No matter how well I plan my week, there are always days I don't get around to making what I wanted to. It usually starts with my husband saying, "Oh, I forgot tonight I have to . . ." or "Doesn't pizza sound good?"

What usually throws me off is coming home from work minus the energy to cook a good meal. Or sometimes I didn't pack enough for lunch and come home so hungry that I snack a little too much upon arrival and don't have room later for a full dinner, and I end up making only part of what I'd intended. Or a friend calls and says, "Hey, let's meet up tonight for such-and-such," and the planned dinner gets put off a day.

Oh, and I never thought I'd day this because I LOVE food, but sometimes I get so involved in my studies after work (half-time student plus full-time worker -- UGH) that I just don't remember to eat or only surface from the depths long enough to grab a yogurt or something.

What throws me off is produce going bad before I get to use it. We order our groceries online, because we're lazy, and the quality of fresh produce is terrible. All but the heartiest of fruits and veggies don't last a week, which can severely hinder a meal plan. Thank goodness farmer's market season is starting soon, and we're growing some of our own veggies this year too.

Impromptu board game nights - if people are coming over unexpectedly, it means they'll probably want to order in (I never have enough to feed everyone, as much as I'd like to), and I'll often lose motivation to cook dinner.

I never understood the "I'm too busy to eat" crowd. For four years, I worked full time (7:30-4:30) and studied full time four nights a week (Mon-Thu 5pm-9pm). I usually packed my lunch and ate 3/4 at lunch time and then the other 1/4 with a piece of fruit right before my 5pm class (to hold me over until my 6:50-7pm break, when I had another piece of fruit or a bag of chips). I then ate dinner when I got home.

I normally cooked 3 GOOD meals on Sunday, which worked out to being my lunch/dinner on Mon-Thu. Friday was my eat-lunch-out day, and I cooked when I got home.

As for now, the only thing that throws my planned menu off is being too lazy to cook. Sometimes I just get home and I feel like pizza, burgers, hot wings, or a sandwich.

We're fairly frugal when it comes to eating most of our meals at home but when we do stray its when one of us makes the suggestion like "hey..doesn't 'fill in the blank restaurant' sound good tonight?". If one of us makes that comment and happens to catch the other in a weak moment, then the previous plans go out the window. But having a toddler at home doesn't lend itself to being as spontaneous as it used to. In other words, the time saved from not cooking and cleaning is usually made up for two or three-fold in having to get a young child out the door and dealing with any tired/crankiness that may ensue at the restaurant, getting home later than normal, etc. Oftentimes, cooking at home wins out.

Evening workouts often get in the way of my cooking plans. We'll go for a hard bike ride after work, and by the time we get home, shower, etc. we're both too hungry and tired to bother cooking (even when I've planned and shopped for something specific), so we just order in. Or sometimes my husband comes home from work and declares "Let's go out for a burger!" And I don't have the heart to tell him I was planning to make something. Anyway, a spontaneous date night trumps a home-cooked meal. :)

I'm thrown off when my boyfriend tells me he's going to work late, so I plan to eat tofu and steamed broccoli covered in sriarcha (the tofu and broccoli really only a vehicle for the sriracha), and then he gets off early and comes home. I'm of course happy to see him, but that means I have to defrost some chicken breast and make a well-rounded meal.

I am a poor planner. Pleanty of options but nothing thawed. I also like to ride my bike after work and when I get home I'm not interested in cooking. A simple omelette works for me, my husband would rather have a frozen pizza. Another hinder is my husband has acid reflux and is very intent on eating before 7pm. It's hard to get something nice together that fast on weeknights not to mention outdoor activities. We also don't have children so fending for yourself in my house is common.

Lack of energy. I work out three days a week after a long, stressful workday. When I come home, it's gotta be something nutritious and fast. I've gotten the hang of it (somewhat) by this point, but it's still hard.

What throws me off is if DH eats something that I needed for a recipe, or something comes up and we don't feel like cooking anymore.

I live with a couple roommates, so sometimes the ingredients I thought we had were eaten earlier in the week unbeknownst to me. :) Oops.

We eat early-around 5:30 or 6pm every night. And sometimes I'm hit by extreme laziness and we get take out. I always feel guilty about that, but it doesn't happen every night.

We always cook every night but there are those rare moments when, like rosebud said, one of us will catch the other in a weak moment and we will go out. It's really rare though because we are trying to save money.

What throws us off also is impromptu plans. Sometimes when we get invited out, I have this secret lazy voice telling me that I could just stay home and I don't want to let the ingredients I bought go to waste. I'm trying not to let my sensible pre-planning get in the way of seeing friends when the opportunity presents itself on the fly. Thus, my issue is leftover fresh ingredients that were intended for a recipe that we ended up not making.

For example, if we didn't eat a serving of asparagus, on Tuesday and I have full meals planned and shopped for the rest of the week with their own veggies, it's hard to find something to do with the asparagus before it goes bad.

What throws me off most often is not getting started on a plan early enough in the day. I'm home so it's easy to think I'll have plenty of time, but it gets away all too easy.

@wendypchef - That's funny, I couldn't relate to any of the comments until I read yours. I'm pretty good at planning and never feel like I don't have enough energy to throw together a simple meal...but sometimes my husband eats what I was planning to use for dinner and I don't realize it until I'm about to start making the meal. Then it's time to get really creative!

What throws us off is making a specific, budget friendly shopping list and then the store is out of a particular ingredient. This happens to us a lot at Trader Joe's for some reason.

last minute out of town guests who want to eat out! i live in new york, so there is a constant rotation of people coming in and out of the city wanting to ball out of control. visitors don't realize that people actually live here and pay rent!

now i tend to shop for ingredients the day i want to cook. or, i send BF to the store to get things started if it's a slowcooker recipe, because he is free during the day.

Generally, we don't get thrown off of our cooking plans since they're (a) decided in the morning when we wake up or (b) we're planning on just eating frozen pizza because it's going to be a late night. As very frugal students living on a very tight budget, we eat a great deal of chicken breasts and ground beef.

The biggest problem, I find, is that we can't really change up our eating routines because we've found the few things that can be prepared in under an hour after a 12 hour day at school/internships.

Plus, it doesn't help that my fiancee doesn't really eat vegetables and only reluctantly eats salad when I remind him that he hasn't had produce and needs his vitamins.

I have to have a plan. Trying to come up with something at the last minute results in bad choices for me. Being too busy usually throws me off. That and having a different body clock than my partner. 7:30 rolls around and neither of us has started cooking. My stomach is trying to chew it's way out and I am Madam Crankypants. I stomp out the door in a huff for take out Chinese or Tacos.

The desire to not eat alone. I hate eating alone so once or twice a week I'll really want to go out so that I can hang out with people.

Counterintuitively, my CSA. If we have an unexpected night out or for whatever reason don't eat to plan and a new box of veggies comes in, I have to quickly process (i.e. blanch and freeze) anything capable of being frozen and make sure we instead eat things that WON'T store so we don't get a ridiculous backup. It feels like a constant reshuffle.

Working late. If I don't get home until 8pm the last thing I want to do is cook a full meal; I want to get take-out on the way home!

A sink full of dishes. This is frequently the situation in our kitchen and it seems like so much work to do all the dishes and then cook.

I hate to say this, but...CRAVINGS! Cravings always throw me off without fail. I try to stick to my meal plans because it helps me to not waste food, but sometimes my desires rule over my potential to be practical.

2 big killers- Google Reader and work.

Google reader, I'll catch up on cooking blogs I read and inevitable will tap my husband on the shoulder and say "how does this sound for dinner" and there goes whatever i took out to cook.

Even worse for us is work. My husband and I work together and late hours (I'm still at work at 7:30 now) They order out for us if we stay late and it throws off buying groceries, and nights we do get home I'm usually too tired to think about cooking.

Like you, Sassylime, dishes kill me. Who wants to do dishes, cook, and then do them again?

Also, I have a four year old and a 5 month old who is nursing, so it's kind of a nightmare finding the right time to cook. We always end up eating at 5:30 or 10:00, and when we eat at 10:00, my four year old eats with his baby sister at 5:30. Someday I'll get dinner on the table most nights for all of us at the same time.

@katieb82981: can't the boyfriend defrost his own chicken? or eat the tasty tofu & sricha?

I have tried menu planning. Tried the Flylady's fave, the Menu Mailer. All end up failing. I succumb to impulse and we eat baked chicken with rice and a vegetable about 3 times a week, pizza at least once and leftovers made new the other nights. It works.

Work stress. I go right off the plan, call in an order for pizza or pasta or whatever my latest favorite restaurant serves, and head home to the feeling that someone waited on me but that I'm wearing my pj's & slippers. Then my food goes off because I set back the cooking plan by a day... which means more soups, stir-frys, and just more tossed out food. I know, I just need a new job, the food plan will work then! When I have my act together, I make pot pies & lasagna and freeze it in individual portions (so I can make 1 or half a dozen for unexpected company), but when that freezer's empty I'm in deep trouble with the game plan.

I get thrown off by life and kids. I find meal planning boring. I would rather wander through the farmer's markets picking out this and that. In my mind I come home and make delish dinners out of all that fresh stuff while drinking wine! In reality, I can't think at the farmer's markets because the kids are talk, talk, talking and I forget stuff we really need. I spend too much and still have to go to the store to get the stuff I forgot. I don't have time to cook and drink wine because of teeball practice. I spend too much money and get too little meal out of what I have. UGH. Anyway, I just started a meal planning project. www.pfdpodcast.com ... there is a link to my recipe page with my "What's for Dinner?" project.

I used to always have energy to cook, but this semester I am teaching, reading for my dissertation, and training for a triathlon, and I do occasionally get too lazy, especially when I get home late. That doesn't mean going out for us, though--it usually means making something, but something less nutritious than I had planned because it sounds more delicious and therefore I have more motive to make it. Plus I might not have produce, but I always have pasta, garlic, parmesan, and olive oil--yum.

I put things on me weekly menu that I know in the back of my mind I'm never gonna feel like eating (chickpea stew) or cooknig (brown rice) and whichever day rolls around with that left on the menu tends to be Vietnamese or Thai.

By and large, I stick to the plan. Our downfall is weekends. With all that time and no real plan, we kinda eat and do whatever we feel like...

Finals (comprehensive course ones) and midterms throw me off. In my program, we usually have 12 exams within a three week period in addition to seeing patients. That half an hour to cook something good is very precious, and my planned diet tends to fall by the wayside for convenience.

Also, there is the fact that i try to keep slow food around the house. This is a challenge when I'm starving or have limited time to prepare food, because things need to boil or soak or roast, or require fifteen minutes of preparation and cooking.

What a depressing comment stream...

I highly reccomend the book "Desperation Dinners." It is specially planned to get dinner on the table in under 30 minutes, teaches you what to keep in the pantry for those I-can't-do-this nights and has an entire section dedicated to meals made entirely from the pantry. IE: Grandma's chicken stew: canned chicken breast, chicken broth, shredded carrots, frozen onions, garlic/seasoning and egg noodles cooked in the broth. I changed it up to include the basic diced veggie mix from the freezer section...and am NEVER without the fixings for this in the winter. 20 minutes, one pot, no chopping/prepping just pouring=dinner survival.

Which as we all know is a victory each and every time.

We cook from scratch pretty much every night (Mon-Thurs anyway) and are doing pretty well with the planning ahead thing, but what throws us off course is a) not thawing things out ahead of time so we have to change our plans or b) going to the pub after work and getting back late means we can't be bothered to make whatever it was we had planned, plus having to walk past the Indian takeaway on the way home!

We get around this by a) freezing most stuff quickly so we always have a choice, and b) always having fresh veg around to go with whatever we do decide to eat.

Two big derailment culprits: being over-ambitious and plain old fatigue.

I have a kid, work full time, etc., so I plan well ahead and I cook a lot on the weekends. I look at sites like this one and think "that looks good" or "that would be fun" or I get a request for something time-consuming...pretty soon my weekend cooking plan, which looked like fun on Thursday, is totally overwhelming. When I don't get it all done, it throws off the plan going forward (I needed all that tomato sauce I didn't make!).

And some nights I am just plain baked.

@TATTERH00D - I completely agree. Most of these sound like excuses to me. I mean don't get me wrong, I think it's normal to have a night where you are simply too exhausted to prepare a meal but...reading all these at one time made it feel like nourishing your body is often not worth the energy expended to make and clean up after a meal!

My boyfriend and I just got a new puppy (we also have a year old dog and a 3-year old cat), and it's just time consuming and exhausting to take care of a puppy, especially one that's not housebroken and LOVES to wrestle her big brother (who usually doesn't want much to do with it and will sometimes snap at her, and who is also 3x the size). It might sound like an excuse, but our cooking has entirely derailed in the past month since we've had her. We're trying to get back on track, especially now that we can trust her not to pee everywhere all the time and Simon (the other dog) is getting better at playing with her or ignoring her, not just getting fed up when she constantly wants to play. Oh puppies! What would life be without them? :)

my issues seem to be pretty similar to everybody else's: i either feel too lazy to cook, or else i've spent my day thinking "i could really go for chinese" and get to a point where i couldn't possibly eat anything else and be satisfied. in terms of being frugal, though, my fiance and i have figured out how to spend about what we would on cooking a meal at home on eating out. not bad!

This is why I cook for an entire week, on Sunday. I'm too lazy or busy during the week to actually make a home cooked meal. This week I have baked chicken and a whole wheat pasta with a light cream sauce, onions, mushrooms and topped with roasted asparagus.

I do the same with lunches too and cut up all my veggies in advance and store them in the freezer. I've found that an insane amount of prep on Sunday allows me to eat better meals during the week.

I don't find this thread depressing at all - it's really refreshing to read the challenges other people face, and that most people don't cook everything from scratch at all times. Frankly, some things (seeing out of town friends, having a new baby, keeping one's job, training for a race, life and all that, etc etc) are worth straying from the meal plan from time to time.

I totally agree on the dishes, too. If the boy has left his pots and pans from lunch sitting in the sink, I am not cooking dinner for us until they are clean. I may be kind and generous and take his preferences into account and all that, but I've got to draw the line somewhere.

Right now what's getting me is the fact that my fiance is having a super busy work semester and I've started doing frisbee and/or karate 3-4 nights a week. We're not home until 8 or 8:30, which somehow hasn't translated into takeout or cereal for dinner but does mean we've been eating around 9:30. I like the theory of pre-cooking on Sunday, but Sunday is ultimate pickup day, which means we're out playing and getting totally exhausted all afternoon. By the time we come home and nap/collapse, it's hard enough to cook dinner for one night. I just keep telling myself we're secretly in Spain or something, but unfortunately I'm not getting a siesta mid-day.

I don't find this depressing either. It's only depressing if you somehow equate a reduction in home cooking with some sort of unraveling of the country's moral fabric. Which some people seem to do. But I don't.

So you pick up a salad at Whole Foods instead. Who cares?

This post makes me feel so much better about myself. I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one who strays from her meal plan and ends up eating cereal sometimes.

Exhaustion.

A new Baby Girl did it for us!

Thanks to everyone for sharing...this thread has made me feel a lot better, too. : ) Although my husband and I have good intentions, his crazy work schedule and my exhaustion from chasing around a super-active toddler all day often leave us derailed (especially if we have been over-ambitious during a higher-energy moment and planned complicated meals involving the washing and chopping of a bazillion veggies - we joke that produce comes to our house to die, hee-hee!).

We keep trying, though. : )

planning a week in advance is my downfall, I am never in the mood on Wednesday for the food I thought I would be on Sunday when I bought the ingredients. I do so much better when I go to the market daily. In the summer that gets harder because the Farmers market in only on Saturday.

Two words: happy hour.

ADD. Even if I could find the mental focus to sit down and plan and make a list of ingredients, then check the cupboards for the required things, then remember to take the list to the shops, I forget to check the list, or I forget what I planned to make, or I don't fully read the recipe because I wanna get to the FOOD and I overlook that I need to let something process for a day or overnight and so I shuffle recipes but then something I need goes off or I go out.

And then there's my room-mate. Neither of us are ever sure when either are going to be home, so who cooks is mostly random, as is whether they've taken something foodwise or if it's still available.