Guide

Plan a week of meals, share the shopping list

Tidywell turns the back-of-the-fridge question — what are we eating this week? — into a quick weekly plan, a shared shopping list, and one less argument on Tuesday.

The weekly view

Seven polaroids, one for each day

Open the Home tab and tap Plan, shop, eat well. You'll see seven little day-cards — Monday through Sunday — with today's card gently highlighted. Each day holds up to four meals (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack), but you don't have to fill them all. One meal a day is plenty for most weeks.

Tidywell meal plan showing the week strip with Spaghetti bolognese pinned to Monday and Sheet-pan fajitas on Tuesday

How a day works

1

Tap a day to open the editor

The card expands into a small panel. You'll see the four time-based slots — pick whichever you actually want to plan. Empty slots stay quietly tucked away, ready when you need them.

2

Type the meal name

“Spaghetti bolognese”, “Leftover curry”, “Whatever's in the freezer” — write whatever's useful. The slot label (Breakfast, Lunch…) is renameable too if you'd rather call it Brunch or Pre-gym snack.

3

Pin one meal per day

Pinning lifts a meal onto the polaroid card and lets you attach a photo. Only one meal can be pinned per day — pin a new one and the previous one quietly steps back. Useful for the “main event” meal you actually want a record of.

It updates as you type

There's no Save button. Edits sync to the cloud as soon as you finish typing, and to the rest of your household within about a second.

Build the list as you plan

Attach ingredients to any meal

Inside each meal slot you can add ingredient chips. Tap “+ Add”, type something like “400g Mince” or just “Onion”, and press Return. The chip drops onto the meal and waits there until you push it to the shopping list.

Spaghetti bolognese

400g · Mince1 · Onion2 cloves · Garlic1 tin · Chopped tomatoes500g · Spaghetti+ Add

Quantities are optional

“2 onions” and “onion” both work. The bit before the · is treated as the quantity, the bit after is the item — but if you skip the dot entirely, Tidywell just stores the whole thing as the item name. No parsing, no autocorrect, no surprises.

From plan to trolley

“Add to shopping list” copies every ingredient over

Each meal card has an Add to shopping list button. Tap it and every ingredient on that meal becomes a row on your shared shopping list, tagged with which day and slot it came from. Push individual meals as you plan them, or do the whole week in one go on a Sunday.

Tidywell shopping list with a Need it section showing ingredients pulled from this week's meals plus a few ad-hoc items

You can add things by hand too

There's a quick-add bar at the top of the shopping list. Type “Milk” and hit Return — it joins the list under Other items, separate from your meal-derived items so you can still see what was planned and what was a top-up.

Tick things off as you shop

Tap the checkbox to mark an item as bought. It moves into the Got it section at the bottom, which stays collapsed until you actually have something there. Tap it again if you forgot something.

A little visual record

Snap a photo of the meal you actually made

Once a meal is pinned, the polaroid card shows a photo area. Tap it to grab one from your camera roll or take a fresh one. The photo lives on the day, and disappears if you unpin or delete the meal.

Photos and pinning go together

Photos only attach to pinned meals — that's deliberate. Pinning is the “this is the meal of the day” signal, and the photo is the receipt. Unpin to clear the photo, or delete the slot entirely if it never happened.

Two phones, one fridge

Everyone in the household sees the same plan

The meal plan and shopping list are both household-shared. Whoever happens to be holding their phone can plan, push, tick or delete — everyone else sees it within about a second.

No “whose list is this” confusion

There's one weekly plan and one shopping list per household, not one per person. If your partner adds “coffee” while you're already in Sainsbury's, you'll see it on the next refresh.

Works without signal too

Edits made without a connection are saved locally and pushed up when you're back online. Pull-to-refresh on the screen if something looks stale.

Save once, drop anywhere

The meals you cook all the time, one tap away

Save any meal you've planned as a re-usable template. Next week, instead of re-typing five ingredients for spag bol, you tap once, pick a day, done. Templates are shared with your household so anyone can apply them.

Saved meals screen showing four templates including Sunday roast, Friday pizza, and Spaghetti bolognese with their ingredient counts

Saved meals live in their own little library

Apply Sunday roast sheet showing day chips Sun through Fri and slot chips Breakfast Lunch Dinner Snack

Pick a day and a slot — done

What you get

Meal plan is Premium. The shopping list is free.

We split it down the middle. The shopping list is fully free for everyone — type things in, tick them off, share with your household. The week-view meal plan, ingredient chips, the photo per day and the “push to shopping” shortcut are part of Premium.

Free forever

Shared shopping list with quick-add, tick-to-buy, “Got it” section, and full household sync. Add anything you like by hand.

Premium adds

The seven-day meal plan, ingredient chips per meal, push-to-shopping, the pinned-meal photo, and meal templates you can reuse next week.

Common questions

Meal plan FAQ

Do I have to plan all seven days?
Not at all. Empty days are fine — they show a “Tap to plan” placeholder and don't push anything to the shopping list. Most households plan three or four dinners and leave the rest open.
Can I push the whole week to shopping in one tap?
There isn't a single “push the week” button — you push meal-by-meal. That's deliberate: it lets you skip the meal that uses pantry staples and only push the ones you actually need to shop for. Two taps per meal, usually under a minute for the week.
What happens if two of us edit the same slot at the same time?
The first save wins. The second person sees a brief “already taken” message and the screen refreshes to show the saved version. Edit a different slot and try again — it'll go through.
Can I save a meal as a template and reuse it next week?
Yes. Long-press a meal and choose Save as template. Templates live in your household's library and can be dropped into any future day with one tap — including their ingredient chips, so you don't have to retype the whole list every time you do Friday pizza.
What if I add the same ingredient twice — does it merge?
Yes. If you push “1 onion” from Monday's bolognese and “2 onions” from Wednesday's curry, the shopping list will combine them into a single “3 onions” row. Same item name, units sensibly added together. Different units (1 onion + 200g onion) stay as separate rows because we can't safely convert.
Can I drag a meal to a different day?
Yes. Long-press a meal card and drag — you can reorder slots within a day or move a meal to a different day entirely. Its ingredients move with it, and any rows already on the shopping list keep their original day badge so you still know where they came from.