Oh I improvise, and I never really plan meals beyond grabbing stuff at the shop. I try to use stuff up before it goes off, and am willing to eat stuff even when it's past it's best. When I have time I try to make stuff even just to freeze for later, but that's hard with a packed schedule.

But it's not easy, and sometimes I'm jealous of people who are satisfied with eating things repeatedly and eating to a routine. Since I love food, and love eating different things, I need to buy a good variety of fresh ingredients. But I'm disorganised and not good at going to market, visiting the butcher, etc. So we end up running out of food and just eating the same old things or stuff from the freezer. Or I buy too much when I go out, and then a week later the reblochon is stinking up the fridge, but I can't make tartiflette until we eat the salmon which is now kinda out of date but I don't have time to make a proper shellfish stock til the weekend...

Balancing "tasty food" + "limited waste" is easy if you work out a clear plan and stick to it. But either you have to do that once and give up on variety, or plan and organise every week and that's well above my executive function level.