Plan the Week's Dinners and Downtime From Your Constraints
'What's for dinner' is a decision you make 365 times a year, mostly at the worst moment. This takes your constraints — how many nights you're actually cooking, allergies, time — and lays out the week's dinners and a low-prep downtime for each night, so the plan exists before 5pm. Local only; nothing leaves the tab.
- Planning
- Dinners and downtime assigned from your constraints
- local
- What it replaces
- The 5pm 'what's for dinner' crisis
- $0.00
- Input
- Cook nights plus constraints
- no card
- Output
- A fridge week-calendar
- recomputed
What you pay otherwise
| Route | What you get | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Meal-planning app | A plan, plus a subscription and an account | $8+/mo |
| Takeout for the gaps | The nights nobody planned for | $30+/night |
| Meal-kit delivery | Convenience, at a premium per serving | $10+/serving |
| This page | The week, planned from your constraints | $0 |
The workflow
Be honest about how many nights you'll actually cook
Five planned nights you skip becomes takeout anyway. Plan four real nights and mark the rest 'leftovers' and 'whatever' — the plan only works if it's true.
State the constraints as rules, not preferences
'No dairy' is a rule; 'trying to eat better' is a preference. The planner follows rules strictly and treats preferences as hints — keep them separate in your head.
Pair each dinner with a low-prep downtime
A board game, a walk, a movie the kids pick — the pairing is what stops the evening defaulting to screens. The activity is as much the plan as the food.
Shop once, from the plan
The calendar is also the grocery list in order. One shop for the week beats four trips, and the plan is what makes one shop possible.
Worked example
Sample: a 4-cook-night week with two constraints Cook nights 4 (Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat) Constraints vegetarian, no oven, 30-min Leftover nights 2, plus one 'whatever' Downtime a walk, a game, a movie, a craft Uploaded nothing — planned in the tab
Numbers above are sample data produced by the tool's own pre-loaded example, run in the browser — not averages or measured benchmarks.
What breaks this
Planning seven elaborate nights guarantees five skipped — plan the real number. Ignoring an allergy as 'just a little' breaks the plan for the one person it matters to; rules are rules. Planning dinners with no downtime leaves the evening to default to screens — the pairing is half the point. A skipped night isn't failure; it's a signal to plan fewer nights next week.
Try it now
A four-cook-night week with two constraints is loaded. Change the constraints and watch the week re-plan.
Open the week planner →Go deeper: the printable calendar
The week plan is free forever. The $4 one-time tier adds:
- Printable calendar — the week on one sheet for the fridge — estimate: ~12 min saved versus drawing it.
- Saved weeks shelf — keep past weeks to repeat the good ones — estimate: ~15 min saved per week.
- Grocery list — the dinners turned into a shopping list — estimate: ~20 min saved per shop.