Organized & Inspired: Meal Planning

There are certain aspects of parenthood that seem like a never ending cycle. That each time you do the laundry, you know a new load of dirty clothes will appear tomorrow. This goes for tidying up, vacuuming, doing dishes, etc. One area that becomes sheer drudgery for me if I don't plan ahead is cooking meals. Leaving this to the last minute produces panic and, more often than not, ramen noodles.

Over the past few years I have found a plan that works well for me. Using two different printable sheets I can make grocery shopping and meal time MUCH more organized.

Step 1: The first step is writing a document in a word processing program. You are going to save this document for future reference and add to it often. Each family's will be different. It is a MASTER MEAL LIST. This is a list of every single meal your family eats on a regular basis. I separate mine by proteins. You'll want to think about this over the course of a few days and add to it as meals your family makes come to you.

Step 2: Print out a WEEKLY MEAL PLANNER. It's available for free download here (along with the GROCERY LIST). There are two per sheet.  Cut down the middle to use.  If you want to plan by two weeks (like I do...it coincides with our paychecks) or by month, print multiple lists. Grab a pen. Now, open your MASTER MEAL LIST and start with Monday and plan a week's worth of meals...varying proteins for variety. My family always does Meatless Monday. Then you could add a beef meal on Monday, Chicken on Tuesday, Ham on Wednesday, Fish on Thursday, etc. We always do Leftovers on Friday (to clean out the fridge for Saturday's shopping) and Pizza on Saturday.

When you plan next week's meals, don't repeat any from the prior week. This is why planning a month would be excellent. You could make sure there are no meal repeats in a 30 day period!

Step 3: Grab your printed GROCERY LIST. Go through each night of your meal plan for the week and write each ingredient you need in the appropriate category. If two different meals need the same ingredient (say onions) than add a tick mark after the ingredient you already wrote down.

Now, hit the grocery store! You'll be sure to save time and not have to double back on any isles because your list is already arranged into sections! And saving time in the grocery store frees up more time to craft...am I right?

Oh, and one more thought about your MASTER MEAL LIST. Once you have this system worked out for monthly meal planning, try adding new meals at regular intervals. Make a goal to try a new recipe once a week or once a month. If it passes the family taste-test...add the recipe to your files (more on that topic later in the month!) and add the meal to your master list. When you see all of the meals on your master list arranged by protein you'll get a great sense of what area of your recipe file can be expanded.

Now, it's your turn to add to this post! 
What works well for you as far as family meal planning? 
Do you have an organized system or wing it?
Please leave a comment.