Is there anyone who’s never gone to the supermarket for a loaf of bread and come out half an hour later with three carrier bags bulging with impulse buys? I read recently that in Britain we waste a staggering, and scarcely believable, £23 billion a year on food, much of which gets chucked away while it’s still perfectly edible (whatever the sell-by date says), mainly because we buy whatever takes our fancy at the time without thinking about when and how we’re going to use it. Such is the seductive power of the supermarket, and if, like me, you struggle with portion control – meaning your dinners for four people could easily feed six – a menu plan should help you get your worst excesses under control.

The other thing I like about planning meals in advance is, contrary to what you might expect, it completely takes the focus away from food. Once you’ve worked out the menu for the week and done the shopping you can just forget all about it. If lack of inspiration is your biggest problem – apparently the average British household recycles the same six or seven meals from one week to the next – you’ll find a few minutes of planning means you can go for weeks without eating the same thing twice. Another benefit is the rollover effect; make twice as much as you need of some things for the same amount of effort, then use what’s left over to make a completely hassle-free meal the next day. Best of all, not only does a plan save time, it can also save you a lot of money.

The food for the menus in this chapter was bought in five of our major supermarkets, and although the price and quality of some items varies considerably, as the costing shows, it’s possible to spend as little as £25 on family dinners for one working week. These menu plans only cater for Monday to Friday, but you’ll probably find you have enough food left at the weekend for at least one more meal, so I think it’s fair to say they give a pretty good indication of how economical you can be if you put your mind to it.

Of course, you also need to buy washing powder and toothpaste, not to mention food for breakfast, lunch and snacks, but most household items last longer than a week, as do large bags of pasta, rice, flour, sugar, porridge oats, nuts and seeds; also herbs, spices, eggs, stock cubes, oils, gravy granules, tomato puree, honey, jam, lemon and lime juice, vinegar and pickles, so often it’s only the freshest ingredients you need to buy on a weekly basis. Still on the subject of saving money, I’d rather buy own-brand toiletries and the cheapest crisps, biscuits, bin liners, washing up liquid and so on, and spend more money where it matters, on good quality meat, organic milk, fresh vegetables, free-range chicken and eggs.

All supermarkets love misleading the public with bogus special offers to get shoppers hooked on things before they put the prices up, but it’s up to you to make this strategy work in your favour by taking advantage of a good buy, then moving on as soon as something becomes too expensive. I love avocados, but when they go from 37p each to 65p then 75p in the space of a week, as they did in Tesco recently, I can live without them for a while, just as I can live without apples when I can’t find any English ones amongst a sea of fruit from Argentina to Zambia and everywhere else except Britain.

Never forget how much choice you have, and how many rival supermarkets there are out there competing for your custom. Even if you don’t have to stick to a budget there’s something very liberating about saving money in the supermarket. In fact, it’s hard not to feel a little bit smug sometimes, so just give yourself a pat on the back – and see if you can’t convince all the less disciplined shoppers you know to see the error of their ways.