Aug 12 Meal Planning Basics for the Busy Family

Does the question “What are we having for dinner?” occur in your house often? It did in mine. This was a daily question. It  lead into me and my husband looking at each other with the deer in the headlights look, wishing the other would magically come up with a dinner idea.

I am a planner at heart, and us not knowing what we are eating at night stressed me out to the max. My husband is a go with the flow kind of dude, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and create a process for dinnertime. 

I spent a few months putting it all together, so I wanted to share this for other mama's that are going through the dinnertime struggle. 

What IS Meal Planning?

It’s literally the act of planning meals. You sit down, decide on what meals you want to cook, and then create your grocery list from the ingredients needed to make the chosen meals. This process is especially helpful for my busy family. We have a jam-packed schedule and planning meals gives me peace of mind that dinner is taken care of. Talk about a stress reliever!

 I plan my meals out on Sunday morning, so I can head out to the store that afternoon. I chose Sundays because we usually don’t have any sports on that day, but make sure to pick a day that is easy for you! If you pick a day that you have a lot going on, you will most likely not stick with it, and I don’t want that for you or your family.

WHY Do I Recommend It?

Simply put, it is a HUGE timesaver. I started using meal planning when the kids became more involved in sports and we were always running around. I would have everything else planned out except what we were eating that night. This usually resulted in me throwing something together we happened to have in the house, a trip to the store, or worse, a trip to McDonald’s.

By planning your meals, you can purchase what is needed ahead of time and save money in the process by cutting down your trips to the store as well as trips to the local fast food joint. Plus, it’s one less thing you need to try and cram into your already hectic schedule. Win-win in my book.

Ok! So, I went into what meal planning is and its benefits, so let’s get started in the step by step to successfully plan your meals for the week!

**(I do mine weekly since that works best for me, but you can work up to planning them for two weeks or even monthly! For starters, I would start with just planning for the week)

Step 1: Grab a Calendar

Grab a calendar that has the days of the week on it. I would then mark the days you know you have activities going on that might make it more difficult to cook. I usually name these “FYOF” days. We have these a few times a week in our home with how hectic our sports schedule is. This makes it easier for you to decide how many actual “meals” you are going to cook or if it’s an easy night. This takes all guesswork out!

Step 2: Take Inventory of Current Items

Go ahead and grab a piece of paper and pen and start investigating your pantry, fridge, and freezer. You might find you have some items in your home already that you can make into a meal! These can be things like meat, pasta, sauces, mixes, etc.

For example, I usually always have spaghetti noodles and some sort of sauce, and I can translate that into a meal for the week! By creating an inventory, it gives you a starting point and helps prevent you from buying unnecessary items at the store.

Step 3: Find Meals to Make

What types of meals do you want to make? There a meal types such as 30 minutes or less, 5 ingredients or less, as well as recipes by specific type of meat. My favorite sites to peruse are Betty Crocker and Pillsbury. They have recipes categorized together so you can find what you want very easily. It’s very user-friendly. They also have coupons!

Another good option would be slow cooker meals, especially for the busier families. Slow cooker meals usually allow you to save leftovers, which you can save for an “easy meal” night. Pinterest is a good avenue to search for slow cooker recipes!

I personally use the 30 minutes or less and the 5 ingredients or less. We have begun to use the slow cooker more, so I will update Y'all on our meals when we use it!

Step 4: Use a Designated Space or Program to Store Recipes

If you use recipe books, you can always stick little post-it notes on each page that you like. I personally find it a lot easier to store recipes online. There are apps you can use on your phone, as well as online sites.

I have tried eMeals as well as Cozy, but I decided on The Food Network Recipe Box to store all my favorite recipes. This site also has its own database of recipes so it’s a one-stop shop. They allow you to store recipes from their site, other sites, as well as homemade recipes. It can also populate a grocery list for you, which I loved!

Step 5: Utilize the Weekly Calendar

So, we’ve gotten all the meals decided and the grocery list created. Now, it’s time to plant these on your calendar. So, go ahead and grab the calendar we spoke about earlier, and plug in what meals you want to cook on which days. By doing this, everyone knows what’s going on for dinner, and it gives you one less thing to worry about when you get home. You check the calendar, see what meal is on the menu tonight, grab the ingredients, and you’re ready to go.

On nights you are not cooking, note it so the kids know to grab the easy foods that were assigned for these days.

And that’s it! That’s my system for scheduling my meals for the week. When you begin this, know that it will take a little bit for it to become second nature. This is especially true if you have never done it before! It took me and my family a couple weeks to create a natural flow with meal planning. Just remember to give yourself grace.