Well I make weekly menus too, and plan my grocery shopping around that.
But, with recipes... you still need to make a list of what you don't have and then have to buy... therefore, making ANOTHER "list" for grocery shopping anyway.
What I also do is: I look in my fridge/freezer and see what I have. THEN I plan my menus/what we eat that week... based upon that. What we already have on hand. That way, you spend even less money.
Then to figure out what to cook for it, I either go off the top of my head (because I am the type that cooks from my head and not recipes).... OR... you do a Google Search based on the ingredients you already have. So say you have on hand already: chicken, eggs, carrots, potatoes. You just put those ingredients in the Google search bar... and then recipes will come up using THOSE specific ingredients. Real efficient. Instead of searching for just "chicken" recipes for example, which is too broad. And you'd have to weed through that anyway, and then see if you have or have not those ingredients.
Then, when things have piled up in the freezer, I have days where we eat only what is in the freezer. Not just getting more stuff. So then we use up what is already sitting in there... and not having to buy too much extra, saving money, and then it helps to empty out the freezer too. And that helps electricity bills and the efficiency of the freezer functioning too.
all the best,
Susan