Menu planning is about budgeting, saving time and optimising nutrition.

Here are some tips to help you eat healthily and save time and money.

1. Shop at home first (check the cupboards and refrigerator).

2. Use recipes that you know and have tried.

3. Utilise store fliers and look out for specials and grocery surveys.

4. Incorporate meals with similar ingredients. This is often easy to do with soups and other one-pot meals.

5. Plan for leftovers. The second way to use planned leftovers is to actually plan your leftovers into a new meal. Get creative and you will be sparing your budget without your family even knowing that you are using leftovers.

6. Bring back soup Saturday. Soups are often the most delicious one-pot meals in Jamaica. Cook soup once per week or learn how to be your family's favourite chef. Freeze leftovers' and use for lunch.

7. Use your freezer. Save the leftovers and keep them fresh. Make your own TV/microwavable foods for your children.

8. Buy in bulk when possible and stock up on sale items. Look out for the specials on the items that are your family's favourites and buy them only when they are on sale.

9. Make everything you can from scratch. This probably seems rather obvious but there are a lot of things you can make from scratch that you may not even think about making.

Collect recipes.

Bake your children's treats more often while you are baking the chicken and potatoes.

Make your own salad dressings, crackers, baking mix, seasonings, bread crumbs, marinades, sauces, cakes, drops, gizzards and all kinds of sweet goodies.

Check the Internet for recipes or ask Grandma. If you don't have one, borrow your friend's - grandmother's recipe, that is.

10. Create a garden. The backyard garden is not going to happen if you don't get into the yard and do it. Use those throw-away plastic bottles and, after cutting them in half, plant some seeds. Get the children involved. Put them on the patio/veranda, window sill, in the washroom, on front steps - anywhere they can thrive.

Any food item you do not have to buy SAVES you money. Grow some thyme indoors, or a sprig of scallion, and CUT something from the SHOPPING LIST - that's savings.

Prepared by the Consumer Affairs Commission, an agency of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.