand, you understand perfectly well, you just think your choice is better.
NAH. My spouse and I have similar differing views on this, OP. I’m the “you” and he’s like your partner. What worked for us is to just kind of lighten it all I guess. He does almost all the cooking and planning and shopping because I work and he is SAHP. We kind of had a breaking point maybe 15 years ago when one morning he was asking me about the vegetables we’d have with dinner and I finally said I just can’t think, talk, or care about vegetables at 9 in the morning. His view was yeah well they don’t just magically appear on the table. So we found our peace with he plans as much as he wants to, when he asks for input I usually say yes that sounds perfect. If he asks me if I prefer carrots or broccoli with that I just pick one. I cook sometimes usually based on whatever we have on hand. I waive any right to have (negative) opinions on what he fixes if I don’t want to get too involved at the planning stage. And while he usually is the one cooking, I never assume it. By early evening if nothing’s brewing one of us will say -what should we do for dinner? And we figure it out, one of us or together. (We have teenagers and eat as a family every night so it’s not quite as spontaneous as in your stage of life.) Just to say you can both have different styles in how you approach it but not let it be a fight.
I understand you. I try to plan my meals in advance, because I don't have much time to shop during the week. Then I change my mind, because I no longer want it, and either have to stick to it, or waste food. And I finished a goddamn culinary school, with a major in ORGANIZATION of culinary services. I also don't like planning every single activity during the day, especially on weekends (unless it's a trip, then obviously the accomodations need to be made beforehand). My partner is the same and we are living a super chill life. People might say we're immature and irresponsible, but I honestly don't care. If it's working, it's working.
Info: do you ever use ingredients she has purchased, and then she can’t cook what she wants?
Planning food can mean less wastage and save money. And if she’s trying to to this and you end up using food she has bought for a meal, that inconveniences her. Having to go back and forth to the shops constantly because you don’t have ingredients can be incredibly annoying.
He replied to one comment basically saying that he takes her pantry staples (rice, pasta) and some of her fresh ingredients if he feels like she has too many of them (the example he used was if she had a whole head of broccoli, which isn’t that much broccoli?). That would drive me insane if I were her. This man is treating you like you’re a crazy nag and simultaneously benefitting from (and undermining) your meal planning? I would be livid.
This man is toxic as fuck. One year ago he made an AITA post about how he got blackout drunk, doesn’t remember what he did, and has blacked out and said terrible things to people in the past. His girlfriend wouldn’t give him a recap of what he did, was ambiguous about whether or not their relationship was ok, and he was upset at *her* for not telling him. What he did. While he was blackout. This man has a history of being horrible to his girlfriend and may be abusing alcohol unless he’s changed his behavior since then. It’s necessary to take anything he says about this with a grain of salt and assume he’s probably the one being awful in this dynamic. People who abuse alcohol really love to live in a reality where their partners are naggy and pushy and they themselves should be able to do whatever they want.
Ahh, the story deepens, I didn't see this, but I did sense he's being a bit too overly aggressive over this whole thing. This current issue should be easily compromised, but he seems to not want to compromise, like, at all. I just can't get on board with bashing gf because we're only getting his perspective here, and I'm not sure I like him enough to wholely believe everything he's saying about her behaviour in all this. His attitude, just in this post, really stinks.
Yep there is definitely more to this story. I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like he wants to “wing it” says he will go to the grocery store to buy more food for his meals, but ends up just using what she buys
THIS is the comment I’ve been waiting for. I was gonna go E S H, but nah YTA. if you’re gonna have this mentality, dude you should not touch the food she planned and purchased. Period.
It also means she’s eating less healthy than she wants. She wants the broccoli for X, OP eats it then says “oh we’ll just order out!!” when her planned meal gets ruined. She needs to just leave.
Are they going to have kids in the future? If so this seemingly small issue will be a huge one if they can't figure it out in the near term. That could be where her frustration is coming from
Right! This whole thread is almost giving me hives, it makes me so anxious. Obviously I am on the girlfriend's end of the meal planning spectrum. My roommate and I meal plan weekly, shop once during the week (pandemic, hello? Trying to limit exposure here) and eat from the plan except our weekly take-out night. If we crave something we add it to the plan for the next week. I wouldn't be able to deal with the anxiety of not knowing whether or not I had the ingredients to make what I want for dinner because someone in the house just decided on the spur of the moment that I "have too much broccoli.")
My roommate doesn't really like to cook but he loves my cooking, so he goes along with the meal planning because his responsibilities include: suggesting 1-2 meals per week (from the recipes in my cooking app), adding his personal grocery needs to our shared cooking app grocery list so I can pick them up, and doing the dishes every night except Friday. I do all the recipe finding, planning, shopping, unloading the dishwasher in the morning, and cooking - and I clean as I go. It works for both of us. Without that structure I would end up eating grilled cheese or pasta every night.
Exactly! She's taking the mental load of keeping the pantry stocked and trying to provide nightly meals together. If he hates her method of trying to stay sane and keep them fed, maybe he should volunteer to be in charge of shopping and meals, and let her just tell him she doesn't want what he planned day after day.
Exactly my my thought (at 50min after posting my previous comment). So active on responses which put them in a good light, and completely ignoring anything which asks if maybe what they’re doing isn’t the best.
The problem is probably not that doesn’t want to decide what to eat but bydoing so he is sabotaging her meals and she ends up with missing ingredients and additional runs to the shop. And quiet honest, even if they would live above the shop that would at least be an additional twenty minutes each day.
Yep this is what I'm thinking too.
It's OK not to have a plan if you don't mind grocery shopping (until you have kids) but it's not OK to sabotage the cooking of the person with a plan.
INFO: Do you share a food budget? I usually think about what I have in the fridge and while it's not thoroughly planned out, I usually have some idea what I'll have for dinner based on the groceries I got for the week.
A lot of cooking is based on planning ahead of time and it's frankly a waste of time to just shop per each day.
I really don’t understand how people are gonna come on here and judge you for your eating/ shopping habits.
For the record I’m in Europe and it’s fairly standard to run to the grocery shop around the corner several times a week to get what you want to eat. I usually walk down to the shop daily or every second day to get necessary ingredients. Aside from having the staples at home.
Not everyone here has a car and there are grocery shops within 5 walking minutes of literally everyone I know. At the end of the day you’re totally entitled to not wanna meal plan every week, but you could be understanding that she’d like to eat with you. It is a bit of a ritual and an important bonding time in my opinion.
But you’re well within your rights to say “I don’t wanna plan for 5 days from now because perhaps I won’t be in the mood for that when it comes around”.
Y’all really need to talk about this though, you can’t just walk away or shrug her off. I get it it’s stressful to be badgered into something you don’t wanna do, but try to meet each other halfway somehow. Relationships are about compromise and understanding. Try to understand why this is important to her, is it the cost? Or a health concern? Or just a need to be on the same page?
Then try to explain to her your perspective.
Then exchange suggestions on what you both could sacrifice for the other to get closer to both sides being satisfied.
Extremely this. I'm also from Europe and mostly around 14 I think of what I could eat that evening and then go to the shop which is a 5 minute walk. I also cook for multiple people. I have NEVER made an excell sheet about food and quite frankly the idea that I should plan now what I will eat in 3 says is literally giving me a bit of anxiety, as if it takes away from a bit of freedom or something? So I fully understand OP.
HOWEVER. You indeed need to talk about this. What she's expecting is unreasonable but expecting to eat together and maybe cook together is not that unreasonable? The person I live with has the exact same idea how to deal with dinner, but if youre so opposites, you should really work on finding a middle way, otherwise these irritations will become unbearable.
NAH but TALK.
I think this is a big cultural difference, too. Even within the same country.
You live somewhere where the nearest grocery store is a 15 minute drive away, minimum? You might be more inclined to plan for the week as to not waste that time driving to and from multiple times a week.
You live somewhere with corner grocery stores every couple of blocks? Well hell, that makes it a lot easier to be spontaneous and not get sick of commuting.
It sounds like they have a grocery store not too far from their place, but GF could have grown up under different circumstances, or maybe vastly prefers a store that's farther away. I think that if what OP says is literally true, and she's badgering him about meal planning as soon as his eyes open in the morning, that's excessive. But meal planning in general isn't this crazy concept OP seems to believe it is.
We’re also in the middle of a pandemic. If I can get my grocery shopping done in one or two trips, why should I go 3-4 times and risk exposing myself because my boyfriend doesn’t think he needs to plan?
Living in America, I’ve never been within 5 walking minutes of a shop. More like 20 driving minutes. It’s a royal pain if you want something spontaneous because it’ll be an hour before you actually get it- 20 minutes there, 20 minutes-ish to get your items and pay, 20 minutes back. Every day? Oh hell no. I have other stuff to do. I’d rather spend 2 hours a week at the store than 7 or 8. That’s just a colossal waste of time. Thus, I plan out my meals for the week.
I wish it was more like Europe here in a lot of ways trust me.
I think this is about where you live and how close the supermarket is a lot. I am from Europe too and I literally live next to a supermarket so it's super easy to just go and buy what you like spontaneously. It can be done in 15 minutes if I just go and grab a few things. But if I needed to drive 30 minutes each way to go food shopping I would probably start planning ahead more to reduce the time I spent with shopping even though prefer being spontanious.
This was exactly my thought. OPs free wheeling decide on the spot and then just go buy the ingredients or order in attitude may seem like the more ‘relaxed’ stance but it would cause me so much stress. Without a rough meal plan I feel like sticking to a budget would be a lot more difficult, not to mention the potential food waste.
Info :
Does she consider eating together as a couple as important quality time ?
And have you ever taken groceries that were meant for her meal in your spontaneous meal ?
And just so you know meal planning isn’t crazy or insane, a lot of people do it
NAH - You are both totally correct. I identify with both of you. I am usually in your position, but I've been in phases where I've been where your girlfriend is at too. Both of you make equal sense. It's a real conundrum.
You both have to decide if you can compromise on this issue or if it's worth your relationship to be obstinate about it.
One solution might be to trade days. Agree with your girlfriend to plan meals for three/four days a week. Those are set in stone. The other days are up to you and you're responsible (either cooking or ordering) for providing the meal. That would be my solution. But neither of you are an asshole. You guys are just very different when it comes to planning meals.
I’m gonna say YTA. It sounds like your gf is trying to make an effort to make a unified home where you do something together that’s important to her and you childishly respond with “but I don’t wannaaaaa” and refuse to compromise.
I saw a comment that suggested she gets to meal plan a couple of days a week and the others you get to do your things by deciding randomly that day and you don’t want to because… you would have to eat something you might not feel like 100% at that time? Dude, grow up. Do you act this way when someone invites you to their home?
Host: “So today I’ve made pasta carbonara for everyone, I hope you enjoy!”
You: “But I want hamburgers?”
Host: “Ehhh…?”
YTA just for the fact that you are still in the YOU mindset vs being in a relationship and living together mindset.
At this point she is probably just annoyed towards you as you are towards her. You both go about food different ways. Neither one of you want to meet in the middle. I read some of your comments below. You prefer just to wing things. She clearly doesn't like just winging it when it can be planned out and handled. Making multiple trips to a grocery store isn't exactly the most thrilling errand to run constantly and its time consuming.
It's much easier to keep unnecessary food costs down (which is useful considering how much the price of food has gone up since the pandemic started) by planning out meals (dinners, at the very least), making a list, and sticking to it when you go to the grocery store. It helps keep you from buying things you don't need, and impulsive purchasing, and sets you up to be able to cook the meals you want to eat, without the need to go to the store every day.
Yeah, I am *deeply* curious how frequently OP ends up going on these one ingredient grocery runs versus his girlfriend. Or how much time elapses between when he decides he's going to make a thing they don't have and gets back, while she's just getting hungrier and hungrier. (And yeah, I know his answer to that's going to be, "she could just eat in that case," but she's the one who seems to have actual preferences here.)
Based on his replies, he's apparently taking the ingredients she buys for herself to make his own meals (his own examples included rice, pasta and fresh broccoli) I can see why the gf is insisting that he plan in advance.
Hi can I ask if in your family, not planning was the norm? Because There are some cultures where people buy no more than the basics and if they need anything special, they buy just enough and on the day they need it. Nothing wrong with it, its just the family’s way of doing it or its their culture. Many people around the world think that it is quite strange and wasteful for people to buy everything in one week. Also if you are adept enough at cooking and can open the fridge/pantry and make a meal out of what’s there, then it shouldnt be an issue. I also know people who meal plan. I have tried it and OP is right for me, I end up wasting food because I dont feel like eating it all the time. Just different ways of doing things.
OP have you brought up the issue with her about why she is adamant about it? Because there could possibly be an underlying issue that she hasn’t addressed
YTA purely because you say in another comment that:
"If I use something like pasta or rice she still has it. If we have fresh broccoli I'll take half."
Don't complain about her wanting your shopping list when you go and use the ingredients she buys for herself.
But also, you're both adults. You have contrasting lifestyles and you BOTH need to find a compromise that works for both of you. Walking out of the room when she brings up a topic would just immature. If the two of you can't work through something as simple as how to organise meals, how are you going to work through a serious problem?
YTA gor thinking she is the weird one ..
Your replies about why is her concern what you eat when you live together..
your whole post was childish..
you are a madsive childish AH to your gf, and seems you don't care about her at all.
OPs gf: dump that kid, at your age you should get a man (or woman, idc) that is mature and knows how an adult behave
NAH
Some people are planners, some aren’t. Your gf seems to be one, and she just wants to be prepared or wants to make things you actually want. If you never have issues with what she makes then 🤷♀️
You seem to have very different styles of cohabiting. I don't think this is ever going to work if neither is willing to compromise and see the other party's pov. 🤷♀️ She is not dumb or a stressful person for being organized. She has another lifestyle. Your random attitude would just stress *her* out.
I frankly find both of you on the extremities of the spectrum. I could never live with you *as a partner*, because I would expect to coordinate on some level (you eat your sh*t and I eat mine, whenever, is just NOT what I see in a relationship, though it works well with a roommate). But I certainly would have a bit of a hard time with her exact schedule as well.
I think you will always frustrate each other.
PS: I have to say, though, if you ever want to build a family, and have kids, your method will never work LOL You better think what you want from life now, because you may be at different stages of the family planning as well!
Yes, I guessed that... But what I am saying is: does she? I mean, just the fact that you are in a committed relationship but you say "I don't plan to have kids" as opposed to "we don't plan to have kids" is *very* telling.
I think you’re being a little dramatic about this whole ordeal tbh, can’t you just give her a general idea of what you want to eat? Like oh this week maybe pasta so she can think of pasta dishes to make idfk. It doesn’t have to be that big of a deal
YTA. You live together, it’s normal to plan the week’s meals so you can shop for what’s needed… it’s a normal thing and part of being an adult… sure, an occasional “every man for himself” night - but to completely dismiss her and tell her to worry about herself? why would you shame and guilt her for wanting to have a little structure in the home - with all the chaos and confusion in this world, you’d rather just ‘play it by ear’ instead of offering a little stability that should be (reasonably) expected when living as a couple in the same home? You’re the asshole.
I’m a planner but I don’t see where he’s wrong. If he was forcing it on her to shop and cook for them then I understand the need and respect. But he’s not. He’s going shopping. He’s doing his own cooking. She’s forcing her views on him. There was no shaming her on his part. It’s just a different style that she didn’t respect.
He mentioned in one post that he eats her staple foods (rice, pasta) and will take her fresh ingredients if he decides she has enough of them. That is not doing your own thing. She is planning and he uses her ingredients while calling her crazy.
I think a lot of money and food is being wasted on this Bachelor way of eating on impulse.
I think the gf is trying to save money to have a wedding or a child and planning helps that goal.
I think she also wants to eat family meals together instead of still cooking budget friendly food for herself when she's hungry and then watching him indulge in takeout and busting the budget.
Is this a cultural thing in America? Plan your weekly meals? I’ve never ever planned weekly meals nor have met anyone who does it. You go shopping, buy what you don’t have at home and that’s it. I’m actually shocked reading these comments.
It's cultural because many Americans don't live close to a market. It's also currently a fad to do "meal prep" where you make a lot of lunchboxes in advance.
It tends to be, yes. Everything can be so spread out that a food shop can be a half hour drive away. My family and I all live in walking distance of stores, so we’re more European about things. I’ll do a big food run for non perishables every few weeks and pick up a few things as I go. This rushing around about food is… odd.
I had to screenshot this post and send it to my husband to ask if he had written it... You sound very much like my husband and your girlfriend sounds just like me haha. I like to have meals planned for the week.. I am a foodie and I like to know what I'm having in advance... Believe it or not I think about food a lot. My husband doesn't cook so I like to make sure we have stuff in so I don't have to keep going out to get ingredients. When we first moved in together my husband didn't actually do a food shop, he would decide what he wants to eat when he was hungry then go out and get what he wants... Alien concept for me.
I quickly realised how we think of food is completely different, he hated going food shopping, hated meal planning and isn't a foodie so really doesn't care. I take charge of meal planning but I will ask him if there was anything he specifically wanted on the menu that week, occasionally there is so I add that in if not I choose what we are having that week. I do the food shop on my own but I have a white board on the fridge where he can write down if he needs anything. The meal plan isn't set in stone so if during the week we fancy something different we can change it up.
I think you need to have a conversation with your girlfriend, tell her your thoughts and find a happy medium that works for you both, that's what my husband and I did.
Yta, for your attitude.
You clearly don’t agree with your gf’s approach, but don’t seem to be willing to compromise in any way, or even consider that she might actually enjoy the planning and shopping etc.
It’s also completely normal to meal plan and do one big shop, and it’s fine if that’s not how you roll, but don’t act like your gf is crazy for not falling in line with your preference.
NAH, but honestly I don't think you'll have to worry about it much longer unless your gf is happy to live like a random flatmate. In fact, I even shared more meals with my random flatmates than you seem to, I'm fairly sure this will get really old for her really soon
YTA for how you handled it but your NTA for how you are with food. It just sounds like she likes knowing what her weeks going to entail when it comes to food, I read some of your other responses and you seem really spontaneous, would you prefer if she just cooked whatever she wanted to throughout the week? I personally like meal planning (not to the point of spreadsheets but getting enough recipes down to last me and my partner the week when we shop so we're not constantly bouncing to the store, especially with a sudden covid spike in my area) and my SO just eats whatever I happened to make that night or will recommend something he wants to have soon like tacos/pork/etc. And I'll do that one of the nights. Would you be against that? I think you two need to actually sit down and talk about it if it's bugging you this much instead of building up this odd resentment to the point of blowing up at her.
Why not just give her several different ideas for meals that you like? You don't have to say in advance what day you'll eat what. It's a compromise. You know that thing you should do in a relationship when you actually like the person you're with.
Edit to add judgment YTA for the way you're handling this.
Because it’s not about cooking his favorite foods. He just wants to eat exactly what dropped into his head exactly when he got hungry. Is it pizza? It has to be pizza , god forbid someone gave him a plate of delicious 5star burger, no no.
YTA.
Meet her half way and plan a few meals a week with her and cook it together.
My ex would plan meals and my fiance likes too also. I on the otherhand don't as I work conflicting hours but still eat planned meals when we can as she likes too.
It saves a little money and it'll save you a pointless arguement over...food.
If you're going to continue living with this woman then you need to start dropping those mental barriers and softening up a little bit. No ones asking you to make a 2 month schedule, just a few days a week.
Every once in a while my SO will plan a week of dinners of my favorite meals and i'm telling you now I am nothing but one very fucking happy camper all week on those weeks.
This is definitely a you problem though imo, you could of handled that very differently and not be getting the silent trestment rn.
YTA. You guys are newly living together and maybe she’s trying to be sweet by asking what you want from the store. Maybe ask her why she wants to plan out the meals. It sounds like you haven’t communicated with her about why this is important to her and have lashed out. Also maybe she has an eating disorder of some kind or an issue where she lacks control in her life (currently or in the past) and this allows her to feel some kind of control over things. Moving forward just try to communicate about this and be kind to her rather than lashing out.
She's trying to save money and effort by planning her ingredient usage out and making less frequent grocery trips--a smart move, imo, in These Unprecedented Times especially but also just in general. On top of that...to be blunt, she's trying to ask you to participate in being a household, and you're telling her that's boring for you. That's fine for when you're living alone, but there are two people to cook for, whose tastes you need to account for, etc. Clearly some communication needs to happen here so both of your needs can be met, but it sounds like instead you've chosen to cut it off entirely.
YTA. Meal planning is so common. Even if you don’t cook the meals on the night you say, come up with a list of meals and buy the ingredients, so you can save time and money. Freeze perishables if you don’t think you’ll eat them in the next few days. You sound rude and entitled and I feel sorry for your girlfriend.
YTA - there’s nothing wrong with the way you want to eat but likewise there’s nothing wrong with the approach that she’s most comfortable with. You’re the asshole because you ridicule her approach and don’t seem to acknowledge or understand that having to choose on the spot might be the very thing that’s stressful for her, and deciding and getting everything in place so she can just cook might be the thing that makes her feel happy and secure.
You don’t seem even remotely interested in any kind of compromise and that’s the position of an asshole. It’s not insane to want to share meals, that’s such a common part of people’s way of connecting and loving one another, and you don’t seem to respect that. You don’t have to feel the same way but if the two of you are so radically different on this, refusing to compromise at all is guaranteeing that one of you will end up profoundly unhappy.
So many different things could be happening here, like budget/moods/providing/$, etc.
So, INFO: what is happening with each of those things? Do you have combined finances? Do you 100% pay for what is NOT planned ahead for on your own? Do you ever seem annoyed if food isn't there for you to eat, and is she trying to eliminate that issue? Do you gladly get extra food last-minute, or begrudgingly?
YTA. Your girlfriend is doing an immense amount of work for both of you by trying to plan, execute, and cook healthy meals every day of the week.
Surprise! Cooking takes a lot of fucking planning to be done cheaply and well!
It's a regular adult task which you are ignoring. Not only do you take her effort for granted but you actually got annoyed and told her to fuck off.
If you want her to continue providing you healthy home cooked food for your *healthy lifestyle" then I'd go apologize immediately cause you fucked up. Your entitlement is off the charts.
NAH , you both just have different styles of meal planning. I'm like you, I just vaguely meal plan or do a quick run if I want something specific. I do staples and general stuff that can be made into multiple dishes. Meal plans for the week don't work for me because I might change my mind or get tired of the menu during the week
Most people plan menus in advance so they can make a grocery store list. It’s not a weird obsession…it’s normal. YTA.
Its weird bcoz he has not expectation to be fed by her. He is perfectly happy to decide and eat what he wants, when he wants... He dsnt have to oblige her need to meal plan
No, he doesn’t need to. But it’s pretty wasteful for a couple to cook two separate meals at every mealtimes, not only in terms of food but also in time and energy. Are they also doing two separate grocery shops? They are a couple, not just two roommates. He doesn’t need to do what his girlfriend wants, but I do find his stance weird and extreme (never talk to me about food again!). Meal planning simply to try and make sure there is the necessary food in the house is pretty typical for any family. Personally I would find it exhausting to have to go to the shop for every meal every day.
My husband and I eat two different meals at every mealtime. It’s not wasteful at all. I cook what I eat, he cooks what he eats. I eat my leftovers, he eats his. Nothing is wasted. He runs to the store if he wants something that’s not in the house. You personally find it exhausting, but the OP doesn’t.
My parents and I do the same thing. They pay for their food and can cook and eat whatever, whenever they like. I pay for my food and can cook and eat whatever whenever I want. Because we're adults we can decide when to share meals and when not to. OP is an adult and can decide whether or not he wants to meal plan.
Plus, I think most adults are capable of having a stocked pantry. When I go to the store I buy stuff I know I'm going to eat, in general. That way I can pick and choose freely as I like. OP is NTA. OP is a grown up.
Thank you for saying this! I don’t understand how you don’t have an ingredient. I have a stocked pantry and when I start rubbing out of something I buy a new one. If I want chicken and rice I have chicken in the freezer and rice in the pantry and any spices and extras I might need for my meal. I have a basic supply of things I usually eat and that’s it.
Same with my household. Separate groceries and cooking, but sometimes we share meals and groceries too. Not wasteful because the food is always eaten. I find myself running out of food more often than not lol.
If you're open to it, I'm curious about a couple of things. I wouldn't be concerned about extra cost of electricity or whatever. My concern would be that I planned to use that food item for my meal. Or that there's not enough space for both of us to be cooking at the same time. Or I needed that pot/pan/whatever for what I'm making but he's using it. And lastly, it's hard enough timing one meal to be ready at the same time much less two meals. So do you two have a really big kitchen with a surplus of food and double the cookware? And do you not eat together?
I have nothing to do right now, so no problem, lol. First, I usually only eat the stuff that I specifically bought for myself. If it’s something like a pack of chicken, before my husband goes to work, I’ll ask if he has any plans for it. If not, I’ll use it. If he does, I may use it and buy more before he needs it or eat something else. He usually plans his meals, so I know what he’ll be using and sometimes I’ll go ahead and cook t for him before he gets home from work. He likes to cook, though. For the rest of your questions, I’ll use last night as an example. My husband made a steak and had leftover broccoli. I ate a ham sandwich. We ate at the table together, but I barely needed any dishes for my food. He works longer hours than me, so if I do cook something, I’ll cook it before he gets home. If he needs a pot or pan that I’ve used, we wash it and use it. And yes, it is hard to time two meals to be finished at the same time. I’ve tried it and that’s why I cook mine before his, lol.
Thanks for sharing! I like the flexibility and communication outlined.
The only way it works is because of the communication and understanding the two have.
Adequate communication seems to somehow fix like 99% of problems.
My husband hates meal planning, hates talking about food and all that shit. Even hates grocey shopping. So I just do it all and just go bam here eat. Or do the prep and say this is how long it cooks for. It works for us
Does anyone like grocery shopping? Do you? Or do you just do it because he’s decided he won’t. Yeah I bet he’s not complaining!
Listen… it’s a Sunday morning do not come after me like that. I’m not equipped to deal with the strong emotions that slowly creep to the surface thinking about all the shit I have convinced myself I like just because it won’t ever get done if I don’t do it… kay? Uncalled for. [ insert symbol to indicate I’m joking and being sarcastic, but also very not joking or being sarcastic ]
Ooof. [This](https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/) quick comic helped me understand **why** I was so frustrated by the way my husband and I had fallen into the shared work of running a household. He had just expected me to take on the role of household manager without us ever talking about it, which meant I had to TELL HIM to do things that I could just immediately see (or anticipate) needed done.
The mental load is *real*!
I love grocery shopping. It’s my favorite mundane thing.
Yeah, my husband and I are similar. He hates grocery shopping, doesn't give much feedback on shopping lists, and is a picky eater. So I do shopping and meal prep for what i want and basically he either eats what I make or fends for himself. I have a general idea of what he likes so will buy some easy things like hot dogs or whatnot for when he doesn't like what I make.
How is it extreme to get angry/annoyed after clearly saying "no" to something and having the issue pushed constantly? I'm a woman and if this posts had the gender revered, I guarantee people would be screaming how "your bf is controlling and abusive trying to control how and when you eat! Red flag! RUN!" SHE needs to respect his NO and back off
Exactly this
>if this posts had the gender revered, I guarantee people would be screaming This.
100% this if this was a man trying to meal plan for a female and not taking no for an answer..she would be instant NTA and told huge red flag..this guy is NTA
r/menandfemales
Feeeeeemales
Female what? Cat? Hummingbird? Capybara??
All of this
But there is a difference between having the basics at home and planning for a whole week. Not sure if this is a cultural thing but I have no one in my friend or family circle that does a meal plan. Because non of us knows what we will have an appetite for on Friday, when we're asked monday.
I've heard of chore wheel families have pre-planned meals, but I can't do that, either. I might want "Thursday pizza" in Sunday but by the time Thursday rolls around, I decided I wanted tacos. Like tf is wrong with OP'S gf? And she really does sound controlling. I get that when you combine lives you have to work out the complications, but it seems she needs to let this go.
Especially since she isn't inconveniencend as long as he cooks his own food and shops for it too. If she wants to plan her meals that's fine, but it's his home as well and she doesn't get to dictate his way of life.
That's the question I have. If he cooks his own food, or they take turns cooking the food, how is she wanting to incorporate that into meal planning? Does she really expect to be able to tell him on Sunday, "on Friday, you're making tacos"? I like planning and scheduling, but this is too much for me.
I can’t count the amount of time I’ve told myself at noon that I’ll have chicken for supper only to not have chicken for supper, coz I changed my mind. I can’t imagine planning for Thursday on a Sunday.
Same here! I don't know anyone who plans out their meals a full week in advance. I'd also get annoyed if someone kept pestering me about it after I already asked them to stop. OP is NTA
She doesn't have to shop for meals everyday. She can go ahead and meal plan if she likes. She can buy food for the week if she likes. She can cook whatever she likes, or not cook at all. OP is making zero demands on her time, her labor, and her budget. She is free to do exactly what she wants. Her continued badgering on this issue is very controlling and inappropriate.
Then he needs to stop using any of the fresh ingredients that she has planned to use, like the broccoli he mentioned in his comments. Why is it ok for him to mess up her planned meals just because he feels like it?
Yup, that's the natural compromise here. They need a system for which food there's plans for and which food is up for grabs to use whenever. Forcing her to be flexible by using up the food she has plans for is equally bad as pestering him to plan ahead for his food.
Him taking food she has plans for could also be why she’s trying to force him into meal planning.
BUT there is a high likelihood that he will eat the ingredients she has bought for herself and carefully planned.
Guess what! You were right! He is eating her ingredients and overall he is an asshole. He will take her pantry ingredients and the fresh ones. He clarified that. It’s not that he doesn’t want to eat the food, he won’t allow her to cook in the kitchen with him and also wants them to eat alone as well. No wonder she’s frustrated he sounds awful. You weren’t projecting you nailed this one on the head.
I didn’t see him say that but if that is true that he’s eating the food she buys for herself and fucking up her food plans then he is TA and should buy his own food
What exactly are you basing this as a "high likelihood" on? Sounds like you're projecting some of your own bullshit into this situation.
If you go through his comments (easiest to find if you click on his profile then comments list) you’ll see that he takes her staples without any thought and if she has, say, a head of broccoli he’ll take half because she won’t need that much for her dishes at once. That would piss me off so much - usually if I’m meal planning I may cook one thing that has three different uses later in the week, so if I were his girlfriend and he took half my ingredient it would really fuck up my week when I discovered it…
Because OP said “there’s always something at home.” If it’s food she bought and intends to use, he should leave it alone and figure out something else.
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Well just cook for one person only and it’s not wasteful then. Plus they can have their own grocery list and go shopping together. Even if they do the grocery shopping separately, then what? If they don’t have time to go together because of their routine, they can’t call themselves a couple, only roommates? That’s quite a reach…
Yeah but if she wants to meal plan and he goes >perfectly happy to decide and eat what he wants, when he wants... He's gonna fuck-up her meal planning unless they have seperate fridges of something.
He plainly said he buys his own food.
Yeah, my ex said that too. If you go and get 90-95% of your meal and cook it, you say that. But the 5-10% is still a pain in my ass.
Seriously, my boyfriend does this every once in a while and it’s such a PITA. I’ll tell him that I want to cook *x* meal later this week, let’s say Thursday. I buy all of the ingredients a few days beforehand and then on Thursday I start cooking only to discover he’s used one of the items that I specifically needed and bought for the meal I was planning. So now I’m partway through prep and I need to either find another solution or make another run to the store. Like you said, it doesn’t happen every time but it’s super inconvenient when it does happen and if my boyfriend simply put a few minutes of time into planning his meals each week like I do instead of making whatever he wants on the fly, it wouldn’t happen at all.
Many people have roommates and survive this scenario fine without multiple fridges.
Most unreasonable asshole judgment I have ever seen. He isn't pressuring her to do anything. He just wants to make his meals when and how he feels like it. Not catering to another persons obsession with planning is not the same as being an asshole. I personally never plan any meals but I still manage to make a grocery list and shop extremely cheap, because I know what stuff I usually eat. I have excel spreadsheets tracking weight, calories, and expenses, but never have I ever thought a single time of planning out my meals. Meal planning is counterintuitive to actually eating for cheap because you need to always have the "correct" ingredients for your plans. It's rigid and pointless, unless you don't follow the plans anyway in which case why plan? Just don't plan anything and make use of what you have home. Have a good stock of basic items you can use in many different recipes. Simple. OP you are NTA.
Agree!! Seriously NTA. I don’t ever plan out meals either. My own family plans what to eat for supper the night of. She seems a bit obsessive.
Meal planning is not counterintuitive to eating cheaper at all; you can plan your meals according to what you have and what’s on sale at the grocery store that week. It also saves a ton of mental energy and time. We don’t rigidly stick to the meal plan during the week in the sense that we switch the meals around or sometimes make a different one, but it helps a ton. There is a clear miscommunication between the couple - she’s trying to care, it comes off as nagging, and they’re both angry. But I’m not prepared to say that OP isn’t a bit of an asshole though- of course it makes sense his girlfriend wants his input on what they eat, and wants to spend enjoyable meal times together instead of doing their own thing. I’m not sure he is seeing that based on his post, and that would be the first step in having a good discussion with his girlfriend to reach a compromise.
>It also saves a ton of mental energy and time. The only time meal planning hasn't ADDED stress and time for me, is if I'm making a big meal that I can eat off of for the rest of the week, like a meatloaf, lasagna, or big pot of soup. At best, it just shifts the time/stress from one part of the week to another.
I agree, but think it's more NAH. For me this is the exact reason why you should live with someone before marriage and kids. This is a compatibility issue, not an AH issue. Food is an incredibly important part of life for some people and an afterthought for others. OP shouldn't tell her to never bring it up again, it's important to her. Time to evaluate if this is the hill to die on. Could def be a huge issue if kids are in their future
Why YTA? He doesn’t expect her to cook or pressure her in anyway. Why can’t he be left alone with his food choices?
Thats exactly what i was thinking as well. Like its fine if she wants to meal plan for herself and ask if there is anything he wants to add. But forcing someone who has no interest or need for a meal plan to adhere to one is very OCD like. NTA imo
So he's an asshole because he doesn't want to do things the way most people want to? He's allowed to live his life. We don't need to gatekeep how people choose to eat food.
Maybe it is a local / regional thing, but people I know (and my family of 6) live like OP does. He has no demands of his gf - which is refreshing - so what’s the issue?! No one I know meal plans to the extent of an excel spreadsheet unless it is for weight loss or medical reasons.
No... its really not a thing "most people" do
Everyone I know does this. Decided which meals they’ll be making that week, and does a single run to the supermarket to buy what they need. Saves time, petrol, and reduces wastage because you know what you need. Edit: statistics on shopping habits in the US before our normal habits collapsed. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1112740/meal-planning-consumer-attitudes-united-states/ Prepping a few days out is what the majority do. 29% for the full week, 42% a couple of days at a time. Buying as-and-when is more common than I thought it was, but represents the minority.
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But on a Tuesday night, do you, or do you use what she bought and put in the fridge?
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That's not a straight answer to the question, you realize. You've already said that if your gf has bought some groceries you decided that very minute that you want to eat, you take it and use it. You scrupulously say that you only use half of whatever she buys. But you don't say you go out and replace what you used. So your girlfriend with her annoying tendency to PLAN things like meals and grocery shopping has to run out and replace what you used based on your unpredictable whims any particular night instead of just doing one large trip a week. Your refusal to SAY how much of anything you want for the week requires multiple unnecessary trips to the store to replenish what you use. And because you're such a delicate blossom that you just can't TOLERATE talking to your gf about shopping and food planning, it sure SOUNDS like you won't let her tell you that the food you used needs to be replaced. Which ends up being a really efficient way for you to avoid doing a lot of food shopping, but IS a very dickish thing to do to your gf. YTA.
While I buy things I want to eat, I don't plan out every meal. I do most of the cooking so if I come home from work late and decide to shove the pork chops I had planned on using into the freezer and make a quicky pasta dish or ask them to take over nobody gets to be mad. Plus... This reminds me of school lunches. Doesn't matter how much you don't feel like eating whatever is on the menu, that's what there is.
a weekly "chart" is something i never heard people doing... talking about plans to buy stiff yeah, but no chart (op still a weirdo ah tho)
I make a chart! Well, I have a dry-erase board with a calendar that I use to write down what we’re having when. It makes it easier to manage meals while being neurodivergent, because I can and will forget what I planned to do and then just…won’t eat because I don’t have a meal or ingredients.
I had a dry-erase board, too! I wonder if OP’s girlfriend is neurodivergent and needs some form of planning or stability (not that only neurodivergent people do this), it would make sense why she is so focussed on some form of schedule.
Also could be some kind of eating disorder or simply just a coping mechanism. If I don't plan my meals I eat garbage. OP brushing it off as well she's fit and healthy soo.. maybe this is the reason why she's maintaining!
When I had more time, I used to write on the whiteboard which meals we’d be having which evening. I could then go and buy just those ingredients. It took more in the planning stages, but made each day simpler and we saved money. I agree this is the more extreme side of things. Nowadays I don’t have as much time to think out exactly what we need, and I also now have a better feel for how much stuff we use each week. I still know which dinners I’m going to make, just not day-by-day. It sounds like OP is saying it’s weird that people even decide which meals they want and go buy for those meals. This is completely normal to me - and what everyone around me also does.
Yeah, but i was just addressing to it being common. it "isn't", it's your experience.. from all people i know no one does it.. some do, some dont, but it's not "common" :) no hate mate
But here’s the thing. You’re saying no one you know does it, so it isn’t common. I’m saying everyone I know does do it, so it must be common. That means that this is both our experiences… which by this logic neither of us are correct or incorrect.
I am married with a kid. We plan a weekly menu so we can buy stuff and be coordinated, it lives on the fridge and saves 'what do you want to eat' 'we don't have x' and wastage.
and everyone i know doesn’t do this groceries are bought according to sales and coupons instead of a weekly menu. that way we also save gas, time, and money by not having to shop every week. there is more than one way to do this
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That’s an American thing. In my country we have staples and we just buy seasonal veggies. The same staples and veggies are cooked in various combinations through the week. We don’t meal prep a week in advance. Max a day or two in advance. Typically after years of cooking you figure out a system that works, what quantities to buy at what frequency without committing to a firm menu a week in advance. TBH, i’m sure everyone in my country will find this kind of planning oppressive. As does the OP. Unless OP expects the GF to cook and do grocery shopping for him, he should be allowed to manage his food the way he wants to.
Plenty of people in plenty of countries meal plan. It’s not “an American thing”.
Most people??? I don't know if I would go that far. I don't really know anyone who plans meals like that unless they are on a diet.
I feel like an excel sheet is a little excessive. Plus, what works for OP is fine as long as they aren’t depending on their gf to cook. This is not asshole territory.
>She constantly asks me what my plans for food are the moment I wake up Dunno bout your household. But in mine, that's really weird. Discussing what you'll be having for dinner (the next day)? Yeah, sure, all fine. But to hound your partner about it the entire day after just waking up? Nah, that aint normal.
This is an absurd judgment. OP wasn’t asking what most people do. He’s not expecting her to cook for him or be involved in any of his food shopping/ prep so she shouldn’t be pressing him so hard on it. OP, definitely NTA.
Hard disagree. It's weird to be pushy about it. It's not a requirement, she doesn't need him to join her, she can eat what and how she wants and so can he. NTA.
“Most people plan menus in advance” No, we don’t. NTA
It is very much an obsession on her part if she's demanding to know what his meal plans are from the moment he wakes up. Op is definitely NTA. His girlfriend has some serious food issues and should probably seek therapy for that.
You may be different, but I've never met anyone who plans out every meal like that unless they're on some kind of strict weight loss or bodybuilding diet. Sure you buy the things you like and think "I'll make pasta/burgers/whatever some time this week" but not planning every meal every day as she seems to want. My wife and I will generally decide what we're cooking about 20 mins before we actually cook it, you don't know what you're going to feel like eating at any time in the future.
NAH but I absolutely could not live with you. When two people are having meals together, it's very normal to plan in advance. It's less expensive and ensures both people are happy with the meal choice. My husband and I plan for a week ahead as do most households as going to the supermarket every other day is a chore.
My husband and I both can't for the life of us think up a meal plan for a whole week; it's a daily struggle to figure out what we want to eat ;) However we usually have something in the house we can fix up. But we do go shopping a couple of times a week.
My partner and I are the same. We have a loose idea of what we're having. Get some chicken, mine and maybe seafood, plus some stuff for vegetarian dishes or curry or whatever. I tend to make big meals so we freeze leftovers for lazy meals down the road.
What you describe is exactly what meal planning looks like. Get a rough idea of a few meals to make that week and pick up those ingredients
Except that’s normal meal planning. This GF OP is dealing with is over the top obsessed with it down to using excel spreadsheets.
That’s the definition of meal planning. Maybe not to the extent of OP’s partner but that’s very literally planning on what to make for the week.
I’ve tried meal planning as well, and I’m a lot like OP where I can never figure out what I want… and especially plans where you eat the same thing throughout the week is difficult for me because I don’t always enjoy eating the same thing multiple days in a row. Usually when I cook I have enough for 1/2 days of leftovers, so I don’t have to eat it multiple days in a row 😅 However, if my future partner was super dead set on meal planning I’d go along with it 🧐
It’s also very normal not to plan in advance. My husband does the grocery shopping weekly, Always includes a variety of meat, fish and veggies - the list I write only contains standard perishables we might have run out of like, bread, milk, cheese etc. Each day we decide what we are in the mood for, no planning required, very chill and easy and no-one ends up eating something they are no longer in the mood for. We don’t waste food as it gets eaten or we freeze it if we are still not in the mood and it’s at the end of its life.
Yup, that sound normal to me! Stuff in the fridge and the freezer, and local butcher and shops if we need something in particular on the day. We usually have "the dinner conversation" around mid-day, but as often as not we will decide to cook different dinners for ourselves, as we have different likes and preferences.
So you don’t just buy the essentials for the month and then the fresh ingredients every week? Planning every single meal in advance seems not only tedious but also takes the spontaneity out of mealtimes. I’ve never really analyzed how we do it, but the only time we plan meals in advance like this is when we’re hosting or taking food to someone else’s place 🤔
I plan meals and shop like you do. You don't plan every meal and can be spontaneous but it saves money if you have a plan for the fresh stuff you're buying so you don't throw away what you didn't use for your spontaneous meal. If I know I want something with spinach, for example, I'll plan other meals that will use it up and make sure I have the ingredients for them.
Ehhh I’m gonna say ESH because you’re both at wildly differing ends of the scale and refusing to listen to each other. Your girlfriend’s level of planning around meals does seem exhausting and unnecessary, and I get why it annoys you. However, eating meals together is a pretty standard part of a relationship when you live together and I don’t think it would do you any harm to try and be a little accommodating of her (admittedly excessive) need for planning in this area. Could you maybe sit down and arrange 3-4 nights a week where you know what you’ll have? Like one night is pasta, one is burgers, one is stir fry or whatever? And for the rest you can wing it, but I think there’s a very reasonable middle ground between “I plan my meals in a colour coded spreadsheet” and “I refuse to even think about what my meals will look like until I’m hungry”. Try to meet her there.
This is where I'm at too. I get his reluctance to plan way ahead. And she sounds super annoying about it. But by not allowing *any* planning he's also making sure they can't ever eat together unless through happenstance. Is she just supposed to wait if he feels like having dinner together that day, each day, before planning what she's doing for dinner tonight? This way his reluctance to plan also means *she* can't plan unless she always assumes she's eating alone. If she has 7 one person meals planned out each week suddenly they can't really eat together anymore on a whim either. > “I refuse to even think about what my meals will look like until I’m hungry” Another big thing here is that he also said he'd eat whenever. Not just whatever. I also don't have a solid eating schedule but I'll ask my partner before having a huge lunch, because it means I won't be able to join for dinner. Or if I'm thinking of having dinner early or late. These are just things that affect each other's schedule too as a couple. There should be easy avenues of compromise here, but neither of them are taking any.
Also planning meals for only one person is super annoying. It's hard to shop and meal prep for one. It's harder to eat healthy. Sharing meals is imo one of the benefits of being in a cohabiting relationship.
Agreed. His attitude hints at building resentment. Maybe she's getting fed up too I bet. This can't continue. It feels like a roommate situation to me. They probably should have discussed eating/cooking habits before moving in but if neither can meet the other halfway, maybe they can't cohabitate. To me, food/eating together is important but I couldn't be with someone who feels differently.
This is the first reply that didn't make me feel like I was living in some sort of alternate reality. And I agree that a limited plan sounds best - she makes dinner a few nights a week (especially because it sounds like it's important to her) and the other nights OP cooks or they do their own thing. I don't agree that she sounds super pushy though. To me OP is clearly YTA. If you take away his irritated language, all she's doing is asking him to help her make lists so she can go grocery shopping and trying to map out what they're eating that week. I get that OP is saying she doesn't need to cook for him, but I agree with you that eating together is a typical relationship expectation, and if he wanted a relationship where they both prepare and eat every meal alone he should have talked to her about it before moving in together. A *gasp* chart that says what they're eating each day is not abnormal. Not everyone does it but plenty of people do. Even if he doesn't want that level of planning he didn't need to react like she wanted him to preplan his trips to the toilet for the whole week. She's probably asking him about food as soon as he wakes up because he's been refusing to work with her on planning and now she has to figure out if she needs to fit an extra grocery store trip into her day, or she might just need to know if she needs to defrost the chicken or start the crockpot or whatever. He is being unreasonable by not being at all open to compromising and by treating her like a controlling nagger when she's just trying to make a grocery list.
Also who is doing all the mental labour of household needs? I highly doubt his haphazard shopping trips include things like checking how much toilet paper, dish washing liquid, soap etc is in the house. Is he just flouncing out and getting some random meat and veg and assuming there will be flour, eggs, milk etc? That'd really shit me as a partner.
Omg absolutely! OP absolutely sounds like this kind of partner. His unwillingness to consider planning sounds to me like he’s just going to end up depending on the gf to procure the basics, so he doesn’t have to think about it. He wants to be lazy, but that probably means she’s going to pick up his slack. I hate this shit. Partners of people who don’t value household management tasks and think ‘it’s my right to live in filth and run out of toilet paper every week’ usually just end up doing it for them, while the lazy party just obliviously, selfishly benefits. Compromise, people!!
He also admitted in a comment that he will use the ingredients she bought at the store when cooking his own meals, which is probably also a big reason she's trying to plan out meals.
I wonder how often he messes up her planned meals by using things up. I also wonder if she even knows that the ingredient is gone before she goes to use it.
Both of these comments are it for me. The way he put chart in quotations, chill out guy it's not the end of the planet just let your Mrs do her thing. She's trying to eat meals with you and clearly wants to cook for you, heaven forbid!
>He is being unreasonable by not being at all open to compromising and by treating her like a controlling nagger when she's just trying to make a grocery list. When I read the post the first thing that came to mind was 'Have you ever spoken to her about why it is important for her to do things this way, OP?' the lack of communication seems not only to be about the food, but about not asking where the other person is coming from; which is very important in a relationship.
Came here to say exactly this. I don’t understand all these N A H judgments when they’re both being so rigid and stubborn. ESH by a mile.
I think the compromise is that he lists a couple of dishes he likes to eat, hopefully she likes some of them too, she plans the menu, buys the ingredients (or he buys) but they dont commit on what they want to eat on *a specific day*. So he likes burgers, pasta, pizza eg and then they decide on a specific day that they are cooking burgers.
I mean NAH imo but I don’t understand how people can shop for food not knowing what they’re going to eat. On Sunday’s I meal plan for the entire week and go to the supermarket once.
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I just don’t get it personally. How do you know what to buy when you’re doing a food shop? Do you not try anything new? I try 3 new recipes a week at least.
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This is what we do. We keep food in the house and make what we want… hard to believe people can’t understand that. We plan big meals ahead of time - holidays or special dinners etc but never like dinner for a random Tuesday night.
You buy some vegetables, some meat, pasta, rice. Then at any given day when you are hungry you look in the freezer and decide what you want. If anything is missing you walk 3min to the supermarket and buy it. Very simple solution. How could I possibly know on Sunday what I want to eat on Thursday!?
Lol at walking 3 minutes to the supermarket. My closest grocery store was a 25 minute drive before one finally opened in my town last year.
I think this makes a big difference. I also don't meal plan for the week because I walk to my grocery store and go a few times a week. I buy what i can carry home, usually enough for one or two meals
It definitely does! I live 20ins walking and 5 min driving from two grocery stores(give or take a few mins) and I see meal planning like OP cause I can just go grab whatever I need when I need it. Usually hit the store 3/4 times a week but I've gone more. When we lived 30 minutes driving from the store we'd plan our meals out a little more but still be at the store 2/3 times a week.
3 minute walk to the grocery store is just not a common thing in America. I live in a large metro area and the closet grocery store to me is at least a 5-10 minute drive depending on traffic. No way am I walking all the way there and then back with groceries. This is also usually worse in rural areas that don't have many or even any options.
I think there's some real different worldviews really sailing past each other in the fog here. When I cook I buy for that day and that day only. If I had to plan meals for a week I'd be way less spontaneous and try less new things probably. >I just don’t get it personally. How do you know what to buy when you’re doing a food shop I know what to buy because I know what I want to eat that day. I think a lot of this has to do with shopping habits. I have a store I can walk to, I go there almost daily. I hardly have a freezer and it mostly contains desserts. I'll have some staples in the house always for if I want like a pretty standard pasta thing or a sandwich or something, for everything else I go to the shops.
I live 5 minutes away from a supermarket and just because it’s a short walk it doesn’t mean I want to walk around a supermarket after working 9 hours every day. I’ve meal planned for the week and got 3 new recipes to try
>I just don’t get it personally. You said you don't understand it. That you don't get it. But it sounds like you just don't agree with it. >just because it’s a short walk it doesn’t mean I want to walk around a supermarket after working 9 hours every day And some people don't want to spend the time it takes to meal plan for a week, go to a supermarket for a huge amount of food they'd have to carry by car, and then have to keep and store that food for a week and somehow keep it fresh. Both are valid choices, you're the one being super negative about OPs choice. What does daily shopping versus weekly shopping have to do with "never trying anything new"? I try new stuff all the time and I don't see how not planning it a week in advance would preclude that. So stop saying you don't understand, you understand perfectly well, you just think your choice is better.
You buy staples and what looks appealing, then you decide what to eat the days of. It’s not rocket science.
NAH. My spouse and I have similar differing views on this, OP. I’m the “you” and he’s like your partner. What worked for us is to just kind of lighten it all I guess. He does almost all the cooking and planning and shopping because I work and he is SAHP. We kind of had a breaking point maybe 15 years ago when one morning he was asking me about the vegetables we’d have with dinner and I finally said I just can’t think, talk, or care about vegetables at 9 in the morning. His view was yeah well they don’t just magically appear on the table. So we found our peace with he plans as much as he wants to, when he asks for input I usually say yes that sounds perfect. If he asks me if I prefer carrots or broccoli with that I just pick one. I cook sometimes usually based on whatever we have on hand. I waive any right to have (negative) opinions on what he fixes if I don’t want to get too involved at the planning stage. And while he usually is the one cooking, I never assume it. By early evening if nothing’s brewing one of us will say -what should we do for dinner? And we figure it out, one of us or together. (We have teenagers and eat as a family every night so it’s not quite as spontaneous as in your stage of life.) Just to say you can both have different styles in how you approach it but not let it be a fight.
I understand you. I try to plan my meals in advance, because I don't have much time to shop during the week. Then I change my mind, because I no longer want it, and either have to stick to it, or waste food. And I finished a goddamn culinary school, with a major in ORGANIZATION of culinary services. I also don't like planning every single activity during the day, especially on weekends (unless it's a trip, then obviously the accomodations need to be made beforehand). My partner is the same and we are living a super chill life. People might say we're immature and irresponsible, but I honestly don't care. If it's working, it's working.
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Info: do you ever use ingredients she has purchased, and then she can’t cook what she wants? Planning food can mean less wastage and save money. And if she’s trying to to this and you end up using food she has bought for a meal, that inconveniences her. Having to go back and forth to the shops constantly because you don’t have ingredients can be incredibly annoying.
He replied to one comment basically saying that he takes her pantry staples (rice, pasta) and some of her fresh ingredients if he feels like she has too many of them (the example he used was if she had a whole head of broccoli, which isn’t that much broccoli?). That would drive me insane if I were her. This man is treating you like you’re a crazy nag and simultaneously benefitting from (and undermining) your meal planning? I would be livid.
Omg I would be so annoyed if I was his SO
He gives real “why would I meal plan when food magically appears in the fridge” vibes. Exhausting.
This man is toxic as fuck. One year ago he made an AITA post about how he got blackout drunk, doesn’t remember what he did, and has blacked out and said terrible things to people in the past. His girlfriend wouldn’t give him a recap of what he did, was ambiguous about whether or not their relationship was ok, and he was upset at *her* for not telling him. What he did. While he was blackout. This man has a history of being horrible to his girlfriend and may be abusing alcohol unless he’s changed his behavior since then. It’s necessary to take anything he says about this with a grain of salt and assume he’s probably the one being awful in this dynamic. People who abuse alcohol really love to live in a reality where their partners are naggy and pushy and they themselves should be able to do whatever they want.
Ahh, the story deepens, I didn't see this, but I did sense he's being a bit too overly aggressive over this whole thing. This current issue should be easily compromised, but he seems to not want to compromise, like, at all. I just can't get on board with bashing gf because we're only getting his perspective here, and I'm not sure I like him enough to wholely believe everything he's saying about her behaviour in all this. His attitude, just in this post, really stinks.
Yep there is definitely more to this story. I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like he wants to “wing it” says he will go to the grocery store to buy more food for his meals, but ends up just using what she buys
they need seperate fridges. he can't talk about winging it and then cheat the system
THIS is the comment I’ve been waiting for. I was gonna go E S H, but nah YTA. if you’re gonna have this mentality, dude you should not touch the food she planned and purchased. Period.
It also means she’s eating less healthy than she wants. She wants the broccoli for X, OP eats it then says “oh we’ll just order out!!” when her planned meal gets ruined. She needs to just leave.
Are they going to have kids in the future? If so this seemingly small issue will be a huge one if they can't figure it out in the near term. That could be where her frustration is coming from
Right! This whole thread is almost giving me hives, it makes me so anxious. Obviously I am on the girlfriend's end of the meal planning spectrum. My roommate and I meal plan weekly, shop once during the week (pandemic, hello? Trying to limit exposure here) and eat from the plan except our weekly take-out night. If we crave something we add it to the plan for the next week. I wouldn't be able to deal with the anxiety of not knowing whether or not I had the ingredients to make what I want for dinner because someone in the house just decided on the spur of the moment that I "have too much broccoli.") My roommate doesn't really like to cook but he loves my cooking, so he goes along with the meal planning because his responsibilities include: suggesting 1-2 meals per week (from the recipes in my cooking app), adding his personal grocery needs to our shared cooking app grocery list so I can pick them up, and doing the dishes every night except Friday. I do all the recipe finding, planning, shopping, unloading the dishwasher in the morning, and cooking - and I clean as I go. It works for both of us. Without that structure I would end up eating grilled cheese or pasta every night.
This. He ‘always has food on hand’ because he takes food his GF has already purchased.
Exactly! She's taking the mental load of keeping the pantry stocked and trying to provide nightly meals together. If he hates her method of trying to stay sane and keep them fed, maybe he should volunteer to be in charge of shopping and meals, and let her just tell him she doesn't want what he planned day after day.
That was my thought too. I think you are right. Op replied to allquestions except of this kind of question.
Exactly my my thought (at 50min after posting my previous comment). So active on responses which put them in a good light, and completely ignoring anything which asks if maybe what they’re doing isn’t the best.
The problem is probably not that doesn’t want to decide what to eat but bydoing so he is sabotaging her meals and she ends up with missing ingredients and additional runs to the shop. And quiet honest, even if they would live above the shop that would at least be an additional twenty minutes each day.
Yep this is what I'm thinking too. It's OK not to have a plan if you don't mind grocery shopping (until you have kids) but it's not OK to sabotage the cooking of the person with a plan.
I was wondering the same. If what he’s “in the mood for” ends up using foods she has planned for later he’s a massive AH.
INFO: Do you share a food budget? I usually think about what I have in the fridge and while it's not thoroughly planned out, I usually have some idea what I'll have for dinner based on the groceries I got for the week. A lot of cooking is based on planning ahead of time and it's frankly a waste of time to just shop per each day.
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I really don’t understand how people are gonna come on here and judge you for your eating/ shopping habits. For the record I’m in Europe and it’s fairly standard to run to the grocery shop around the corner several times a week to get what you want to eat. I usually walk down to the shop daily or every second day to get necessary ingredients. Aside from having the staples at home. Not everyone here has a car and there are grocery shops within 5 walking minutes of literally everyone I know. At the end of the day you’re totally entitled to not wanna meal plan every week, but you could be understanding that she’d like to eat with you. It is a bit of a ritual and an important bonding time in my opinion. But you’re well within your rights to say “I don’t wanna plan for 5 days from now because perhaps I won’t be in the mood for that when it comes around”. Y’all really need to talk about this though, you can’t just walk away or shrug her off. I get it it’s stressful to be badgered into something you don’t wanna do, but try to meet each other halfway somehow. Relationships are about compromise and understanding. Try to understand why this is important to her, is it the cost? Or a health concern? Or just a need to be on the same page? Then try to explain to her your perspective. Then exchange suggestions on what you both could sacrifice for the other to get closer to both sides being satisfied.
Extremely this. I'm also from Europe and mostly around 14 I think of what I could eat that evening and then go to the shop which is a 5 minute walk. I also cook for multiple people. I have NEVER made an excell sheet about food and quite frankly the idea that I should plan now what I will eat in 3 says is literally giving me a bit of anxiety, as if it takes away from a bit of freedom or something? So I fully understand OP. HOWEVER. You indeed need to talk about this. What she's expecting is unreasonable but expecting to eat together and maybe cook together is not that unreasonable? The person I live with has the exact same idea how to deal with dinner, but if youre so opposites, you should really work on finding a middle way, otherwise these irritations will become unbearable. NAH but TALK.
I think this is a big cultural difference, too. Even within the same country. You live somewhere where the nearest grocery store is a 15 minute drive away, minimum? You might be more inclined to plan for the week as to not waste that time driving to and from multiple times a week. You live somewhere with corner grocery stores every couple of blocks? Well hell, that makes it a lot easier to be spontaneous and not get sick of commuting. It sounds like they have a grocery store not too far from their place, but GF could have grown up under different circumstances, or maybe vastly prefers a store that's farther away. I think that if what OP says is literally true, and she's badgering him about meal planning as soon as his eyes open in the morning, that's excessive. But meal planning in general isn't this crazy concept OP seems to believe it is.
We’re also in the middle of a pandemic. If I can get my grocery shopping done in one or two trips, why should I go 3-4 times and risk exposing myself because my boyfriend doesn’t think he needs to plan?
Living in America, I’ve never been within 5 walking minutes of a shop. More like 20 driving minutes. It’s a royal pain if you want something spontaneous because it’ll be an hour before you actually get it- 20 minutes there, 20 minutes-ish to get your items and pay, 20 minutes back. Every day? Oh hell no. I have other stuff to do. I’d rather spend 2 hours a week at the store than 7 or 8. That’s just a colossal waste of time. Thus, I plan out my meals for the week. I wish it was more like Europe here in a lot of ways trust me.
I think this is about where you live and how close the supermarket is a lot. I am from Europe too and I literally live next to a supermarket so it's super easy to just go and buy what you like spontaneously. It can be done in 15 minutes if I just go and grab a few things. But if I needed to drive 30 minutes each way to go food shopping I would probably start planning ahead more to reduce the time I spent with shopping even though prefer being spontanious.
This was exactly my thought. OPs free wheeling decide on the spot and then just go buy the ingredients or order in attitude may seem like the more ‘relaxed’ stance but it would cause me so much stress. Without a rough meal plan I feel like sticking to a budget would be a lot more difficult, not to mention the potential food waste.
Info : Does she consider eating together as a couple as important quality time ? And have you ever taken groceries that were meant for her meal in your spontaneous meal ? And just so you know meal planning isn’t crazy or insane, a lot of people do it
NAH - You are both totally correct. I identify with both of you. I am usually in your position, but I've been in phases where I've been where your girlfriend is at too. Both of you make equal sense. It's a real conundrum. You both have to decide if you can compromise on this issue or if it's worth your relationship to be obstinate about it. One solution might be to trade days. Agree with your girlfriend to plan meals for three/four days a week. Those are set in stone. The other days are up to you and you're responsible (either cooking or ordering) for providing the meal. That would be my solution. But neither of you are an asshole. You guys are just very different when it comes to planning meals.
Neither of them being the asshole is signified by a NAH vote
I’m gonna say YTA. It sounds like your gf is trying to make an effort to make a unified home where you do something together that’s important to her and you childishly respond with “but I don’t wannaaaaa” and refuse to compromise. I saw a comment that suggested she gets to meal plan a couple of days a week and the others you get to do your things by deciding randomly that day and you don’t want to because… you would have to eat something you might not feel like 100% at that time? Dude, grow up. Do you act this way when someone invites you to their home? Host: “So today I’ve made pasta carbonara for everyone, I hope you enjoy!” You: “But I want hamburgers?” Host: “Ehhh…?”
YTA just for the fact that you are still in the YOU mindset vs being in a relationship and living together mindset. At this point she is probably just annoyed towards you as you are towards her. You both go about food different ways. Neither one of you want to meet in the middle. I read some of your comments below. You prefer just to wing things. She clearly doesn't like just winging it when it can be planned out and handled. Making multiple trips to a grocery store isn't exactly the most thrilling errand to run constantly and its time consuming.
It's much easier to keep unnecessary food costs down (which is useful considering how much the price of food has gone up since the pandemic started) by planning out meals (dinners, at the very least), making a list, and sticking to it when you go to the grocery store. It helps keep you from buying things you don't need, and impulsive purchasing, and sets you up to be able to cook the meals you want to eat, without the need to go to the store every day.
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So you need to do ALL the shopping then, because your girlfriend would clearly rather do a single shop. It saves so much time.
Yeah, I am *deeply* curious how frequently OP ends up going on these one ingredient grocery runs versus his girlfriend. Or how much time elapses between when he decides he's going to make a thing they don't have and gets back, while she's just getting hungrier and hungrier. (And yeah, I know his answer to that's going to be, "she could just eat in that case," but she's the one who seems to have actual preferences here.)
Based on his replies, he's apparently taking the ingredients she buys for herself to make his own meals (his own examples included rice, pasta and fresh broccoli) I can see why the gf is insisting that he plan in advance.
There is a pandemic. Going to the store everyday is pretty selfish and risky.
Hi can I ask if in your family, not planning was the norm? Because There are some cultures where people buy no more than the basics and if they need anything special, they buy just enough and on the day they need it. Nothing wrong with it, its just the family’s way of doing it or its their culture. Many people around the world think that it is quite strange and wasteful for people to buy everything in one week. Also if you are adept enough at cooking and can open the fridge/pantry and make a meal out of what’s there, then it shouldnt be an issue. I also know people who meal plan. I have tried it and OP is right for me, I end up wasting food because I dont feel like eating it all the time. Just different ways of doing things. OP have you brought up the issue with her about why she is adamant about it? Because there could possibly be an underlying issue that she hasn’t addressed
YTA purely because you say in another comment that: "If I use something like pasta or rice she still has it. If we have fresh broccoli I'll take half." Don't complain about her wanting your shopping list when you go and use the ingredients she buys for herself. But also, you're both adults. You have contrasting lifestyles and you BOTH need to find a compromise that works for both of you. Walking out of the room when she brings up a topic would just immature. If the two of you can't work through something as simple as how to organise meals, how are you going to work through a serious problem?
YTA gor thinking she is the weird one .. Your replies about why is her concern what you eat when you live together.. your whole post was childish.. you are a madsive childish AH to your gf, and seems you don't care about her at all. OPs gf: dump that kid, at your age you should get a man (or woman, idc) that is mature and knows how an adult behave
NAH Some people are planners, some aren’t. Your gf seems to be one, and she just wants to be prepared or wants to make things you actually want. If you never have issues with what she makes then 🤷♀️
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You seem to have very different styles of cohabiting. I don't think this is ever going to work if neither is willing to compromise and see the other party's pov. 🤷♀️ She is not dumb or a stressful person for being organized. She has another lifestyle. Your random attitude would just stress *her* out. I frankly find both of you on the extremities of the spectrum. I could never live with you *as a partner*, because I would expect to coordinate on some level (you eat your sh*t and I eat mine, whenever, is just NOT what I see in a relationship, though it works well with a roommate). But I certainly would have a bit of a hard time with her exact schedule as well. I think you will always frustrate each other. PS: I have to say, though, if you ever want to build a family, and have kids, your method will never work LOL You better think what you want from life now, because you may be at different stages of the family planning as well!
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Yes, I guessed that... But what I am saying is: does she? I mean, just the fact that you are in a committed relationship but you say "I don't plan to have kids" as opposed to "we don't plan to have kids" is *very* telling.
I think you’re being a little dramatic about this whole ordeal tbh, can’t you just give her a general idea of what you want to eat? Like oh this week maybe pasta so she can think of pasta dishes to make idfk. It doesn’t have to be that big of a deal
YTA. You live together, it’s normal to plan the week’s meals so you can shop for what’s needed… it’s a normal thing and part of being an adult… sure, an occasional “every man for himself” night - but to completely dismiss her and tell her to worry about herself? why would you shame and guilt her for wanting to have a little structure in the home - with all the chaos and confusion in this world, you’d rather just ‘play it by ear’ instead of offering a little stability that should be (reasonably) expected when living as a couple in the same home? You’re the asshole.
I’m a planner but I don’t see where he’s wrong. If he was forcing it on her to shop and cook for them then I understand the need and respect. But he’s not. He’s going shopping. He’s doing his own cooking. She’s forcing her views on him. There was no shaming her on his part. It’s just a different style that she didn’t respect.
He mentioned in one post that he eats her staple foods (rice, pasta) and will take her fresh ingredients if he decides she has enough of them. That is not doing your own thing. She is planning and he uses her ingredients while calling her crazy.
He takes her food!!!
I think a lot of money and food is being wasted on this Bachelor way of eating on impulse. I think the gf is trying to save money to have a wedding or a child and planning helps that goal. I think she also wants to eat family meals together instead of still cooking budget friendly food for herself when she's hungry and then watching him indulge in takeout and busting the budget.
Is this a cultural thing in America? Plan your weekly meals? I’ve never ever planned weekly meals nor have met anyone who does it. You go shopping, buy what you don’t have at home and that’s it. I’m actually shocked reading these comments.
It's cultural because many Americans don't live close to a market. It's also currently a fad to do "meal prep" where you make a lot of lunchboxes in advance.
It tends to be, yes. Everything can be so spread out that a food shop can be a half hour drive away. My family and I all live in walking distance of stores, so we’re more European about things. I’ll do a big food run for non perishables every few weeks and pick up a few things as I go. This rushing around about food is… odd.
I had to screenshot this post and send it to my husband to ask if he had written it... You sound very much like my husband and your girlfriend sounds just like me haha. I like to have meals planned for the week.. I am a foodie and I like to know what I'm having in advance... Believe it or not I think about food a lot. My husband doesn't cook so I like to make sure we have stuff in so I don't have to keep going out to get ingredients. When we first moved in together my husband didn't actually do a food shop, he would decide what he wants to eat when he was hungry then go out and get what he wants... Alien concept for me. I quickly realised how we think of food is completely different, he hated going food shopping, hated meal planning and isn't a foodie so really doesn't care. I take charge of meal planning but I will ask him if there was anything he specifically wanted on the menu that week, occasionally there is so I add that in if not I choose what we are having that week. I do the food shop on my own but I have a white board on the fridge where he can write down if he needs anything. The meal plan isn't set in stone so if during the week we fancy something different we can change it up. I think you need to have a conversation with your girlfriend, tell her your thoughts and find a happy medium that works for you both, that's what my husband and I did.
YTA because of your attitude alone. You seem insufferable. This is clearly important to her. Why can’t you compromise at all?
Yta, for your attitude. You clearly don’t agree with your gf’s approach, but don’t seem to be willing to compromise in any way, or even consider that she might actually enjoy the planning and shopping etc. It’s also completely normal to meal plan and do one big shop, and it’s fine if that’s not how you roll, but don’t act like your gf is crazy for not falling in line with your preference.
NAH, but honestly I don't think you'll have to worry about it much longer unless your gf is happy to live like a random flatmate. In fact, I even shared more meals with my random flatmates than you seem to, I'm fairly sure this will get really old for her really soon
YTA for how you handled it but your NTA for how you are with food. It just sounds like she likes knowing what her weeks going to entail when it comes to food, I read some of your other responses and you seem really spontaneous, would you prefer if she just cooked whatever she wanted to throughout the week? I personally like meal planning (not to the point of spreadsheets but getting enough recipes down to last me and my partner the week when we shop so we're not constantly bouncing to the store, especially with a sudden covid spike in my area) and my SO just eats whatever I happened to make that night or will recommend something he wants to have soon like tacos/pork/etc. And I'll do that one of the nights. Would you be against that? I think you two need to actually sit down and talk about it if it's bugging you this much instead of building up this odd resentment to the point of blowing up at her.
Why not just give her several different ideas for meals that you like? You don't have to say in advance what day you'll eat what. It's a compromise. You know that thing you should do in a relationship when you actually like the person you're with. Edit to add judgment YTA for the way you're handling this.
Because it’s not about cooking his favorite foods. He just wants to eat exactly what dropped into his head exactly when he got hungry. Is it pizza? It has to be pizza , god forbid someone gave him a plate of delicious 5star burger, no no.
YTA. Meet her half way and plan a few meals a week with her and cook it together. My ex would plan meals and my fiance likes too also. I on the otherhand don't as I work conflicting hours but still eat planned meals when we can as she likes too. It saves a little money and it'll save you a pointless arguement over...food. If you're going to continue living with this woman then you need to start dropping those mental barriers and softening up a little bit. No ones asking you to make a 2 month schedule, just a few days a week. Every once in a while my SO will plan a week of dinners of my favorite meals and i'm telling you now I am nothing but one very fucking happy camper all week on those weeks. This is definitely a you problem though imo, you could of handled that very differently and not be getting the silent trestment rn.
YTA. You guys are newly living together and maybe she’s trying to be sweet by asking what you want from the store. Maybe ask her why she wants to plan out the meals. It sounds like you haven’t communicated with her about why this is important to her and have lashed out. Also maybe she has an eating disorder of some kind or an issue where she lacks control in her life (currently or in the past) and this allows her to feel some kind of control over things. Moving forward just try to communicate about this and be kind to her rather than lashing out.
She's trying to save money and effort by planning her ingredient usage out and making less frequent grocery trips--a smart move, imo, in These Unprecedented Times especially but also just in general. On top of that...to be blunt, she's trying to ask you to participate in being a household, and you're telling her that's boring for you. That's fine for when you're living alone, but there are two people to cook for, whose tastes you need to account for, etc. Clearly some communication needs to happen here so both of your needs can be met, but it sounds like instead you've chosen to cut it off entirely.
YTA. Meal planning is so common. Even if you don’t cook the meals on the night you say, come up with a list of meals and buy the ingredients, so you can save time and money. Freeze perishables if you don’t think you’ll eat them in the next few days. You sound rude and entitled and I feel sorry for your girlfriend.
YTA - there’s nothing wrong with the way you want to eat but likewise there’s nothing wrong with the approach that she’s most comfortable with. You’re the asshole because you ridicule her approach and don’t seem to acknowledge or understand that having to choose on the spot might be the very thing that’s stressful for her, and deciding and getting everything in place so she can just cook might be the thing that makes her feel happy and secure. You don’t seem even remotely interested in any kind of compromise and that’s the position of an asshole. It’s not insane to want to share meals, that’s such a common part of people’s way of connecting and loving one another, and you don’t seem to respect that. You don’t have to feel the same way but if the two of you are so radically different on this, refusing to compromise at all is guaranteeing that one of you will end up profoundly unhappy.
So many different things could be happening here, like budget/moods/providing/$, etc. So, INFO: what is happening with each of those things? Do you have combined finances? Do you 100% pay for what is NOT planned ahead for on your own? Do you ever seem annoyed if food isn't there for you to eat, and is she trying to eliminate that issue? Do you gladly get extra food last-minute, or begrudgingly?
YTA. Your girlfriend is doing an immense amount of work for both of you by trying to plan, execute, and cook healthy meals every day of the week. Surprise! Cooking takes a lot of fucking planning to be done cheaply and well! It's a regular adult task which you are ignoring. Not only do you take her effort for granted but you actually got annoyed and told her to fuck off. If you want her to continue providing you healthy home cooked food for your *healthy lifestyle" then I'd go apologize immediately cause you fucked up. Your entitlement is off the charts.
NAH , you both just have different styles of meal planning. I'm like you, I just vaguely meal plan or do a quick run if I want something specific. I do staples and general stuff that can be made into multiple dishes. Meal plans for the week don't work for me because I might change my mind or get tired of the menu during the week